Ryan’s Place

anyway, i should really write an article on this, but i don’t have the time or energy tonight… i get so frustrated at the continual headlines, shock-and-awe-attention-grabbers on all the majors portraying this current situation as some groundswell of populist outrage at the west and our decadence and disrespect of their religion… the nearly complete absence of competent journalism on this topic baffles me. does no one realize that these are countries protesting most vociferously are ones where the unemployment rate tops 10, 20, 30, 40 percent? that the protests in these countries (that aren’t greeted with government gunfire) are officially encouraged, not just allowed? (don’t get me started on the flag kiosks that wind up showing up wherever the journalists cameras show up. journalists are, after all, for the most part, glorified voyeurs - going for the juciest bits rather than the real story behind the made-for-tv footage.) not to mention that these cartoons were originally published months ago, and the protests only occured after some rabble-rousing imams toured the middle-east trying to drum up outrage. yet the real story here is the sophistication with which the regimes of the middle-east know how to play the west. the rulers of the majority of the middle-east are, for the most part, corrupt, ineffective, strongmen bloated with the power of massive oil revenues. the development of thier countries has been held back for decades by the largesse of the oil funds, as the development of human and economic capital has been stunted by the stupor of being able to survive simply by sitting back and pumping the wallets of the world. their rulers have continually jailed the liberal intelligensia and reformers; while, at the same time, to try and maintain their power, have directed the anger and boredom of their populations - using Islam as their basis - at the West in order to deflect the discontent of thier populace away from their own ineffectual and self-serving rule. the real irony is that those rulers who have used realpolitik for decades to maintain themselves may infact foment the kind of “clash of civilizations” that they have used for ages as a deflection, a strawman in order to prop themselves up. people in the US and the rest of the West are doubtless baffled by the response to the cartoons, convinced that there is some intense fundamental disconnect between the west and the muslim world. while, for the most part, the reality lies that we are seeing hte completely logical result of our own doing. the doing of the middle-east, becuase of their continued corruption, lack of development, staggering unemployment and discontent of their population; and the West, by our continuing-head-in-the-sand dependence on an unsustainable river of cheap oil.

what can you do. such, as they say, is life.

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 12th, 2006 at 7:10 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.