The Commentator Advertise on this site * ABOUT US * SUBMISSIONS * ONLINE SHOP * SUPPORT * STAY UPDATED * CONTACT * [btn_rss.png] ____________________ Submit Feb 3, 2012 IFRAME: http://s1.rsspump.com/rss.aspx?s=98c30c52-fa3d-40eb-80c5-2afcf90157fd&s peed=2&t=0&d=0&u=0&p=1&b=0&ic=8&font=arial&fontsize=12px&bgcolor=&color =000000&type=fade&su=1&sub=1&sw=0 news widget IFRAME: http://www.facebook.com/plugins/like.php?href=http%3a%2f%2fwww.facebook .com%2fthecommentatorcom&send=false&layout=button_count&width=80&show_f aces=false&font=arial&action=like&colorscheme=light&font&height=24 IFRAME: http://platform.twitter.com/widgets/follow_button.html?screen_name=comm entatorintl ARTICLE Talk of the “Arab Spring” just shows the West’s ignorance The “Arab Spring” is named after the “Prague Spring” which ended not in freedom but in the Soviet invasion. Are we really this stupid? Plaque for the Velvet Revolution Plaque for the Velvet Revolution Robin Shepherd, Owner / Publisher By Robin Shepherd on 27 May 2011 at 9am total rating of 4.78 Sponsored Message: Support The Commentator All right. First an admission, second an excuse, third a bit of a rant, and only then the serious stuff. So here goes. Yes, I’ve done it too. Like everyone else, I have found myself referring to the turmoil sweeping the Arab world as the “Arab Spring”. Only once, I think, and my real excuse is that when all around you are talking ahistorical nonsense, it’s easy to slip into error yourself. As a political culture, as journalists, as analysts, as pundits, are we really this stupid? Isn’t there anyone out there to put up their hand, call a time-out and say: “You know, ladies and gents, there’s a risk here of us making fools of ourselves. You do realise that the Prague Spring took place in 1968, not 1989 – that was the Velvet Revolution – and that it ended with the Soviet invasion and the reestablishment of totalitarian rule, not freedom and democracy?” Watching the BBC this morning there was even some clown referring to talk of a “Marshall Plan” for the “Arab Spring” countries at the G8 conference in France. But the Marshall Plan got going two decades before the Prague Spring, and it didn’t apply to the eastern bloc, ie. not Czechoslovakia, anyway. Have these people had their brains removed? If, as a culture, we can’t get basic historical reference points right even about Europe, if we’re choosing as a shorthand to express our hope and belief in the final flowering of democracy against a backdrop of tyranny something which ended in the precise opposite, if we can’t even show clarity on the difference between 1968 and 1989 – two of the most significant years in modern European history – what hope is there of us saying anything remotely sensible about events in the Middle East? In this particular case, the dumbing down of our political discourse does have an at least partial explanation. The pathological obsession over the last decade with one small country in the eastern Mediterranean, the State of Israel, has left us in a state of unawareness about most of the rest of the region. Labouring under the (now plainly false) assumption that everything of any importance in that part of the world really came down to what Israel did with the Palestinians, we placed ourselves in a condition of self-imposed ignorance. Worse, due to a combination of a new mutation of anti-Semitism and a whole set of hang-ups related to post-colonial guilt, the bulk of Britain’s foreign policy establishment and media has spent much of its time sanitising an Arab political culture which, the evidence suggests, is to a significant extent in the grip of pre-modern bigotry, superstition, and the cult of the strongman leader. The evidence suggests that, really? Yes it does. Remember Lara Logan, the CBS reporter who was subjected to a brutal and sustained sexual assault in Cairo’s Tahrir Square in February. That wasn’t by a lone predator in a dark alley, it was by a mob of 300 men screaming “Jew!”, “Jew!” “Jew!” at her in the very heart of the Arab world’s “democratic revolution”. I don’t remember anything like that happening in Prague or Berlin in 1989. Do you? A survey by Pew in 2006 found that 97 percent of Egyptians and 98 percent of Jordanians openly admitted to negative attitudes towards Jews. I realise that anti-Semitism is not regarded as much of an issue by the Western political intelligentsia these days – it’s almost always ignored or excused by the BBC and the British Foreign Office for example. So, for a moral equivalent, imagine if Egyptians and Jordanians were confessing to similar hostility to black people. Would that give you confidence that the Arab world is in prime position to build a successful civil society in the manner of central and eastern Europe in the 1990s? I can’t prove the point about the strongman leader with evidence that is anything other than anecdotal. All I can say is that the complaint about their leaders made by most of the Arabs I have been talking to in recent years is that they’re too weak, that they’re not aggressive enough against Israel and the Jews, and that they’re little better than poodles of the United States. I know central and eastern Europe very well, and, again, I just don’t remember this political-cultural template from those parts of the formerly communist world that have made successful transitions to democracy. Of course, I don’t know for sure what’s going to happen in the Middle East. Maybe it'll be good, maybe it'll be bad, or maybe it'll be something in between. Like everyone else, I hope it ends up smelling of roses. But it is surely the role of analysts and journalists to point up the risk factors rather than submerge them under ahistorical platitudes of the kind we are now being served up with. The “Arab Spring” indeed… Robin Shepherd is owner/publisher of The Commentator. Follow on twitter @RobinShepherd1 Tags: Arab Spring, Egypt, Jordan, Robin Shepherd, prague spring, the commentator, velvet revolution Print COMMENTS (12) [add_comment.png] JIll says: 27 May 2011 Robin, good points all, but a bit similar to K.Myrs piece in the Irish Independent, which means that there are at least TWO commentators using their brains!! Add Sultan Knish in the States and we've covered the top half of the world!;) gary ashton says: 28 May 2011 very good point robin. i saw her interview which was very shocking. i can't understand how the general