Temper Tantrums And Thin Veneers

As a follow-up to his column about the thin veneer of civilization, (and if you have not read that one, now is a good time) Victor Davis Hanson writes today about what is going on in the Middle East. And he calls it a long-running temper tantrum, not brought about by American or Western policies but by internal, collective failures in hopelessly corrupt governments.

First, thanks to Western inventions and Chinese manufactured goods, Middle Easterners can now access the non-Muslim world cheaply and vicariously. To millions of Muslims, the planet appears - on the Internet, DVDs and satellite television - to be growing rich as most of their world stays poor.

Second, the Middle East either will not or cannot make the changes necessary to catch up with what they see in the rest of the world. Tribalism - loyalty only to kin rather than to society at large - impedes merit and thus progress. So does gender apartheid. Who knows how many would-be Margaret Thatchers or Sandra Day O'Connors remain veiled in the kitchen?

Religious fundamentalism translates into rote prayers in madrassas while those outside the Middle East master science and engineering. Without a transparent capitalist system - antithetical to both sharia (Muslim law) and state-run economies - initiative is never rewarded. Corruption is.

Meanwhile, mere discussion in much of the region of what is wrong can mean execution by a militia, government thug or religious vigilante.

So, Middle Easterners are left with the old frustration of wanting the good life of Western society but lacking either the ability or willingness to change the status quo to get it.

Instead, we get monotonous scapegoating. Blaming America or Israel - "Those sneaky Jews did it!" - has become a regional pastime.

And after the multifarious failures of Yasser Arafat, the Assads in Syria, Muammar Gaddafi, Gamal Abdel Nasser, Saddam Hussein and other corrupt autocrats, many have, predictably, retreated to fundamentalist extremism. Almost daily, some fundamentalist claims that the killing of Westerners is justified - because of a cartoon, a Papal paragraph or, most recently, British knighthood awarded to novelist Salman Rushdie. The terrorism of Osama bin Laden, Hamas, Hezbollah and the Taliban is as much about nihilist rage as it is about blackmailing Western governments to grant concessions.

Literally the only thing the Middle East - excepting Israel - is good at manufacturing is rage. Scripted, choreographed rage where the flags and effigies for burning appear like magic on the street. (Though those flags are doubtless manufactured in another country. Which is why it takes a few days to get the "spontaneous" demonstrations up to speed for the Western photographers.) Look at the cultural failures. And look also at the enabling behaviors by some in the West who refuse to apply the same standards of civilized behavior to the cultural failures as the do to the West.

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  By Purple Avenger, Thursday, 21 June , 2007 @ 9:09 am

  At Home Depot I got a pretty good $50 toilet made in the UAE a few years ago…but it was probably imported labor that made it.

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