08-27-2014, 01:53 PM
At the time, it seemed to make sense to talk about an "Arab Spring". One of things I presumed was part of the Arab Spring was a grassroots effort to make the government more democratic. In some countries tribal leaders and religious ideologues have not even let the situation on the ground evolve into one where there are/were many meaningful elections. In some countries where there were fairly free elections, a repressed majority gained power through democratic means and then used government power to repress their former repressors. In at least one country, Syria, the despotic regime tried to literally kill dissent early and brutally. An ominous backdrop to this boiling cauldren is a religious puritanical urge feeding meaning to underemployed young men* which could lead to a region-wide conflict between Sunni and Shia (though local conditions and attitudes mean such a conflict would probably not be clearly delineated on the ground). The Arab Spring has not moved attitudes in a direction that are likely to lead to an agreement between Palestinians and Israelis.
I remember the enthusiasm in the voice of an obviously cosmopolitan young Egyptian woman giving reports in MSNBC about the uprising that lead to the deposition of Mubarak. Those were "heady" days and I felt some hope that democratization would help the region come to have more tolerance for differences. Instead, it seems to have created an attitude of more intolerance. It's harder to be optimistic about the long haul prospects of our species when so often we end up not tolerating each other enough to avoid such horrendously destructive violence.
Even in the U.S. the beacon of democracy is flickering and sputtering due to a lack of tolerance that is necessary for a democracy to work.
*Young men that are not given a constructive challenge will often find meaning for their lives in puritanical religious ideology - especially if they are immersed in a society that generally highly values religious piety. This is a phenomenon that I think is very important in the dynamics of the violent conflicts we see in the region and in many parts of the world. It's not that religion is to blame**, it's the combination of economic systems not engaging enough young men in work that they find basically satisfying and financially sufficient along with religious zealotry that creates much of the problem.
**it's when religious views are seen as more important than the compromises necessary for a pluralistic society to function for the benefit of everyone that we see religion and the egalitarian ideal at the heart of the best democratic impulses (respect for the individual even with majority rule) in conflict. If one sees that a religious "truth" must be socially obeyed by all, then that can easily lead to the diminishment of respect for the political rights of an individual who may not share that religious view. There is always this strain in a pluralistic society between values specific to a religion and the society at large. The more pluralistic the society, the more the necessity for religious believers to have tolerance of the views of others if we want to have a functioning democracy that respects the political rights of everyone.
I remember the enthusiasm in the voice of an obviously cosmopolitan young Egyptian woman giving reports in MSNBC about the uprising that lead to the deposition of Mubarak. Those were "heady" days and I felt some hope that democratization would help the region come to have more tolerance for differences. Instead, it seems to have created an attitude of more intolerance. It's harder to be optimistic about the long haul prospects of our species when so often we end up not tolerating each other enough to avoid such horrendously destructive violence.
Even in the U.S. the beacon of democracy is flickering and sputtering due to a lack of tolerance that is necessary for a democracy to work.
*Young men that are not given a constructive challenge will often find meaning for their lives in puritanical religious ideology - especially if they are immersed in a society that generally highly values religious piety. This is a phenomenon that I think is very important in the dynamics of the violent conflicts we see in the region and in many parts of the world. It's not that religion is to blame**, it's the combination of economic systems not engaging enough young men in work that they find basically satisfying and financially sufficient along with religious zealotry that creates much of the problem.
**it's when religious views are seen as more important than the compromises necessary for a pluralistic society to function for the benefit of everyone that we see religion and the egalitarian ideal at the heart of the best democratic impulses (respect for the individual even with majority rule) in conflict. If one sees that a religious "truth" must be socially obeyed by all, then that can easily lead to the diminishment of respect for the political rights of an individual who may not share that religious view. There is always this strain in a pluralistic society between values specific to a religion and the society at large. The more pluralistic the society, the more the necessity for religious believers to have tolerance of the views of others if we want to have a functioning democracy that respects the political rights of everyone.
