Comments on: Nepal, a harbinger of things to come

By: Jim Evans

Jim Evans — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 13:41:46 +0000

Mahmood, I share your hopes but not your optimism. This is not a peoples revolution. The Maoists have intimidated their way into power with indoctrination, bullying, abduction, extortion, assault and murder. Many villagers are terrified of getting on the wrong side of the local apparatchiks and their Maoist youth (or was that Hitler Youth) organisation, the YCL. Nepal badly needed reform but not at the price of having water supply cut off simply because villagers didn’t vote for the party. I really hope I am wrong.

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By: mahmood

mahmood — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 08:31:02 +0000

That’s a worry, to be sure Jim. But as we are looking into the future with a relatively blank page, the hope is they will grasp this opportunity and do good by their people. Their parliament is over 560 persons strong so I don’t think that the “leaders” would have that inordinate amount of sway on it. But time will tell and I hope they do good.

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By: Jim Evans

Jim Evans — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 06:56:50 +0000

Interesting comments in the thread but going back to your original congratulations to Nepal – not so sure. The Maoist leaders in Nepal – Prachanda and Bhattarai will be far less democratic than any monarchy once they get their feet under the table – I smell Mugabe. The King is dead long live the King(s)

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By: mahmood

mahmood — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 18:49:49 +0000

It’s not about sectarianism Tanya, what it is about is basic human rights.

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By: Tanya Degano

Tanya Degano — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 17:59:07 +0000

Democracy is not the best form of government…nor is it suitable or applicable to some cultures…monarchies will always be superior in some cultures…i don’t see where congratulations is due…but interesting article….i guess being a member of a group that believes it is discriminated against you would see the uprooting of a monarchy as a positive thing but please take the time to look around at all ur neighbours that have removed their monarchies…Egypt, Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran…they are ALL worse off now than they were before they became “republics”

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By: Non-Arab Arab

Non-Arab Arab — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 13:21:22 +0000

Top-level tokens such as Ahmed12 mentions are nice and all, but real change does require changes at the grassroots level. I’ll leave Bahrain specifics to you Mahmood, but in general the problem seems to be that while rulers in most countries will say nice “we are all one, kum-ba-ya” in public statements and to their Washington overlords, their practices on a more practical level involve turning people against each other, whether on a sectarian, class, political, regional, or other level. That way the president/king/great leader gets to have their cake and eat it too: they sound nice and “liberal” and “moderate” to Washington so that their guns, mercenaries, and money keep flowing to keep them in control, while they keep their own people too divided to actually get real reform flowing. Ideally the rulers would be more enlightened and actually help instead of hinder development of national and regional consciousness so that people’s creative abilities and enthusiasm would be channeled towards positive development (on all levels) instead of fighting each other and hanging on for dear life. But even in the absence of such good rule, I again argue that it is grassroots resistance to such divide and conquer which will be needed to really move things forward. We see the way sectarian-minded folk, aided by the ruling despots so long as they don’t get too strong, manage to organize, but this only worsens things. What is needed is boundary-crossing grassroots organizers to demand labor rights, human rights, political rights, fairer wealth distribution, etc. In an ideal world the “system” and the “masses” are both working towards those goals and peaceful evolution occurs. In reality, not just in the arab world but throughout the world and history, the masses generally need to go through a long struggle to wrench their rights from leaders one meager drop at a time.

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By: Ahmed12

Ahmed12 — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 04:32:47 +0000

It’s amazing how we live in extreme times. there are people who belittle the other sect, yet the King builds (in his own name as well!) a mosque for the main purpose of having 2 sects (actually all sects) of Islam to pray under one roof. There are also people that would die to be in the front-lines in Palestine killing Jews, yet the King has appointed female Jewish person to be Ambassador, not to forget him appointing a Shiite to Ambassador as well (China). I am really wondering how strong are the people’s toleration to this? Historically it has been the case in general sense in Bahrain, but will these acts make it last longer? That would tell you the lasting of a constitutional-monarchy system I would think. it’s a tough call considering UAE/SA/Qatar/Kuwait don’t have the chances in hell they would be flipping their political system anytime soon, considering on top the huge government reforms occurring for each country.

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By: mahmood

mahmood — Sat, 31 May 2008 08:45:30 +0000

Yes I think these new technologies do make a big difference, but maybe not as big as I initially thought. My thinking now that it may affect the people who do have access to higher education and of the bracket of society who can afford such avenue. Those in turn might trickle down that experience to those who can’t, especially when you consider that a very high percentage of those in the Arab and Muslim worlds are actually illiterate.

Could that (last part) be also the biggest factor in how the Muslim world is kept as we currently are? In that, “education” is given from the pulpit to illiterates?

A lot to think about, to be sure. In either way, I am convinced that exposing people to different cultures and teaching them to be tolerant of those cultures rather than judge them through their own circumstance will lead (is leading) to a new world order.

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By: Sam

Sam — Sat, 31 May 2008 06:43:00 +0000

No doubt communications have made a huge difference

ICT has been brought up quite a few times. I just thought Id would add to that and say that air transportation has equally made this world allot smaller.

We once used to sail the high sees for weeks on end to step foot on foreign land, experience new cultures, landscapes, and people. These very same personal discoveries now take a few hours! I think air transportation has massively influenced social development on a global scale.

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By: forzaq8

forzaq8 — Fri, 30 May 2008 21:17:25 +0000

i think the gulf countries are farther than you think

out of Qatar/Bahrain/Kuwait/Saudi/UAE
only Kuwait and Bahrain vote for a parliament , and the majority in those countries ( even you mahmood ) consider them to be dragging us down and away from the path

while UAE , Qatar have no parliament but are making huge strides , which is making more and more people less believing in democracy ( ever Saudi is making huge steps )

and if we look further than the gulf states , we see sryia , Lebanon , Egypt , Algeria and Tunis we can see how democracy is doing there ( yes i know these are considered dictatorship but for a lot of people they see them voting and practicing democracy )

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