Monday, April 25, 2011

The lack of a moral strategy for the Arabs

If you read the headlines of some articles it is of utmost importance that the rebels in Libya win. Never mind that they are hopelessly divided and have even been unable to govern the piece of Libya that they control.

I think we are bringing the wrong message with our support to armed resistance. As our support is a;most by default selective (we didn't support resistance in Bahrain or Saudi Arabia) it puts us in a hypocritical position. This undermines the moral power of the present wave of unrest in the Arab countries.

The core of the protests in the Arab countries is against corruption. So we should help expose this corruption. But neither on Libya nor on Syria I have read any article that highlights corruption. Instead we see articles that seem to claim if those countries become democratic corruption will somehow magically disappear. I think it is the other way around. As long as corruption is not attacked it will just contaminate the democracy and soon we will find that chosen politicians are just as corrupt as dictators. If on the other hand we highlight the corruption and other abuses of a regime it will feel compelled to do something about it and it will result in a higher moral standard. At some point these higher standards will make the step towards democracy just a next logical step.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Against corruption is good, but the best movements to support are those that are against forcing Islam on people (and are pro-secular) and are also against socialism and other forms of fascist rule.