A second battle also defines the Arabs

June 01, 2013 By Rami G. Khouri

The Daily Star

The conflict in Syria and the uprisings in Bahrain and other countries represent one of the two important battles underway in the Arab world, whose outcomes will largely determine the future shape of Arab political systems. The second battle is not about who rules in a country, but about the right of citizens to express themselves.

The battle for freedom of expression has been waged for decades in many Arab countries, but before the digital age the security-state, mind-control colonels could isolate and expatriate those views they did not like and that did not conform to official propaganda, while controlling most of the information that citizens obtained through available public media. The digital age changed this, and millions of citizens can now access news and views from thousands of sources on their cell phones and mobile computers, breaking the monopoly on news and ideas that governments once enjoyed……To Read More….

My Take – As I read this I was not surprised and yet.......I was a bit surprised.  Why?  Because this exposure to outside information was inevitable!  However, Paradigms and Demographics is being hit from all over the world now, including some Muslim dominated countries…..but not many and not often.  There are a number of things I began to notice as the rest of the world began to take notice of my blog.  I receive few….very few….hits from countries where poverty or tyranny dominate their citizens lives.

Poor people don’t surf the internet because the poor can’t afford it, and the oppressed aren’t allowed.  I get more hits from mainland China than I do from all the Arab Muslim countries combined.   It would be interesting to know how many hit the big sites like Drudge Report….or even Huffington Post receive a year from say….Somalia.   

What they are saying is true I’m sure, but not to the degree the author would have you believe…at least that’s my opinion.  Do I have any evidence of that?  None other than the way those people act.  They act like they are ignorant of anything except for what they have been told for centuries.  My assumption is that they must then be ignorant.  Let’s face it.  Most of the people in these Arab Muslim countries are impoverished and tyrannized and it seems to me they like it that way.  Why else would those who acquired the right to vote and choose their leaders turn around and choose those who promptly took that right away?  We need to understand this clearly.  It’s all about Islam.  As long as they’re thinking is so thoroughly dominated by an organization that teaches them to be criminally militant there will never be a change.