The Arab Summer into Fall where all the leaves fall off the trees. CNN Link Talk about a cluster, even if it does keep an extremist group out of power.
Winter of Despair?? It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way
It's not going to be a pretty picture, particularly from a Western viewpoint. It's going to be a messy struggle among the kleptocracy folks, radical Islamists and people with values similar to ours. Raised to believe western ideals of freedom, democracy and openeness in government, it's pretty hard to envision an outcome like we had in America. Our government by the people and for the people was the product of an incredibly well-educated and thoughtful elite who could work at a relaxed pace not possible in the world of instantaneous communication.
Before you can have a democratic government, you need civilized people who can and will govern themselves. (The neocons don't get this.) If they can't, then you need a dictatorship to maintain order. If the people in these countries decide to emulate Turkey and be a civilized, moderate, Islamic nation, that's progress. If they reject that and embrace Islamic fundamentalism, then they'll go backwards and be governed by dictators at least as bad as what they overthrew.
You need an educated populace, including the women, or it will be...meet the new boss, same as the old boss...
MrD Turkey seems to be having its own struggle with islamists, I hope it can continue to hold the extremists off. One thing the islamist is is patient.
I agree. so far Turkey is as good as it gets. I think the lslamism is creeping over from other countries instead of democracy creeping out from Turkey I hate to see that and i imgaine most moderate turks do as well but can they stop it?
You need a small aristocracy that's willing to ignore the plight of the common people for a little while to try and put something together on paper. That's how we did it. In the age of immediacy and info=power, it's hard to accomplish this today.
