When are the EU and the US going to understand they cannot longer bet on dictators to keep "balance" in the world? If they put pressure on Lukashenko, why on Earth are they not doing that on Mubarak? Because of the Muslim Brotherhood? Keep dreaming you are going to make things better by keeping up a dictator with Mubarak's track record. The longer dictators -of one or the other flavour and colour- are supported, the bigger the pressure the cooker will have.
If you want to fight Islamic extremism or any other extremism, you have to go full monty and be consistent. There is no simple solution and a change has a lot of dangers and it needs to be monitored not for a week or a month, but for years. And still, a real change must come and democracy now is needed.
And meanwhile Netanjahu and the Israeli right wingers are running telling everyone a sort of Hamas is going to get hold of Egypt.
Do you know what?
It smells fishy and it's not kosher
Yes, the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist groups are a real danger (we remember Iran). But no, we cannot just keep the side of dictators. We need to look for other solutions. Mubarak won't be helpful. He had 30 years to do that.
Agree a lot.
ReplyDeleteI see it even a bit more pro-revolution. Middle east experts are saying, that the Muslim Brotherhood isn't that radical no more. In Turkey we have a islamistic light Government and they are very succesfull economically and respect democratic principles. Its highly probable that at least a big fraction of Muslim Brotherhood will move towards moderate positions.
Not supporting this uprising would mean for me to assert that its best for all that arabs live in the shitty political environment they have now. Just way too cynical and rasist.
Interesting and not often mentioned is population growth in those countries. There is a new patter emerging for some of the arab countries. Population growth has stoped for Lebanon, Tunisia, Marokko and Algeria. This is a very recent change. A marokkan colleague told me. I did not believe him first. It shows that arab societies DO CHANGE.
http://tinyurl.com/68xccao
current population growth rate
Lebanon: 0.62%
Tunisia: 0,97
Marokko: 1,08%
Algeria: 1.18%
Saudi Arabia: 1.55%
Syria: 1.95%
Egypt: 2.00%
Libya: 2.12%
West Bank: 2.13%
Jordan: 2.16%
Yemen: 2.17%
Gaza Strip: 3.29%
World average: 1.13
other countries:
Germany: -0.06
Spain: 0.49
China: 0.49
France:0.53
United States: 0.97
Argentina: 1.04
Colombia: 1.18
Venezuela: 1.52
Niger:3.66%
Hi, Axel.
ReplyDeleteThose statistics are very revealing. I think there is a danger, there is a danger a minority can get hold of power because it is the biggest minority. We have seen that in many places before. Still, I think the Egypt and the World can prevent that by being watchful. If Mubarak goes on, though, the radical fractions are going to keep growing stronger, not weaker. And they only need a few to cause a lot of damage.
On a related topic: in spite of some differences, the latest attacks by Mubarak followers on the people remind me of what could happen when Chávez is no longer in power and his groups try to go against democracy. He has his paramilitary troops.
Axel, I don't remember: do you speak German?
ReplyDeleteHere you have an interesting article from Spiegel:
Kein Job, kein Geld, keine Frau (No job, no money, no wife)
I find the end a bit simplistic, there are some interesting points there, though: about the baby boom children that has some education but is not competitive enough, statism that cannot offer solutions.
This could become a time bomb in Venezuela as well lots of people are going through "universidades bolivarianas" and other institutions that qualify for nothing.