Republic of Monday, March 7, 2011, page 42
Hunting - "When the people awake God puts his head"
BORDER LINE Mario Pirani "The question that nobody can answer is how he could be a stirring equal to that which hit the southern shores of the Mediterranean without any warning to leave predict what was going on. Not only in size but also to nature, the emerging hegemonic groups, against powers that be, or not affect the funda-mental religious (Muslim Brotherhood) and militancy dating to the "jihad" or even "al-Qaeda." And today, more than two months since 17 December 2001) giovanevenditore walking a Tunisian, Mohamed Buazizi, he gave fire to protest against the police, engaging the revolt that would invest the Arab world from Morocco to the Persian Gulf with the epicenters more disruptive nellastessaTunisia, Egypt, and finally, in Libya, well, since nobody can tell us who is prevailing, the duration of the game, such as weather can be risky. No answer turns out to be comprehensive and is almost automatic that the service acts scapegoat. As easy as probably wrong. Ever so much that if the most recent report to Parliament delSis, right at the first blow of the facts, merely a few lines (UIL Middle East remains a particularly sensitive balances which are further influenced by the tensions exploded in the nearby North Africa, where, from the epicenter of Tunisia, the social ferment and aspirations for change, amplified and shared on the web, have to contend with attempts to exploit key in Islam and the risk of placement of a terrorist nature '), nevertheless it has not No news of much more thorough analysis, even in the context of cooperation with other international service particular attention to this sector, such as by CiaoilMossad.Ven venture that the answer is no because there could be that accurate forecasts have not been developed as behind the explosion of mass protest is not acted identifiable groups involved in the implementation of revolutionary plans. So how is the rest of the hereafter in 1989 with the sudden fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse, almost without striking a blow for an 'implosion, not all domestic destinations, the communist regimes. History teaches that sometimes dictatorial systems that had governed Alung, oltrechesullarepressione on consensus populist, nationalist hatreds other, accumulate within them so much potential for protest, at some point, by any pre-ordained, this breaks in the form of a revolt. So OldMan century motto-"When the people awake, God puts his head, and lightning gives him"-you moltiplicagrazie the engines of global websites.
In fact, while the brilliant article by Nicholas Kristof forget some essential elements:
1 - All the great civilizations of the past have experienced a development phase, a peak and decline: a characteristic that they seem to share with the humans who produce them. Often the factors of decline are intrinsic to their model, but very often the same decline is due to external factors, both natural and human. The decline of the Roman greek culture that reached its climax in coincidence with the first century of the Roman Empire began with the devastating plague at the time of Emperor Marcus Aurelius led to a halving of the population and with it the emergence of property feudal land and almost paralysis system, commercial and industrial economy. A factor that then joined the so-called "barbarian invasions" and that the influx of ethnic groups in the territories of all bearers of culture in conflict with the values \u200b\u200bof Greco-Roman era, beginning with the great importance in the ancient world from slavery. The caliphs of the Islamic world, identified as the apogee of Islamic civilization, Middle East, received a mortal blow by the Mongol invasions of the thirteenth century and lasted for more than one hundred years. The vitality of Islam, however, was demonstrated by the fact that in subsequent centuries from the ruins of the great civilizations flourished Mongol invasions of the Ottoman Empire and the empire Mughal
(but do not forget that one of the most beautiful architectural complexes in the world flourished in the steppes of Central Asia by Timur and Timurid dynasty: Samarkand or want to forget?; 2 - One of the main factors of the extraordinary development of the so-called European or Western civilization was the so-called "primitive accumulation" built by the Spaniards through the looting and the total destruction of the great kingdoms of pre-Columbian America. The gold looted in the Americas for the pockets Bankers Flemish and English courses in the holds of ships, and especially the latter factor was to make possible takeoff of industrialization of the eighteenth century. Nor should one forget the inhuman level of exploitation that was imposed on the peoples of Europe starting from the so-called capitalism. Swap this element of "economic progress productive" growth in the level of civilization is rather risky. That is so wrong then I do not have the Muslim Brotherhood, who claim that the solution of problems existing in the countries of the Middle East and in all the world where Islam is dominant religion is Islam itself: it does not push the ' man to a kind of resignation to fate, but it encourages work, personal growth, and even the pursuit of wealth, provided that this does not happen starving the next and putting one hand the duties of solidarity and brotherhood that should govern relations between human beings.
a fundamental question: why did it take so long?
