The Chimera of Arab "Democracy"
Thomas Sowell writes:
Those who applauded the spread of democracy in the Middle East seemed to assume that the “Arab Spring” meant greater freedom. But there was no reason to assume that beforehand — and certainly no reason to believe it after the fact. Christians in Egypt have already lost whatever security they had under Hosni Mubarak.
The idea that “all people want freedom” is one of those feel-good phrases that some people indulge in. But you do not get a free country just because everybody wants freedom — for themselves. You can have a free country only when people are willing to let other people have freedom.
Nazis were free to be Nazis under Hitler and Communists were free to be Communists under Stalin and Mao. But nobody else was free.
Same deal under sharia. Muslims are free to be Muslims, but nobody else is free.
1 comment:
I've written this before in these comments, but I think it bears repeating: the times we live in have much of the feel of the 1930s. Only, this time the Weimar decadence that preceded the _Nazizeit_ is taking place in the Western democracies, as if the more repellent scenes from _Cabaret_ had been set in London rather than Berlin.
At least when the democracies steeled themselves to go to war with the Nazis and their allies, while some sectors of the cultural elite may have been morally corrupt and lacked a patriotic attachment to their countries, the mass of the people still possessed healthy reserves of moral fiber and natural patriotism. That, I feel, cannot be said anymore. Of course, a minority of our populations still possess the old virtues--like the brave and eagle-eyed Canadian snipers in Afghanistan--but it is a rapidly depreciating asset, especially among the young, where it counts the most.
I hope the Israelis do not greatly count on help from the West, not even from their formerly steadfast American ally, to ward off the massing forces of barbarism beyond their borders.
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