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Arab Spring Rolls Into Fundamentalism
Chakra ^ | 12/2011 | Ranbir Singh

Posted on 01/28/2012 10:46:43 PM PST by PRePublic

This is a region given to even less to racial and cultural diversity than it is to economic cooperation. Desperate to show their commitment to Arab nationalism, minority Christian communities helped become its leading ideologues. Michel Aflaq after all founded Ba'ath. While Aflaq, and later Hannan Ashrawi and George Habash, manifested their anti-Jewish animus, the Christian minority in an independent Palestine and a post-Saddam Iraq face extinction. Ancient communities and cultures such as the Assyrians are in dire straits at risk of permanent exile from their own homeland. It would not be the first time. Turkey is often touted as the example which Arab states should follow. Until recently political Islam was proscribed in Turkey . Now under the Justice and Development Party of Recep Erdogan it rules it. But then how secular was Turkey ? Ataturk replaced Islam with the surrogate religion of Turkish nationalism which made the rump of the once powerful Ottoman Empire even less pluralist than it had been under the sultans. The jihad against the ancient Christian communities of Armenians and Assyrians became a genocide which was continued by the secular Turkish nationalists. The Greeks were almost completely expelled. Even Muslims face the wrath of the state as Kurds were denied even the right to exist as a people. That right has only been grudgingly granted very recently and remains precarious.

So even the use of secularism entails an identity which is organic and volkisch and lends itself to the exclusion of others. This has been one of the main obstacles to Turkey joining the EU even though it insists it is part of Europe . With the current economic crisis however, this will certainly be one Christmas where Turkey is going to be rather pleased that for decades Europe has told it to 'get stuffed'. The intolerance and racism produced by aggressive secularism in Turkey then was always going to be a rocky road for its former Ottoman colonies to follow. Pan-Arabism always did have the unhealthy echoes of German Romantics such as Fichte.

As such the indigenous people of Egypt now face a bleak future. The sight of tanks openly running over Copts and soldiers openly shooting Copts on the streets in front of live television cameras should be evidence enough. These will not be regimes which will be in any way friendly to the west. The receipt of billions, yes billions, in western aid (and taxpayers' money) does not guarantee any democratisation or respect for the rights of women and minorities. It is nothing more than a mafia style protection racket, modernised only in the sense of it being a new way of collection jizya, the poll-tax levied on non-Muslims who were granted a grudging existence as third-class citizens, dhimmis.

It is not just of course Arab countries. Pakistan has long persecuted the Christian minority and that is only set to get worse. Most of the Hindus and Sikhs have been expelled or forcibly converted and the minuscule Bene Israel community of Jews has long since left. Malaysia openly discriminates in favour of Malay Muslims and against the Chinese and Indian minorities so that Hindu temples are destroyed at official behest. Indonesia once the most tolerant of all Muslim countries is fast jettisoning the diversity it once so valued in Sukarno's doctrine of Panchasila, to becoming a hub of terrorism.

Salafism is fast overtaking oil as Saudi's main export and threatening minority groups wherever it holds mechanisms of power in its vice like grip. In this new Middle East where Saudi influence is fast replacing the American and French tutelage of western-backed autocrats, realities need to take note of political realignment. As has been the case in Africa, China will move in to offer aid to dictators who unfortunately embarrass their western 'allies' by shooting, torturing, raping and incarcerating their own people. Western powers feel that they cannot antagonise China because it is about the only place that is doing well right now. But China's boom is not only limited to a small portion of its population, it depends on manufacturing which rests on the ability of western consumers to buy it and by arresting enough of its own citizens who can provide the necessary slave labour in the camps in order to produce it. On the former element China relies on America 's most favoured nation trading status. China of course will find it difficult in dealing with regimes which are busy stoking up Islamic separatist sentiment in Xinjiang but this has not been a problem yet in its dealings with the hardline Islamist regime of Sudan...


TOPICS: Politics; Religion
KEYWORDS: arabism; christianwinter; middleeast; racism
Read more at: http://www.chakranews.com/arab-spring-rolls-into-fundamentalism/1919
1 posted on 01/28/2012 10:46:52 PM PST by PRePublic
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To: PRePublic
Arab Spring Rolls Into Fundamentalism

What do Arab Spring Rolls contain, chick peas and dates?

.

.

.

.

2 posted on 01/28/2012 11:01:52 PM PST by Jeff Chandler (Quando Omni Flunkus Moritati)
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To: Jeff Chandler

I really really really really REALLY HATE IT when it’s late at night and people post pictures of food.

I.
Hate.
It.

(do you make deliveries???)

:)


3 posted on 01/28/2012 11:20:11 PM PST by Brad’s Gramma (PRAY for this country like your life depends on it....)
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To: Jeff Chandler
I had a similar response to the phrase "Arab Spring Rolls". Sounds like a great idea for a fusion restaurant.

Very sad -- but very predictable -- about the fundamentalism, however. This ensures that the Arab spring rolls will be halal.

4 posted on 01/28/2012 11:52:34 PM PST by AZLiberty (No tag today.)
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To: PRePublic

This is actually a good article, clearly distinguishing India’s democracy — and Israel’s !!! — from the totalitarian, racist, women-hating nature of the Muslim nations.


5 posted on 01/29/2012 12:00:10 AM PST by AZLiberty (No tag today.)
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To: AZLiberty

The article goes in great length about the entire ME region as a whole, as well as about Islamic “moderate’ countries such as Pakistan and Malaysia. He also elaborates on the current slavery by the Arab ‘master race.’


6 posted on 01/29/2012 12:30:46 AM PST by PRePublic (9)
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