A tous ceux qui auraient peur d'une montée de l'Islamisme à la suite des événements récents et en cours dans le monde arabe, écoutez donc la réponse de Béchir Labidi, Tunisien:
"Je comprends que la peur de l’Islam est un vrai problème. Mais derrière cette peur se cache surtout la peur du fanatisme et de l’extrémisme. Ce fanatisme et cet extrémisme ne sont que le résidu de la frustration et du mépris de l’Homme. La dignité sera le rempart contre tous les extrêmes.
Voila pourquoi, à mon sens, la révolution tunisienne remet les pendules à l’heure : c’est la liberté qui sera le garant de la stabilité et non la dictature."
Showing posts with label Middle East. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Middle East. Show all posts
Saturday, February 19, 2011
Sunday, January 18, 2009
The most powerful political idea of our time
"The European imperial powers withdrew from their colonies after World War II not because their armies were militarily defeated but because their armies could not secure the political objectives of maintaining imperial rule and legitimacy.
At play is a fundamental issue of politics. In the post-World War II era, after generations or centuries of colonial rule, the forces of nationalism and self-determination became irresistible in the developing countries. The idea that human dignity requires freedom from foreign occupation has become the most powerful political idea of our time. All of this was immeasurably strengthened by the spread of literacy, mass communications, and a modicum of economic development. Yet even as the United States has proclaimed its fundamental commitment to human freedom, it has disregarded its own anticolonial history and the basic facts of modern history. Thus, the United States substituted for France in Vietnam's struggle for independence, and could not understand that the Vietnamese were fighting a war of national liberation. The United States replaced Britain as the chief outside meddler in the Middle East oil states - Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia - but could not understand that every U.S. manipulation of local Middle East politics ignited powerful anticolonial antibodies.
President Bush imagines that the United States has liberated Iraq, but to the Iraqis the United States is yet one more occupying power, indeed one that has partnered with Britain, Iraq's original imperial power. Moreover, the United States has not tried to understand the roots of Arab views of Israel as a colonial imposition. While compromise is the only productive approach for both parties to the conflict, the Arab view reflects Arab nationalism and anticolonialism. For these reasons, military adventures such as the Iraq War are bound to fail [...]."
Jeffrey Sachs, Common Wealth, Economics for a crowded planet, chapter "Rethinking foreign policy".
At play is a fundamental issue of politics. In the post-World War II era, after generations or centuries of colonial rule, the forces of nationalism and self-determination became irresistible in the developing countries. The idea that human dignity requires freedom from foreign occupation has become the most powerful political idea of our time. All of this was immeasurably strengthened by the spread of literacy, mass communications, and a modicum of economic development. Yet even as the United States has proclaimed its fundamental commitment to human freedom, it has disregarded its own anticolonial history and the basic facts of modern history. Thus, the United States substituted for France in Vietnam's struggle for independence, and could not understand that the Vietnamese were fighting a war of national liberation. The United States replaced Britain as the chief outside meddler in the Middle East oil states - Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia - but could not understand that every U.S. manipulation of local Middle East politics ignited powerful anticolonial antibodies.
President Bush imagines that the United States has liberated Iraq, but to the Iraqis the United States is yet one more occupying power, indeed one that has partnered with Britain, Iraq's original imperial power. Moreover, the United States has not tried to understand the roots of Arab views of Israel as a colonial imposition. While compromise is the only productive approach for both parties to the conflict, the Arab view reflects Arab nationalism and anticolonialism. For these reasons, military adventures such as the Iraq War are bound to fail [...]."
Jeffrey Sachs, Common Wealth, Economics for a crowded planet, chapter "Rethinking foreign policy".
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