Christians are being offered one more round of a longstanding dirty deal, this time in Bahrain. If only they will be loyal thugs, enforcers, secret policemen, and tax men, the royals will protect them as long as is convenient to the monarchy. No choice available to them is a good one for local Christians but taking the deal means pain later instead of pain today so they are most likely to accept.
For anyone who seriously wants to address the complexities of the Middle East there must be a way to unwind such deals and put an end to them. They are fundamentally incompatible with a free society and a barrier to any reasonable transition path to a sustainable society in the Middle East.
“a free society and a barrier to any reasonable transition path to a sustainable society in the Middle East.”
I think we now know enough to realize that there will never be an Arab society that is modern sustainable or anything but fanatical and violent.
It is far more likely that the rest of the 21st century in the Arab world will be a story of civil war, genocide, and famine, than it will be a story of peace, prosperity and flourishing.
I agree with TM. Maybe a new Crusade would help straihten the Middle East out but that is highly unlikely to happen–unfortunately in my opinion.
An unpopular minority group being made the crown’s stooges and future scapegoats? Yeah, that sounds familiar…
It worked for centuries in various parts of Europe. Probably going to work in Bahrain, too.
Robert Schwartz – The success of arabs outside their own toxic polities makes me think that there is a road to success. I hope your pessimism doesn’t mean that you’d stand in the way. I see two inflection points that might shock the arab world sufficiently to make a lasting change. The first is the end of the age of oil which will reduce the arab world’s ability to throw cash at dysfunctional systems in an effort to avoid change. The second is the end of westphalianism which is what is protecting the arabs from the consequences of their non-state violence.
Morgan – I think it much more likely that the secularists are going to impose themselves than the Pope will be blessing military forces to go forth and liberate the holy land.
TM, I agree and the Popes, so far, in my lifetime did have the cajones to bless another crusade. The fallback position then becomes the hope that the secularists will bash each other to pieces while imposing themselves.
Boobah – The difference here is that Europe’s Jews had no jewish kings to appeal to. This is not quite true for ME christians.
Morgan – The Pope has just announced the addition of arabic as one of the official languages to be used. That’s a statement that sounds utterly innocuous to us and is likely popping blood vessels all across the ummah.