The Nile flows through several countries and it is vital for the existence of Egypt and Sudan. While signing a multinational agreement for peaceful sharing the waters of the Nile, the Egyptian media is talking about war. Although Ancient Egyptians invented the Nilometer and kept rigorous historical records of its flow, today's Egyptians are unaware of the quantitative aspects of its hydrology. Cairo papers are inciting to war against ... Israel and the United States. The reasoning is absolutely crazy: they say we are building irrigation projects in the Upper Nile to reduce the water reaching Egypt and/or preparing secret plans to steal its waters. Absolutely crazy.
12 comments:
This is just standard blame shifting. In a face culture it is literally impossible to accept responsibility for your own actions, so a scapegoat is required. The US and Israel are all purpose scapegoats for all situations. There is no need for a scapegoat to have any plausible relationship to a problem, just as the goat that the Hebrews would cast into the wilderness had nothing to do with their sins. Individually such denunciations are usually harmless, but over time they do become dangerous because the naive actually believe them.
K
K, the Egyptians are right, I am planning to steal the waters of the Nile. I've been planning this for the last week in between shifts, which is why I haven't been posting as much as usual here.
Maybe I can get Delbert Grady to help me in setting up a system of water rationing that rewards my cronies and causes my enemy tribes to go waterless.
Yes, I can have life and death power over 100m Egyptians and have all of the 82iq women I can handle.
72 Virgins? Hah! I can have thousands of them and get them from a country so holy both the men *and* the women are circumcized.
I've gotta give the Egyptians credit though. They detected this plot and were able to publicize it in their press. But, there is nothing the Egyptians can do to stop me.
To make any kind of action palatable the Egyptian rulers will have to first blame the Jews. In this manner they outflank the Muslim brotherhood people who will try to forestall a conflict with Sudan. This is the way it is in the Muslim countries, the Jew is everyone's bogeyman.
Ivan, its a long way to Jerusalem. From Cairo, you have to traverse Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya...
J, one has to have some sympathy for the rulers of Muslim countries. Bad as their public pronouncements on Jews are, they are quite pallid when compared to the opinion on the street, in many cases the rulers are just trying to keep up. I know this since I can understand the vernacular press in Malaysia. I have Muslim friends and aquaintances, only a few of whom can hide their antipathy towards the Jews. I can say for a certainty that moderate Muslim opinion on Israel is largely a myth and where it appears to exists as in the US, it is only a function of their present powerless state. I don't need to read JihadWatch or Pamela Geller to know this.
Yes, this game has long been played in most of the Moslem countries. Westernized elites try to control "the street" from the right by out-Islaming the Islamists. The problem in doing this is that rather than leading to a more moderate society over time, "the street" becomes ever more Islamist. Ask Fatah how well this strategy is working for them in Gaza? In Pakistan (or more to the point in NY and London) you now have educated young professional men setting bombs after growing up exposed to nothing but government sponsored America hatred. In Egypt, university educated women never wore the hijab - now they all do. Sometimes useful tactics in the short term make really bad strategy in the long run - the ruling elites in the Moslem world have painted themselves into a corner. Their only exit will be the Hamas way - they will throw them off the rooftop.
K
The ruling elites in the Islamic world do not really have much choice in the matter. If the elites do not condemn Jews they will be out the window. Remember that all countries have or will get the government they deserve.
Lothrop Stoddard predicted the rise of Islam back in the 1930's in his book The Rising Tide of Color, so the radicalization of Muslims is larger than just the policies of the individual Muslim states.
The ruling elites have made a bargain with the devil and one day the devil will have his due. I don't buy the idea that they had no choice - they chose the easy way out. By now, Egypt, Pakistan, etc. could be where India is - well on the path to modernization and becoming full fledged participants in the modern world. Ataturk had some of the same problems and he chose to confront them head on instead of pandering to the lowest elements. His work is now being undone but it held for almost a century.
K
Ivan , You ask for sympathy for the rulers of Muslim countries, but I have none. Except for Ataturk (who was a Domne, a Jew), not one of them has had the courage of forcing a change. All I hear is nostalgy for the caliphate and striving to return to the times of Mohammed ruling Medina 1500 years ago. They are not moving from that image.
J, government grows organically from the people it rules. None of the rulers of any Muslim country will criticize Islam, because none of their subjects want them to do so. Rulers are a symptom and not a cause.
There won't be any major change in how those countries are ruled until their people either adopt some moderate (ie nonpracticing) version of Islam or they leave the faith altogether, either for another one or for none at all.
Ataturk proves my point. Even if Ataturk was able to force the Turks to westernize against their will, eventually the country is slowly reverting back to what it once was.
Having said all of that, Ataturk probably had a lot of gentile cooperation with his westernization project back in the early part of the 20th century. If I am right then it is the Turkish population itself that has reverted to Islam, when once it was moderate.
J, by sympathy I meant the rationality in a game-theoretic sense of the position they take and not of their moral condition. Muslim leaders neither need or desire our sympathy, they know how this game is played. Musharaf in Pakistan led a westernised life while building up the Taliban for the purpose of subversion, Saddam Hussein acquired the Al-Quds syndrome when he invaded Kuwait. The lesser generals and ministers have already secreted sufficient funds in the West to ensure a comfortable exile should it become necessary. But some of their sons, the Christmas bomber over Detroit and the recent Times Square bomber being prime examples, are hellbent on rocking the boat.
My travels also take me through Muslim countries from time to time and my experience is that some of the educated, reasonable ones are planning to get out, & have given up on their own societies.
It is a shame, since they have much to offer and do not seem to be immoderate people.
Anon.
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