Thinking like a Westerner...

In my on-going attempt to keep this blog alive, I'm going to revisit some of F Ryan's previous comments...

In F Ryan's last post, he states that there exists in the middle east a strain of 7th Century Islamic fundamentalism, and that this strain is the root of the problem.  It is organized, committed and well supported by the population at large.  I'm going to look at that view, and show that THIS is the Western view that is so dangerous to the United States as we learn how best to deal with the people of the region.

If we simply look at the "Arab world" as it is traditionally defined (populations of the member states of the Arab League), then we see a population composed of 55% or more between the ages of 18 and 26... and 60% of those are unemployed and suffering staggering levels of poverty.  Formerly (before the Syrian revolt and the Arab Spring uprisings), states like Egypt and Syria and Libya required employment and some form of party affiliation to cast any kind of vote, even at a local level.  I don't know if this is still true... but that means it is the status quo for societies that are trying to define themselves even now.  States like the UAE and Saudi Arabia still refuse to allow 51% of their population to vote at all... women... and those votes are never for anything meaningful like political leadership or public referendums.

What prospects do young Arab-speaking men in places like Yemen, Libya, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon or Oman have if they are not born into wealth?  In the past, these men joined (either voluntarily or otherwise) the army of their respective nation.  A paycheck, food, shelter, clothing and a degree of prestige and pride were instilled... even if the purpose and drive for personal development was lacking.  Now those military arms are all but non-existent.  So they join the equivalent of local "gangs" now... we call them militias... which do the same thing... try to instill a sense of purpose and drive into an otherwise meaningless future for these young men.

Attention that is paid to those proposing a caliphate is simply large portions of the populations expressing an urge and desire to have their voices heard.  Admittedly, that might mean having their voices heard over everyone else... I mean the Sunnis wanting to rule over Shi'ites, for example, and vice versa... but it is a fundamental need that isn't being met by any current or past regime in the region.

Let's look at Israel.  Not Palestine, but Israel.  Here, we see a society where ultra-conservative members of the Jewish faith live and work side-by-side with Israelis that consider themselves ethnically Jewish, but hold no faith with them in a religious sense.  I don't speak of a fringe element, either... Haredi Jews compromise as much as 20% of all Jewish nationals in the country... equal to the number of non-religious secular Jewish citizens.  This society, even with all its troubles and trials, is a growing society, and a prosperous one.  There is no oil in Israel, very little in the way of conventional arable land, and no abundance of natural resources to offset the problems any growing society meets year-to-year.

What Israel has and the Arab world lacks is a sense of common purpose and shared pride.  A sense of unity and community.  It is our Western attitudes and biases that lead us to think that the troubles in the region can be blamed simply on a single strain of religious zealotry or fundamental views of religious laws only because they are so different from our own.

I do, however, agree with F Ryan in this:  it was our Western attitudes and biases that caused the failure of the current and past efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan... but no good will come of future efforts if we continue to follow them, either.