And another question, politically incorrect: the reason of the backwardness of the Middle East could be Islam? The sociologist Max Weber and other scholars argued that Islam, for its characteristics, does not lend itself to the development of a capitalist economy, and someone pointed out in particular the Islamic scruples against the loan interest. But it is a thesis that is not convincing. Other experts point out that Islam in some ways is more favorable to the company of other religions. The Prophet Muhammad was a successful merchant, and had much more sympathy for the rich than they had Jesus and the Middle East in the twelfth century was a center of global culture and commerce: If today Islam stifles free enterprise, because at that time not choking? As hostility to the loan interest, similar precepts are also found in Jewish and Christian texts, and what the Quran prohibits is not the interest itself, but the "riba", an extreme form of wear which can lead slavery to the insolvent debtor. Until the late eighteenth century in the Middle East, those who lent money to trade could be Muslims, Christians or Jews, without distinction. And now pay interest is common even in Most conservative Islamic countries. Many Arabs have an alternative theory on the reason of the backwardness of the region: Western colonialism. But an explanation is equally specious, and even inaccurate. "Despite all its drawbacks, the colonial period in the Middle East has brought stagnation, but important changes, did not lead spread of ignorance, but literacy and education, and has not brought impoverishment but an enrichment unprecedented ' Timur Kuran writes, economic historian at Duke University, a new test result of meticulous research, entitled The Long Divergence: How Islamic Law Held Back the Middle East ("The long divergence: the weight of law nell'arretratezza Islamic Middle East "). The book of Professor Kuran provides the best explanation for the delay of the Middle East. After a careful study of old business records, Kuran argues, convincingly, that the cause of the backwardness of the Middle East Islam is not in and of itself, and even colonialism, but a series of sub-legal practice of Islamic law, which today have totally lost relevance. It is a complex argument, it is impossible to bring in the limited space allowed by an article newspaper, but one of the grounds, for example, was given by hereditary right. The Western systems normally transfer all the properties in bulk to his eldest son, preserving the large estates. Islamic law was stipulated in a more equitable division of property (including a part that went to the daughters), but this resulted in a fragmentation of large estates. One consequence of this system was that there was an accumulation of private capital sufficient to support the investments needed to start an industrial revolution. Professor Kuran focuses also on the Islamic system of partnership, normally used as a vehicle for business. Partnerships Islamic melted every time one of the partners died, and then usually included only a small number of members, making them hard to withstand the competition of large corporations European industrial and financial, that they had behind hundreds of shareholders. The development of the banking sector in Europe brought down the long-term interest rates in the United Kingdom by two thirds, paving the way for the Industrial Revolution. In the Arab world this happened only with the colonial period. Such impediments in the traditional twenty-first century are no longer a problem. Muslim countries now have banks, corporations and stock and bond markets, and inheritance law is no longer an obstacle to capital accumulation. So, if the diagnosis of Professor Kuran is correct, the future should be rosy (and the booming economy of Turkey in recent years has shown the potential for a revival). But there a psychological problem. Many Arabs blame foreigners for their backwardness, and react by rejecting the modernity and the outside world. It is a disgrace that an area that once produced an extraordinary science and culture (giving us words like algebra) now have such low levels of education, especially with regard to girls. The crisis in the Arab world offers an opportunity for a fresh start. I hope there's a frank debate and without pretense, from all sides, about mistakes made, as a starting point for a new course and with better prospects. The Muslim Brothers have often used the slogan "Islam is the solution." And for the West, the perception unacknowledged, in front of the landscape depressing offered by the Middle East, often was: "Islam is the problem." The research of Professor Kuran suggests that the more correct view, at least for the future, is that Islam is not the problem nor the solution is simply a religion, and this means that the break is over, there are no more excuses and it is time to start moving forward again. (Translation by Fabio Galimberti). While we have no objection to the first article, we have substantial on the second which appears to marry the note in full view (and Eurocentric capitalisticocentrica) that the level of civilization and its dynamics of peoples and cultures is almost exclusively linked to the ability to refine production processes geared to the economic rule of capital accumulation. In other words, the article seems to argue that the degree of civilization and capitalist development of the economy are the same, and the Arab and Islamic peoples in general would be left behind because they have retained after the period of their maximum brightness, legal and economic instruments and immobility no driving force. Of course the argument is completely unacceptable, and the best proof of its inaccuracy is given by the intensity of the economic crisis not only that so-called capitalist globalization is forcing the whole of humanity, unless you want to consider "civilization" and culture as an economic system that allows less than 20 % of the world to use with no regard for the environment and the needs of others, not less than 80% of the resources produced in all the earth, which is a model of civilization that is based on the false assumption that the earth's resources are unlimited and reproducible.
In fact, while the brilliant article by Nicholas Kristof forget some essential elements:
1 - All the great civilizations of the past have experienced a development phase, a peak and decline: a characteristic that they seem to share with the humans who produce them. Often the factors of decline are intrinsic to their model, but very often the same decline is due to external factors, both natural and human. The decline of the Roman greek culture that reached its climax in coincidence with the first century of the Roman Empire began with the devastating plague at the time of Emperor Marcus Aurelius led to a halving of the population and with it the emergence of property feudal land and almost paralysis system, commercial and industrial economy. A factor that then joined the so-called "barbarian invasions" and that the influx of ethnic groups in the territories of all bearers of culture in conflict with the values \u200b\u200bof Greco-Roman era, beginning with the great importance in the ancient world from slavery. The caliphs of the Islamic world, identified as the apogee of Islamic civilization, Middle East, received a mortal blow by the Mongol invasions of the thirteenth century and lasted for more than one hundred years. The vitality of Islam, however, was demonstrated by the fact that in subsequent centuries from the ruins of the great civilizations flourished Mongol invasions of the Ottoman Empire and the empire Mughal
(but do not forget that one of the most beautiful architectural complexes in the world flourished in the steppes of Central Asia by Timur and Timurid dynasty: Samarkand or want to forget?; 2 - One of the main factors of the extraordinary development of the so-called European or Western civilization was the so-called "primitive accumulation" built by the Spaniards through the looting and the total destruction of the great kingdoms of pre-Columbian America. The gold looted in the Americas for the pockets Bankers Flemish and English courses in the holds of ships, and especially the latter factor was to make possible takeoff of industrialization of the eighteenth century. Nor should one forget the inhuman level of exploitation that was imposed on the peoples of Europe starting from the so-called capitalism. Swap this element of "economic progress productive" growth in the level of civilization is rather risky. That is so wrong then I do not have the Muslim Brotherhood, who claim that the solution of problems existing in the countries of the Middle East and in all the world where Islam is dominant religion is Islam itself: it does not push the ' man to a kind of resignation to fate, but it encourages work, personal growth, and even the pursuit of wealth, provided that this does not happen starving the next and putting one hand the duties of solidarity and brotherhood that should govern relations between human beings.
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