The Sand Wall. There are still two other walls holding back the explosion of freedom in the Arab East. By Thomas L. Friedman. [New York Times: Opinion]
America was not just at war with Saddam, but with Saddamism: an entrenched Arab mind-set, born of years of colonialism and humiliation, that insists that upholding Arab dignity and nationalism by defying the West is more important than freedom, democracy and modernization.
Bingo.
Cultures are like people. We can focus on the life we choose or the one we don’t have; on what we do to create our life or on what others do to keep us from it. (Or, in this case, on the defeats at the hands of 19th & 20th century colonialism or the cultural and intellectual splendor of Islam’s golden age.)
