[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] One of the favorite tropes of radical Islamists is that Muslims all over the world are being oppressed and held back by Western Crusaders and Zionists. The reason why more than one billion Muslims live in poverty and deprivation cannot be anything but the fault of evil forces who wish to undermine Islam. Weren't they poor and oppressed and such when the Europeans took over their governance?
This, I have argued again and again, is nonsense and wishful thinking. Though there are systematic imbalances in the global economic system which are greatly unfavourable to many Muslim countries, those same imbalances strongly favor other Muslim countries: think of all the wealth of Muslim countries and geopolitical power that brings. Sitting on large puddles of oil should bring in a bit of money for Moslem countries. If the money goes to the rulers and not to the populace that's tough luck, not our fault.
And if the reason why so many Muslims are poor and oppressed, why are they just as poor and even more oppressed in just those countries with the largest natural resources? Is it Zionists and Crusaders that treat like slaves millions of Pak and Bangladeshi migrant construction workers in the Muslim countries? Is it Zionists and Crusaders who kill Muslim civilians in droves, in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Libya, Pakistain, Afghanistan, Nigeria, and so many other countries?
And last, but not least, is it Zionists and Crusaders who plunder the wealth of Muslim countries? Perhaps that was once the case, in the heyday of Western colonial expansion in the Middle East. But that was well over half a century ago. The world has moved on. And now those countries are plundered by their own political and military leaders.
The Pak example is particularly close to my heart ‐ as I am very familiar most of the players. But in a country with some of the worst illiteracy and poverty rates in the world, its leaders over last few decades from all parties have managed to buy some of the most expensive real estate in the world in London and elsewhere. And not just for themselves but for their children too.
Alleviating poverty Now leaders from all over the world have been caught up in scandals. But say what you want about the Chinese politburo, they have first made their country wealthy, and only after started pilfering away public funds.
They have built their country’s infrastructure, they have built one of the best education systems in the world, have raised hundreds of millions of people out of poverty through sheer hard work, not just with the good luck of having ample natural resources, and built the world’s second-most important economy ‐ and then they took a few million dollars here and there for themselves and their families.
Now compare this to Muslim leaders. In countries that 50 years ago were in much, much better shape than China, three generations of leaders have plundered their countries dry of billions, have destroyed some very good education systems in the process, and have kept getting into wars which precipitated the destruction of whatever infrastructure was left from the colonial era.
So who do we have to blame for the woes of the Muslim world? Do you still believe it is the fault of colonial powers and American neo-imperialism? It would be convenient if that were the case.
Especially since that way we are excused from doing anything about it ourselves. But the true reasons for the state in which the Muslim world finds itself today are rather closer to home: the venal, corrupt leaders, but also, our indolent, passive societies.
Building wealthy, developed societies requires hard work, dedication, integrity, and commitment to making a good life for all of us in our societies. Too many Muslims would rather skip all that and just blame someone else for why their country is not as dynamic as China, or as wealthy as the West. Too heavy a reliance on string music ?
Posted by: Fred ||
04/21/2016 00:00 ||
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#1
Because Muslims lack a work ethic and are bent on enslaving everyone? Just a guess...
#11
Cousins marry cousins. The aborigines in Australia were even smarter than that - Google "Australian Aboriginal kinship". The reason that Arabs marry relatives is to concentrate wealth.
#12
Some ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET editorial writer is about to added to a list for execution, I fear.
Posted by: Bobby ||
04/21/2016 12:49 Comments ||
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#13
SpoterHapsburg - re 'the reason Arabs marry Arabs is to concentrate wealth', how ironic is your nym, considering the similar history of the European monarchy, especially the Hapsburgs...
Interesting piece from Politico (of all places) that discusses the problem of "too big to fail" banks. The article rather wisely notes that banks can't finance the once-every-twenty-years failures of the world banking system, and so should be prohibited from doing the things that lead to these failures.
I certainly don't have the expertise to dissect this in detail, and perhaps there's a counter-argument to letting Wall Street have its way more. But if I were a pol and knew that Wall Street wasn't going to support me anyway, I'd be pushing these ideas.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/21/2016 00:00 ||
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barring banks from crisis-inducing behavior was the best remedy
But it doesn't explain why. The problem is perverse incentives. If crises come along every 20 years, then if you are a banker who gets a yearly bonus based on performance, your best strategy is to take big risks, because you will make big bonuses for 19 years, then make none and could well get fired in the 20th year. So what. You've already made a pile of money in the preceding 19 years.
The solution is to bar everyone from trading derivatives etc, except those who trade with their own money or money from people who have explicitly signed on for this trading. The Lloyds of London model.
BTW, the size of the bank is immaterial. It's the size of the failure that matters.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] One of the favorite tropes of radical Islamists is that Muslims all over the world are being oppressed and held back by Western Crusaders and Zionists. The reason why more than one billion Muslims live in poverty and deprivation cannot be anything but the fault of evil forces who wish to undermine Islam.
