alexist

(From a conversation with a friend (who went on the march yesterday), edited and expanded.)

There are viable alternatives. You go in with aid. You offer to educate. You offer financial incentives to bring people out of the 6th century AD and into the 20th Century AD.Commercial though it is, it's a simple fact: A man with education except a religious one, with no decent job, no decent living conditions, no future - he sees a suicide bombing as a viable alternative. A man with an education, a job, a house, and a future which involves paying off the mortgage and the car loan - he's not going to grab a bomb.

That's lovely. Really. But it betrays a lack of understanding of the Middle East's problems. The Western Left thinks in terms of social justice and equality and human rights, but it's a language that works only if both sides speak it.

You also have to be careful not to project your own reasoning and motivations. After 9/11, much of the Left asked, "why does the world hate America?" What it came up with was that it was deserved hatred, and that we (and the West in general) were the ones that should change. Now, while I won't argue that all American policies were perfect, the Left seemed to work from the assumption that none were. Because the right-wing American government was taking the "we just have to sell ourselves better" tack, the Left found it easy to take on the banner of the oppressed. They combined the complaints of Arabs and Muslims with their own grievances about US policy. They didn't stop to consider that perhaps the Arabs need to get their own houses in order, and that hatred of America wasn't something that we could change.

Your commercialist attitude is also very Western. It's true that lack of opportunity creates an additional attraction for radical Islam. But that's not all. Many radical Islamists come from rich or middle class families. They're educated. It's not personal poverty that motivates them; at most, it's the poverty they see around them. And this ignores the different religious nature of Middle Eastern society. Europeans find American religiousness baffling. How do you good European leftists propose to export secular democracy to a region where people are happy to ban the sale of pork? At some point, the Left is going to decide what it wants for the Middle East--because at this point, a lot of people would choose radical Islam. On the one hand, the Left opposes Bush's attempt to impose democracy (if such a thing is indeed possible). But they don't have any alternative.

When it comes to the Muslim Middle East, you're dealing with a totally different world in many cases. There are a set of conditions in the ME (for now, we'll define the Middle East as excluding Israel, because it's completely different) which reinforce each other.

First, political development has stalled. Modern leaders such as Nasser tried to replace the Islamic concept of the umma (Muslim nation) with a secular pan-Arabism. This failed, and Islamism became resurgent. There's a 2 prong attack on Islamism: One, official Islam slides "right", and 2, movements which deny the right of the government to exist are fought by force. The most famous example of the latter is Syria. In 1982, President Hafez Assad decided to strike against the Muslim Brotherhood in the town of Hama. As many as 20,000 people were slaughtered.

The #1 concern of most Arab governments is staying in power, not doing things for their people. Yasser Arafat has accumulated $1Bn and sends $1M a month to his wife in Paris, while the Palestinians starve in camps. Per capita income in Saudi Arabia has DECLINED over the past 20 years, but the Saudi royals continue to spend like there's no tomorrow.

Secondly, ME countries consistently refuse to recognize their internal flaws. They prefer to blame the US and, especially, Israel. Notice how when interviewed, Arabs tend to say that the most important political issue to them is Palestine. This isn't coincidental. It's stirred up by the government. I don't mean that the feeling isn't genuine, but governments encourage it. The cruel irony is that although Arab/Muslim people want to solve the problem of Palestine, governments do not. Once the problem is gone, they will no longer be able to blame all their problems on the Jews. (Aside from that, a realistic settlement will require compromises that Arab governments are not willing to make regarding refugees, particularly the Lebanese.)

This isn't meant as an excuse for Israeli policies. It's meant to try to de-simplify the conflict as portrayed in the European media. The European left has decided to support the Palestinians, within reason. A two-state solution, certainly, but it's the Palestinian cry for justice that they hear, and the Palestinian narrative that they've internalized to a large extent. In this view, the Palestinians are the eternal victims, and the Israelis the eternal aggressors. Among other things, it allows European sympathizers to rationalize Palestinian mistakes as a consequence of their victimhood. Support for suicide bombs, anti-Semitism, etc--all of it stems from their brutal treatment at the hands of the Israelis. And since examples of things like anti-Semitism (or corruption in the PLO, or whatever) tends to be reported by Israelis, or pro-Israeli sources, it gets dismissed as justification for brutal Israeli policies. Some of it is, but that doesn't mean we can dismiss it. But the left does. Instead of a fair spread of responsbility, they've placed the lion's share on Israel. (No pun with the name Ariel intended.) Unintentionally, they've accepted the "The Jews are the problem" view by saying that settling the conflict is the key to a new Middle East, and that Israel is responsible for creating that peace. An end to the conflict is important, but it requires a shift in attitude from ALL parties. And the left has to recognize that their chosen victims have their flaws too, and that building a lasting peace isn't helped by ignoring them.

Third, much of the ME has oil. This gives it money and the ability to ignore needed advice. Saudi Arabia is the prime example here--and they fund a LOT of education outside their country.

There have been bad decisions made by the West, including the US, but in many cases, alternatives are often no better. The al-Saud is corrupt and rotten and rule the country through a devil's bargain with the Wahhabis. But the only effective opposition to them is MORE Islamist. If the al-Saud went, things would get worse. Similarly, we support Mubarak's regime. Again, corrupt, incompetent, effectively encourages Egyptians to join Islamist movements. But it was Islamists who killed Sadat in '81, and our money to the Egyptians guarantees that they will never declare war on Israel again (and without Egypt, none of the other Arabs will do it). That's worth something--a full scale war over Israel/Palestine would be devastating.

Islamism has become popular partly because it's "the alternative". But I just don't see a way for the West to export democracy, or even encourage its growth. The only way to do it is to ask ME governments to commit suicide for the good of their country. There's simply nothing to build from yet. There are too few Westernized Muslims. The masses are reading a government controlled press which encourages them to be anti-Western.

Someone (Susie?) said that this was people taking their anger out on Bush and Blair, and I think she's right. The trouble is that as bad as Bush's Middle East policy is now, no one's yet come up with a satisfactory alternative, or a new way forward. All that's left to do is complain.

I wasn't particularly enthusiastic about the war on Iraq--I didn't feel the case had been proven. However, I did feel that the UN had a responsibility to deal with Saddam, given how many resolutions had been passed and so on. Now, assuming that Bush had been willing to work with the UN (and that France hadn't overplayed its hand by saying straight out that it would veto any resolution authorizing force), what would you have suggested the UN do? Sanctions were tried; they didn't have any effect on Saddam, since he preferred to let his people starve. Inspections weren't going too well--whether because Saddam had weapons, or because he just wanted the world to think he did, I don't know. What else was there to try?