Wrongfooted

[poliphilo]

For all that our journalists and politicians are always banging on about muslims, I don't remember anyone predicting the Arab revolution. Western leaders were so completely wrong-footed by it that their first reaction was to make cooing noises at the dictators- with Sarkozy going so far as to offer to help Ben Ali out by sending him some of his surplus riot police.

It was often said that the dictators were a necessary evil because they kept the mullahs down, but the uprisings- all of them- have been led by secular youth- with not a mullah in sight. It was also often said that Arabs are primitive (but noble) tribal folk who don't understand or want democracy...

Comments

[veronikos.livejournal.com]

>> It was also often said that Arabs are primitive (but noble) tribal folk ...

Oh yeah...an addition...this is another piece of garbage largely perpetrated by "journalists", or at least, an area never investigated. In fact, the Western world is heavily indebted to the Arab culture for furthering and preserving science and mathematics. Now, everything gets bound up with Islam and religion such that we forget that, once upon a time, every other phrase was not "God willing."

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Yes indeed. When Richard Coeur de Lion faced Saladin it was Richard who was the barbarian...