Christians, Muslims, Tribalism

How the Church engineered paganism out of Western Europeans and Christianity into them:
https://hbdchick.wordpress.com/2011/04/04/whatever-happened-to-european-tribes/


The rather impressive theological reasoning behind de-tribing the peoples:
https://hbdchick.wordpress.com/2011/06/26/st-augustine-and-st-thomas-aquinas/


Inbreeding in Christian countries vs. Muslim countries today (I commented on this one belatedly):
https://hbdchick.wordpress.com/2011/03/04/inbreeding-and-natl-iq/


It seems that the Arabs have infected most of the Muslim world with their form of tribalism, since Arabs always have had comparatively high status among Muslims and often were emulated. Consequent upon this, tribally organized societies have difficulty forming nation-states. Their peoples' loyalties are elsewise engaged: by strong family, clan, and tribal identities. Islam, being a warlike religion, does little in practice to counter this tendency and unite its adherents, except when opportunity arises for jihad against infidels. Such fine social subdivisions also diminish potential for commercial development: the wealthiest Islamic country lacking major oil resources is probably Turkey or Malaysia. Both have Mexican levels of per capita GDP, and only attain that height due to multiple special advantages. The Turks are at the crossroads between Europe and Asia, are NATO members, have some of the lowest inbreeding rates of Muslim nations, were unusually secular in their governance for 80 years, haven't fought a significant war is almost 100 years, and, until recently, were making aggressive efforts to gain admittance to the EU. The Malaysians have a large non-Muslim Chinese minority (20+%) who develop and sustain its commerce, enough oil/natural gas production to supply itself and do some exporting, a geographic position in a peaceful and rapidly growing part of the world, and a tradition of moderate Islamic beliefs.

The Muslim Revolts

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/30/sunday-review/the-arab-intellectuals-who-didnt-roar.html?pagewanted=1
The lack of ideology or even any plans strikes—but most revolutionaries past espoused notoriously unrealistic dogmas, and found a quick descent into self-protective pragmatics—that is, their “dogma” became “hold power at all costs.” More or less the same type of elites will retain power. They may approach management of the masses a bit differently.  

The Moroccan Way

There is an article today in the NY Times on the Moroccan strategy for handling incarcerated terrorists and radicals.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/31/world/africa/31prison.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

 

After reading it, though disgusted by the brutality of both sides, I considered that these terrorists are really a non-threat to the government of Morocco (and most other Islamic nations). In virtually every respect they are marginal types, lacking centralized, coordinated organization and competent leadership. Their relatively high profile is disproportionate to their limited power and absence of a coherent strategy to actually overthrow the King. Yet, they do exert some influence. The question is to what effect. From the government's perspective they're a chronic, but manageable, disease of the body politic. Further, it may be a disease that justifies more severe control over that body, the rest of which may then be pacified by the justification of "disease-control." Most of the Muslim world is a prison, one whose strictures are all the more defensible as a result of certain elements of resistance. In other words, these incompetent extremists (who appear by their actions, as opposed to their words, to be more like anarchists than theocrats) form a (witless) pillar of support for these dictatorial regimes. Anarchism is indeed a game at which the police can beat you. And if the dictators are happy enough to retain their power in despite of the forms of democracy available, the terrorists do not generally seem to view this as a less attractive state of affairs than a democratic option might offer--democratic government poses the threat that it might muster up such a degree of popular legitimacy as a dictator could not sustain in our time and thereby the more effectually block their theocratic ascendance. Thus, the two mortal enemies and the two most powerful forces in many Muslim nations conspire by disparate actions to thwart political and social liberalization.

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