media downplay her story and the fact the average man on the arab street thought she was a jew. it's anti semitism by proxy, if they think you're a jew and a woman they will rape you. come on world wake up! israel is surrounded by these people and peace process or not whatever land israel returns will be used to fire missiles into what's left of israel, and the worlds governments will carry on saying, don't defend yourself, show restraint, trade more of your land.' no matter what people may think history repeats itself over and over and we fail to learn Old Nick Heavenly says: 28 May 2011 " my real excuse is that when all around you......... political culture, as journalists, as analysts, as pundits, are we really this stupid? Have these people had their brains removed? OH YES INDEED! " what hope is there of us saying anything remotely sensible " SLIM, very slim! But you succeeded anyway, and you did not use that stupid phrase 'going forwards', an impossibility cos it is always NOW! Ruth Adele says: 28 May 2011 How ridiculous is the Arab Spring. Walid Phares' brilliant book "Future Jihad" and Ed Husain's book "The Islamist" explain the Muslim Brotherhood et al's aspirations for taking over the governments of the Middle East to make them more Islamist. Egypt has already opened its borders to Hamas and Iran in Gaza. What a liar Obama is, also, talking up the democracy movements in the 'Arab Spring' when he is the one who invited MB members to his Cairo speech and sold out Mubarak. Since Logan there have been other sexual assaults, only this time they were by the police against pro-democracy activists. Denis MacEoin says: 29 May 2011 You are quite right to uncover the reality that lies underneath this much-hyped 'Spring'. The media have already forgotten that revolutions were suppressed in Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia, and that other countries like Bahrain and Yemen may not succeed in overthrowing their leaders, and that other dictatorships in the ME have not faced any serious challenge. In other words, the deep-seated social norms of 'asabiyya or a love of theocratic rule may yet prove stronger than a desire for democracy. The Libertarian says: 29 May 2011 I wonder of the term "Arab Winter" will be coined by the left wing politicians and media when it all degenerates into a Muslim Brotherhood dictatorship. I suspect not. I spent my early career working in the Middle East and I have an insight into Arab thinking. I believe that things will workout badly for the West Another Joshua says: 29 May 2011 In March you wrote apiece on your blog page: "Understanding the MidEast revolutions: Hope for democracy; plan for something worse." There is nothing wrong in harbouring a hope. Predicting the worst is easy. While you admirably live in the real world, many of your colleagues do not.A friend who had recently returned from Egypt told me :"You can smell the freedom." That is as far as it will go. A smell. Paul Freeman says: 29 May 2011 "due to a combination of a new mutation of anti-Semitism and a whole set of hang-ups related to post-colonial guilt, the bulk of Britain’s foreign policy establishment and media has spent much of its time sanitising an Arab political culture" Perhaps, but if Bat Ye'or is correct, both the new antisemitism and the sanitising of Arab culture are functions of the Eurabian project, and the one is not the cause of the other. I would be very interested to know, Robin, what you think of her views. They appear to explain so much of contemporary European irrationality and cultural suicide and deserve a wider audience. Okey says: 30 May 2011 Robin Shepherd has quite accurately pointed out the tyranny of seductive semantics in popular journalism and in politics. Specifically, his comments relate to the "Arab spring"; another glaring example of the misleading nature of such catch-phrases is "the peace process" in the Middle East. Obviously it will not be until AFTER peace has been achieved that we will know whether it had been a "peace" process or just a farce. Mel says: 25 June 2011 Your rant overlooks an important issue Robin. The idea of a democratic 'Spring' originated before the Prague Spring of 1968 and goes back at least to the 19th century revolutions of 1848 which, while also for the most part (though not entirely) unsuccessful, shared the ideas of popular uprising to promote certain principles. They also share the idea of a reactionary authoritarian government as the object of demonstration. The basic concept of 'Spring' obviously assumes that the season will mature into something else; I would argue that the label 'Arab Spring' shows a level of political maturity in understanding that we do not know what the consequences of the current movement will be. DP111 says: 23 August 2011 Arab Spring? More like winter for Jews and Christians, and gays and women. Rob Weatherill says: 11 November 2011 I like the clarity of the term (attributed to liberal Haaretz commentator, Bradley Burston), "Genocidal caucus", used to describe a movement that is gathering pace in the Western media, confidently, proudly and righteously asserting the progressive de-legitimisation of Israel, code for Holocaust Two. It should remind us of 'Hitler's will exeecutioners' and the mobilisation of ordinary folk to contemplate and finally carry-out extraordinary criminal violence en masse. For instance, in this deceent country (Ireland)it is quite commonplace to hear glib talk among ordinary liberal people to the effect that 'Israel must go'. You will not find a mainstream commentator (apart from the honourable Kevin Myers) who takes a different view. And when you say that this amounts to a genocide, the reply from the same ordinary folk is, so what? They had it coming to them! Add Comment ____________________ Name (required) ____________________ Mail (will not be published) (required) ____________________ Website ________________________________________ ________________________________________ ________________________________________ ________________________________________ ________________________________________ Please enter the following numbers (required) (bots protection) ____________________ [captcha?1328287027] [add_comment.png]-Submit Your e-mail address will not be displayed on the website. Comments will be reviewed before posted on the website. 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