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| Iraq |
| ’Long Live Dictatorship’: An Arab Columnist on Dictatorships in the Arab World |
| 2003-07-10 |
| Excerpted from MEMRI 6000 years of despotism. Zero sum mentality. Shame/Honor. Tribalism. Fanaticism. It’s all here baby. "The entire world is perplexed about us. Do we really seek our freedoms and attempt to rid ourselves of ages of oppression, deprivation, and domination? Do the Arab peoples really want to extricate themselves from the claws of the repressive regimes, or are they addicted to a life of decline, lowliness, and acceptance of humiliation? Have the Arab peoples become addicted to a life that is like being thrown into the darkness of the dungeon? Have they become addicted to floggings with whip and lash, to the dissolving [of victims] in acid, to the blows on the back of the head, to humiliation and insult?" "I do not exaggerate by saying this, because within each one of us there is a little dictator who feels gratification when he is repressed by those stronger and more brutal than he, and who at the same time does not refrain from acting this same way, in his milieu, towards those weaker and inferior in status. And when that milieu expands, he gradually imposes this on more people, so that when this sphere grows and he is the one who decides first and last, and who gives the orders, dictatorship spreads and it is imposed on all the people. Thus yesterday’s oppressed become today’s oppressor; yesterday’s subjugated become today’s subjugator; he that was wronged now becomes the wrongdoer; the humiliated becomes the arrogant." "Many Arab writers have gone berserk cursing the U.S. night and day for taking its time establishing democracy in Iraq – but they refuse to enter into any talk about the [lack of] desire of the Iraqi people, with all its factions, to experience democracy. So far, no Iraqi side has agreed to sit with the other side to arrive at an understanding regarding Iraq ’s future as a united and sovereign country. Everyone wants his piece of the pie, and everyone rejects the other. The inside [i.e. Iraqis from Iraq] rejects the [Iraqis returning from exile] and vice versa – the left rejects the right, the right eradicates the left from being present, and so on and so forth." "Does the Iraqi model of dealing with the problem of implementing democracy mean that the culture of negating the other flows in the blood of the Arab peoples to the point where they are incapable of ridding themselves of the enslavement to dictatorship and of repressive regimes? Does this mean that the Arab peoples have become addicted to [the point that they] accept repression, brutality, and an iron-fist policy, to the point where any talk about democracy may cause them horror and hallucination?" |
| Posted by:11A5S |
| #2 Think of it as a disease. The Mother of All Diseases. It can become extremely virulent within an infected population and is most contagious when present en masse as it then controls its own environment. It manifests itself most apparently in Arabia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, and Indonesia. It currently seems poised to spread into other Asian and African regions, as well as westward. Free, democratic, and industrialized (i.e. affluent) populations appear to have the greatest degree of natural resistance - as evidenced by visibly lower infection rates in many areas, but this immunity varies across a wide range. It seems that no population is totally immune. Each locale displays slight variations in the symptoms (e.g. external appearance: facial hair or lack, headwear design, etc.), but the disease process is the same. It activates and attacks children when they first begin to comprehend language and, if allowed to reinforce the initial phase with concentrated ongoing exposure, the host is doomed. This readily occurs in saturated populations - becoming ever more virulent over time for the complete lifecycle of the host. In fact, this agent is so insidious that it threatens death to any host so bold as to contemplate any form of treatment, whether it is through escape from the infected population or any degree of active resistance within. The disease process begins by destroying individualism, identity, and intellectual curiosity - replacing them with total compliance and acceptance of the authoritarian. The advanced state of the illness commonly expresses itself through repression, brutality, blind hatred, and psychopathic insanity. This occurs when a sufficient number of hosts have been infected. This critical mass - a saturated population, once reached, utterly destroys social tolerance and discourse - and yields a total loss of self, will, honor and respect for others. In the most advanced cases, saturated populations have been observed actively killing potential hosts through external means - without bothering to infect them. At this stage, the clinician is likely to find himself bewildered - as it is counterintuitive: this behavior runs counter to all other natural processes; it just makes no sense. For young children it has been observed, in the rare cases where it has been possible to do so, that removal from the infected population may halt the process - if done early enough and the child is completely isolated such that they only have contact with naturally immune hosts. For the mature individual, however, if reared in an infected population - particularly one displaying the characteristics of an advanced stage - there is no known cure. It leaves no aspect, no potential, absolutely nothing of the individual host uncorrupted. All identified vectors should be aggressively treated - with extreme prejudice and without hesitation - at the first signs of symptomatic behavior. Total eradication will likely be necessary to check the spread and prevent future outbreaks. The only know pathogen with a human fatality rate of 100 percent: Islam. |
| Posted by: PD 2003-7-10 3:00:44 AM |
| #1 Wow. Deep. |
| Posted by: Rafael 2003-7-10 12:31:39 AM |