Wrongfooted
Feb. 21st, 2011 10:47 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
poliphiloFor 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...
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...
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Date: 2011-02-21 05:05 pm (UTC)