Listening to the first of this year’s Reith Lectures (by Prof. Niall Ferguson, The Rule of Law and its Enemies; next one, Tuesday 9am Radio 4) caused me to meditate on the Arab “spring”. I have just returned from a conference in the Middle East on the Middle East, at which there was universal agreement that the Arab spring was no such thing. It might be the beginning of the end of winter, or it might be an aborted revolution, with decades to go before any change ensues in the nations involved. Certainly no democratic maturity is apparent – at best, an Arab political puberty. That means a series of changes and a difficult unpredictable rebellious growth in the political body taking place over a very long time, maybe as much as a generation or two; one can only guess at the adult that might emerge. The Arab spring bears as much resemblance to spring as does the current UK weather to summer.
Ferguson suggests in his lectures that the (past) success and prosperity of the West were due to having inclusive institutions, the rule of law and scientific innovation. None of these are adequately present in the countries presently undergoing upheaval and trying to rid themselves of despots. Egypt has had an election with no clear result, and the constitution appears to have been set aside. There will no doubt be a challenge to the authenticity of the result when it is finally announced, with further protests to come. There is fear that this election might be the last one. The rule of law means equal protection for all persons within the state, without regard to personal and dynastic allegiances. It means adhering to treaties and protecting minorities and unpopular groups from assault. There can be no confidence that this is the case in most Middle East states at the moment.
At the conference I listened to Prof. Ferguson’s wife, Ayaan Hirsi Ali (Somali born feminist and former Dutch MP) explain how the Arab peoples that want change might achieve it. Her theory is that first, they have to embrace personal autonomy and abandon subservience to paternal, religious and political absolute authority. Then they have to free women from constraints. They have to learn to compromise in difficult situations and not fear losing face, rather than always seeking nothing less than total victory. And cease to believe that all the answers to every problem are contained in the Holy Book. The Western world takes a different line – personal autonomy, willingness to compromise in political situations, rejection of religious rules in public life. We will have to listen to the rest of the Reith lectures to discover whether in Prof. Ferguson’s view the West is in decline, and why; and we may have to wait many years to see the Arab protests grow into democratic maturity.
Then there are Fergeson’s repeating of lies. Namely the lie that government debt is just government borrowing.
i.e. There is no intention of paying pensions debts in full, because if they aren’t reported they don’t have to be paid.
If you are illiterate, all the asnwers ARE to be found in the Holy book.
success and prosperity of the West were due to having inclusive institutions, the rule of law and scientific innovation
Looking at the phenomenal developments of the great cities of the world, in China, in Brazil, N.America,Europe, no such thing would be possible without them.
The exciting new buildings in that temple of men called London, (look at its skyline), are proof of it. Like the cathedrals of old, now for the praise of kings and queens and the antiquated ritual prayers of man, it is a place, for the millions to live and breathe in praise of the…. universe, not just for exclusive monks and clerics in their stone cells and chapels, not just their Latin song.
Now let me see the skyline of Cairo.
http://www.diserio.com/top15-skylines.html
Diserio’s skylines of the world does not even rank Cairo skyline in the top 50, and yet it is one of the largest cities,in the world, and the largest in Africa.
There must be a moral to the story except for the fact that it is fairly well on the earthquake fault line which would not encourage anything more than papier maché and two stories,for a skycraper. One would not expect Tunis to do any better, although Mexico city may be without a care.
“Success of West due to
1) inclusive institutions
[but we excluded our Colonies from developing their secondary and tertiary industries; and we exclude many of our own in Britain itself, from Bottom to Top, from sufficiency of M<ind-Functional health, education and up-dating]]
2) the rule of law
[where many Laws are both flawed-&-corrupt and self-immuning-from-culpability-and-improvement]
3) scientific innovation
[most of which, including technologies and intellectual-advances, Britain has taken in from ‘Foreign’ & Overseas-Achievers…]"
————
and with a good and honest heart, albeit over-burdenerd by the Issues, 'Mrs-Professor-Ferguson' chooses such words for Peoples' achievement-of-improvement (qua "change" – in some direction or other) as
"first
'embrace personal autonomy;
abandon the absolute authority of paternal, religious and political governances;
then to free women from constraints;
and learn to compromise…rather than seeking total victory;
and cease to believe all answers are contained in The Holy Book.
(Assuming the translation is accurate).
++++++++++++
Yet those intentions still fall far short of where both they (the East, Middle-East, Far-East) and we (The West)
should be, not just intending or wishing to be,
but already solidly arriving and growing into:
1) individual human development, including progressive self-awarenerssing and personal-enablement;
2) 'win-win-win' Needs & Hows Cooperative Recognition and Resolution
(by the Method III "every one 'wins';
not only or mainly The Bosses (method I) nor only or mainly the Children (method II).
+++++++++++++
Baroness Deech concludes
"We will have to listen to the rest of the Reith lectures to discover whether…the West is in decline, and why…".
But since the West is not progressing either its Leaders or its Peoples into an operative semblance of Sustainworthy-Personal-Efficiency (in the Lifeplace)
and into an operative foundation for Honest-Argumentational Participatory-Democracy (in the Workplace and the Citizen-Palce)
some-one should assure Baroness Deech that
"we"
can and should be doing a lot better intrinsically, between ourselves,
than spectatorly "waiting" for the extrinsic Arabs to "grow into democratic maturity" before we ourselves have reached 'sustainworthiness'.
The Arab Spring is to do with the Arabs. And if it it as unworthy as you stress here, then it is for them to work it out.
What we need to see and discuss is the British summer and the mess we are in. Not to mention how difficult it is to get a truly democratic parliament here in this Western society.
The Middle East must look after itself. We are only trading partners, not arbiters of their life and times. Or, come to that, their policemen.
We are only trading partners, not arbiters of their life and times. Or, come to that, their policemen. The USA is deemed to be the policeman of the world, and with the UK links, special policemen.
The Arab spring just did not happen in anything but the mind’s eye of western journalists. We can probably track down the invention of the term to the Newsnight studio production, and the worshipped Jeremy Paxman.
If you look at the skyline of Dubai, link above, all 33 of whose skyscrapers have been built in the last 12 years, you may well wonder whether the Cultural centre of the Arab world has not moved from Cairo some thousand/s of miles further south for precisely the same reason as Alma Aty moved to Astana about ten years ago….. to get away once and for all from the earthquake fault line which so regularly shook the city to its core.
Dubai is immacutaly done and dusted.
Cairo is and always has been chaos, although
thouse pyramids took some building, in those days, just like Stonehenge, the latter peopled by worshippers of the same gods, but usually in wood and not stone. The stone remains.
I sometimes think that the world should be organized as city states, with each having an empire of its own; (That may really be how it is!)democracy being only a veneer.
What we need to see and discuss is the British summer and the mess we are in.
Mine is looking very floral, loads of wild flowers,a magnificent broad bean crop. Quite tidy really.
Do you need any help?
I wish I knew which poppy seeds are edible ie on the top of bread and so on. I’ve got so many species that one of them is bound to be toxic! (I won’t do opium this year, or even poppy oil, the latter which is sold at health food shops, the former on the street corner.