Here is a well done and very interesting piece on Egypt from the Weekly Standard. It is one of the few articles I’ve seen on the recent happenings that is based somewhat in reality. That’s a bit surprising, given the publication. Bill Kristol is a forever war guy and his stable of writers fit comfortably into the neocon warmonger bucket. Kristol still argues for the Freedom Agenda, despite 12 years of miserable failure. I guess part of the appeal of the article is that it is from an otherwise delusional publication.
The interesting bit is the observation that liberalism is exclusively an Occidental import to the countries of the Maghreb. That’s true throughout the Arab world. There are no native liberal traditions. More important and something the author skips is that the essence of Arab culture is antithetical to liberalism. Islam rejects the foundation stone of Western thought and that is the contract. Everything springs from the concept of people freely entering into an agreement with one another and being held to it by society.
Islam rejects the idea of a covenant between God and man. Muslims believe that God is unknowable and unpredictable. It is called occasionalism. This permanent uncertainty is thoroughly baked into the character of the Arab people. If you have ever done business with Muslims, you know how crazy it is to nail them down to a contract. In Islam, the contract only exists in the moment, the time in which to deal is made and all parties are present. When circumstance change the contract is no longer valid.
Sharia contract law is pretty much whatever the local Imam thinks is best at the moment, which usually means that which either keeps the peace or satisfies the powerful. You cannot have liberalism if you don’t have contracts. There’s also the concept of private property, which is mostly alien to the rest oft he world. In a place like Egypt, property rights largely only exist with regards to personal property. What you can carry is yours, but real property is not protected. Intellectual property, of course, does not exist.
Of course, the idea of a social contract is completely alien to the Arab. They view government the same way people viewed the Mafia. It is merely the way the rich and powerful enforce their prerogatives on the rest of the population. Every Arab country operates along feudal lines. In Egypt, the military has the monopoly of force. Business has the capital. Together they have ruled Egypt since King Farouk. In Iran, the clerics have taken the country back to feudalism completely by declaring their rule the will of God.
That brings me back to the central problem with The Weekly Standard column. There is nothing we can do to change the Arab culture. Most of our troubles stem from their hostility to our trying to change their culture. Arab terrorists are not springing from nothing. They have reasons for doing what they do. The fact that every election in Muslim world has been won by Islamic parties is what we call a clue. The garden variety Muslim is not interested in liberal democracy and western culture. In fact, they are hostile to it.
Just because they like some of the technology that comes from the West, does not mean they want western liberalism. The truth is, they despise most of what defines western social democracy, including the democracy. Mohamed does not want to see a transgendered fruitcake writing for their major newspaper. If the way to prevent that from happening to his society is to stick with the old ways, they are willing to make that trade. Therefore, the answer to our terrorism problem is to leave the Mohammedan alone.
