Archive for March, 2011
When Iran and Aarb League agree: revolutions are bad if they are not under their control
When do we hear the Arab League and Iran agreeing on something? Now both do not like the actions undertaken under the no-fly-zone agreement. One is trying to condemn “indiscriminate” bombing, and the other warning against allowing western dominance. Both groups want the popular uprisings (they are popular, by all indications) to serve their agenda, rise and fall and bark according to the sweet wills and paranoid ambitions of the ayatollahs and sheiks and emirs. They are as much scared of revolutions as Americans or the West are. This is the key to understand the statements being made and potential behaviour from the existing leaders of the Arab world and Iran over the Libyan action.
Americans should not have said that they were leading it but allow UK or France to do the honours. Moreover they have a short window in which to decimate Gaddafi’s forces, and restock the opposition.
As for Russia, India or anyone else mumbling and playing it safe, it is important to realize that historical turning points do not stay on forever. It is a tendency in Indian analysis of situations to be confounded by complex contradictions in political developments and get stuck in an overemphasis on “nothing is entirely black and white” which then becomes the excuse for decision paralysis. On the other hand it is this same “nothing is black and white” mindset to stick to paradigms and never update even with real experiences. Thus it appears that policy-makers of India have a rigid mindset to think that the Islamic regions do not have forces and dynamics of change within themselves that are not entirely mullahcratic.
It is critical to support the non-mullahcratic component against the mullahcratic component in the uprisings or movements that at the moment have converged on the point of common hatred against their ruling regimes. If we don’t support the more modernizing trends within these movements, the elite of Islamic systems will hijack this popular sentiment into their pet agenda – hatred of the “qufr”, wallowing in the Sharia, and erasure of the Jews as a first step towards erasure of all perceived obstacles to their absolute mullahcracy.
The West once made the blunder of encouraging Islamism and authoritarian dynastic or dictatorial regimes in their short-sighted strategy of tackling the so called Red-Menace. As a result the world suffers from the genocidal and totalitarian mindset of the mullahcracy.
The same blunder should not be repeated. It is important for the younger generations within the uprisings to be aware that both the Arab and Iranian leadership, the Islamic organizations, as well as the West, or even say China, (Russia and China are more scared of getting burnt unnecessarily and therefore non-intervention) are scared of independent popular uprisings. They want these revolutions to serve their own desires. Iran wants to paint these revolutions as anti-Israel and will rant and rail and turn against the revolution if that does not happen. Arab league wants to maintain their filthy rich lifestyles of their emirs and their sheikhs and the network of feudal patronage and arbitrary power. The west wants a pliable regime popular or not.
For the West or less-sectarian countries like India, it is crucial to realize that it is in their interest to encourage the modernizing sections within these revolutions. Next time around there will be little opportunity left to correct such errors as made in wiping out modernizers in Afghanistan, Iran or Iraq or even Saudi Arabia.
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