And Sam do I get a gold star if I bow and scrape and say you did a good job? You did after all, but preemptive complaining strikes me as a bit tedious although perhaps not a bad tactic.
(a) Wahhabite theology has not taken a very strong hold in the Arab world. It is excessively influential, but the very fact Saudi society looks so bloody different from everyone else rather indicates the opposite.
(b) I question the degree of confusion of Church and State, I have met very few Muslims who want a theocracy, a la Iran. A larger number who express inchoate desires for a reestablishment of the Khalifate, but this seems to be less a religious movtivation per se than an expression of frustration with the general decadence of their (western supported, read USA) dictatorial governments. Even the real extremists make a distinction between the role of theologian and that of the Amir. Frankly I believe this point is exagerated but it is discussable.
© Wahhabite theology is only the state theology of Saudi Arabia, if your comments are meant to include the Arab world generally they’re factually wrong, and ludicrously wrong outside of the Gulf.
(d) The influence however is undeniable and insidious although it runs into other factors which I will note.
(f) the Taleban are an indigenous Afghan movement, with a parallel development to Wahhabisme, not inspited by it. Quite different in many, many respects.
Very fair resume.
This is simply silly.
Firstly, it is factually incorrect on its face. You really need to stop reading that segment of the press which indulges in ideological fantasies, it’s unhealthy. Not that I expect you shall be able to do so given your predilictions.
Arafat’s popularity, which had been at its nadir, rebounded when Sharon began his Iron Fist policy towards the PA, by all accounts. A dip was noted in the press after his release at about the time of Jenin/Ramallah connected it appears with frustration in re his apparent, from refugee POV, caving in to Israeli demands. Whatever is going is quite unclear, but it hardly makes your first point, indeed rather the opposite.
Rather to make this point, one would need to rely on actual analysis. Let me suggest Algeria and Egypt as cases which make your point. In both cases the appeal of the radicals collapsed as they moved to more and more bloody tactics, in part driven in desperation. However, that is not to say secular governments, almost all of which stink of corruption, have gained in appeal.
Hardly, you would need to read something like what Tamerlane has cited and undestand the origins and centres of the Salafiste movements, the Ikhwaan and their influence, etc.
Again Sam getting his facts from the usual suspect, gets it wrong:
The Taleban are an indigenous Pashtun movement rooted in extreme conservatism of the tribes and a reaction against the chaos of the 1990s in Afghanistan. Their theological origins are different than that of al-Qaeda (regard their differing attitudes towards imagery, al-Qaeda groups are hardly obscurantiste Luddites like the Taleban.), although Wahhabite thinking seems to have gained some hold. But rather more likely are Ikhwaani influences.
al-Qaeda is international and its brains are Egyptian and Algerian, not Saudi. A fluke that the hijackers were mostly Saudi, and note the Saudis were mostly suckers, foot soldiers.
[quote]
Osama Bin Laden is a Saudi national. Saudi money has financed many terrorist attacks.
[quote]
In a tedious technical sense Osama is nothing now, stripped of his citizenship, that aside, it’s not clear how much Saudi funds (and in what sense) have gone to terror and what kind of terror.
Well, it is one fucked up place from many POV.
Cultural home of Islam? No, not really. Damascus. Cairo. Even Baghdad. Saudi Arabia? No. You seriously misunderstand the role of the al-Haramian in Islamic society.
Sure, the holy of holies is in Saudi Arabia, that does not make the Saudis automatically culturally influential, and never has.
Quite the contrary, Saudi influence fights an uphill battle against ingrained prejudice against the area.
Some points to illustrate:
Egyptians habitually state (based on Egypt sending teachers to the Gulf throughout the oil boom period, “We taught them to read.” – and usually use a rather condesending verb form.
North Africans have two sayings based off of the same idea:
l-khaliijine houm djouj sifr – the Gulfies, they’re double zeros, meaning they’re idiots. Similarly the term 'aroubi – literally meaning ‘very Arab, truly Arab’ with the sense of Bedouine like the Saudis, has the colloq. meaning ‘stupid, uncouthe.’
There is little or no automatic respect that the Saudis gain in the Arab world for the accident of geography, and it is described in those terms, that Mecca and Medina are there.
Wahhabite theology has gained ground, but far more important are the Egyptian based movements with intellectual and cultural respect. It is no accident that Egyptians figure so prominently, followed by Algerians, in the extremist movements, for they bring intellectual heft, cultural respect and real experience in resistance/underground tactics. The Saudis, everyone thinks of them as largely stupid, gullible moneybags – with the odd pious simpleton as a good example.
Solved?
Well as to solutions:
There are no short term solutions.
Tactical security actions are likely to have long-term bad effects. Israel’s tacit support of Hamas against the PLO in the past decade (another brilliant move we can attribute to the lump presently in office) has had – and if I read the situation right will continue to have as inexplicably Sharonistas obsess over Arafat and give the real impossible folks an utter pass – long term negative effects.
Policy based on an actual understanding of recent Islamic history and some more sophisticated engagement with the less-extreme forms of political Islam willing to work in a pluralist system(*) would probably be helpful, whatever the simplistic moralist moaning and pissing about terrorists and what not.
Ultimately, the region has to be allowed to find a path reconcilable with its cultural traditions. Nattering on about how “they” are not like “us” in some condescending bigotted fashion gets one no where. The demographic boom is a real problem, lots of young men with little to do. Helping solve the basket case that is Arab economies would help immensely – e.g. Tunisia while a dictatorship was a pretty well-functioning economy with decent growth, fairly high standards of living and oddly enough pretty well-functioning goverment (all things considered). And among the lowest incidence as far as I read of Islamist activity. And a pop explosion that was headed off, helping take off the demographic pressure. Whereas Saudi Arabia becomes poorer and poorer, despite the images of vast wealth, a real driver is the growing poverty. 6 kids a woman does that.
(*: one of the more egregious idiocies I have read in certain sections of the press which our dear Sam reads are the bad analogies to communism and the cold war, egregious for the afactual recounting of the latter and their piss-poor understanding of the region.)
(Hoping for the best, DSeid)