Originally Posted by
Husar
Well, if you can see it already, there is no need to extrapolate in the first place. That said, I don't think you can just extrapolate from Pakistan to any country and I'm not entirely sure what you see in Turkey. Yes, Erdogan has brought back some religious rules, but it mostly looks like measures to solidify his own power, whereas a lot of his supporters cite economic development as a key factor for their support. We can't even say for sure that the referendum that mgave him more power was actually democratically decided in his favor, given all the irrelegularities and downright undemocratic things that happened during it (counting of votes on unofficial ballots, threat of violence in polling stations, etc.).
What exactly are you referring to? I might just as well say the conditions that Monarchist imperials have created, led directly to the current state of violence and instability in much of Africa and the Middle East. During the Middle Ages and the Renaissance these places were quite like the rest of the world. Seemingly it was only in the past few decades since colonialism that Islam turned into this oppressive thing with terrorism and hatred. Why should that be more representative than the 800 years or so of more enlightened, "normal" Islam that preceeded it? And why did it become this way in the first place? If you're going to say it traces back to how Muhammad behaved, please explain why they seemingly forgot about that for hundreds of years.
Why did Christianity "settle in" and become "domesticated" and peaceful while parts of Islam turned more aggressive and angry? I would think it may have something to do with a more balanced distribution of power in the Middle Ages, that was overturned when Europeans, and by extension or continuation the USA, conquered large parts of the world and then continued to play world police there. No, you're not meant to be ashamed now, but it might mean that relations and moods may normalize again once we stop doing that. Which also leads me to the next part of your post.
Well, yeah, except that with quite a few of those "existing dictatorships", we were the ones who brought them to power or at the very least gave them weapons in the first place. As I said above, I agree somewhat though, that we should perhaps just stay out of the mess in some cases. Sometimes it may really be a damned if you do and damned if you don't thing. The biggest problem is most likely when these countries have ~50% educated, modern youths yearning for liberal democracy, and ~50% older, rural folks wanting tradition etc., who also support the current hardline government. The shift over time might be towards democracy, but until then the young educated people live in a terrible place and just want out. When I see that my country's politics are dictated by old folks who want no change, accept no argument, and are afraid of the boogeyman, some part of me also just wants out of here...
Either way, the first step would probably have to be fighting the perception that we only want to dictate them our terms behind the curtains. It's not that far-fetched when Saudi Arabia destroys any dissent with Western weapons or Saddam Hussein gasses Kurdish people with German chemicals.
And I'm really not sure whether playing liberator in other parts of the world is a better idea. Ask some Chileans about how thankful they are to the US for giving them the Chicago Boys to "liberate" them from socialism...
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