Quote:
Originally posted by RawAlex@Nov 18 2004, 07:50 PM
there has been a notble shift in the targets of their anger. It use to be themselves, between countries, groups, clans... now they appear to be uniting... and they have focused the anger.
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Same shit, different century. Really. Are you familiar with the history of the Middle East?
They were much more united under the Ottaman Empire than they are today. You expecting the Caliph to come back or something? Not going to happen. 1683, baby. East meets West. West wins. 250 years until she went bust. Hasn't been the same since.
Then there was pan-Arabism. Yeah, that turned out well. Now Nasser gave 'er a try but didn't get anywhere. Nasser assassinated. Saddat assassinated. And that was the high period this century of Middle East aspirations to reunite. And the Ayatollah Khomeini? Run Rushdie, run!
The Middle East uniting? What a joke. Half the Middle East sold out to the US letting us set up operations there to attack Iraq. Iran, Kuwait and Saudia Arabia hate Iraq. The Turks wanna kill the Kurds. The Kurds wanna form their own the state. The surrounding nations support Palestine but they all reject the refugees. None of them want the tired, poor huddled Palestinian masses. What gives?
Their modes of self-identification are too fragmented. Shiite or Sunni. Persian, Turkish, or Arab. Arabic, Farsi or Turkish. Egyptian, Iranian, Iraqi, Syrian, Jordanian, Saudi and so on.