G Money <[email protected]> wrote: > > I need someone smarter than me to help put what is going on into some sort > of perspective/historical context. >
This happened in Iran in the late 70s and the revolution led to the current extremist regime. It happened in Egypt 30 or 40 years ago and I think it was Nasser that said "don't worry, there'll be elections, leave the streets" and then he killed all of the leaders of the uprising and you had a dictatorship. There are a few governments that have more extreme governments and are successful (e.g., singapore) but not many. And maybe indonesia is good example of a mostly democratic isalamist country (I think). The problem seems to be that there's not a great history of Islamic people choosing democracy. It's only when the dictator (e.g. Ataturk) demands secularism and democracy that it seems to work. Further I'd say this is a lot different than the Eastern European revolutions in the 90s in that there was no other choice than to go towards democracy (or even Russia). The history seems to be that Islamic groups choose autocratic Islamic governments when they're given the choice. The ONLY difference I can see this time is social media: people can easily see what others have (and what they themselves don't), however countries like Sinagpore and China seem to provide people with enough that they don't demand democracy. I think you always have to be hopeful that western democracy will result, but history seems to speak differently. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Order the Adobe Coldfusion Anthology now! http://www.amazon.com/Adobe-Coldfusion-Anthology/dp/1430272155/?tag=houseoffusion Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/message.cfm/messageid:334414 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/unsubscribe.cfm
