Middle East Politics

2cents said:
Just a small example of how the out of the control population boom helped fuel the Islamization of Egyptian society.
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Very interesting. Egypt is a fascinating country yet it's rarely discussed.

Very interesting seeing the back and forth on Pakistan society too.
 
Adisa said:
Not middle East but Nigeria is bearing the results of this now.
40m in 1950
200m+ now.
Our public sector has for all intents and purposes, collapsed.
We're just lucky our private sector is a little more robust.
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I was looking at forecasted populations for 2030 last week and was surprised with how quickly Nigeria is going to expand. I was shocked to see Nigeria overtake Bangladesh in the space of a decade but by 2030 the population will be closer to 260mil:eek: That's astounding but in a way very expected due to inoculations / immunisations and the superior quality of healthcare compared to the mid 20th century.
 
RedTiger said:
I was looking at forecasted populations for 2030 last week and was surprised with how quickly Nigeria is going to expand. I was shocked to see Nigeria overtake Bangladesh in the space of a decade but by 2030 the population will be closer to 260mil:eek: That's astounding but in a way very expected due to inoculations / immunisations and the superior quality of healthcare compared to the mid 20th century.
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Very true.
The huge drop in child mortality rate is the biggest factor in population growth.
The government hasn't even suggested the population is a problem do because they don't care or for cultural reasons.
Lagos, a city smaller than London in terms of area, has a population of 21m and is protected to double in the next three decades.
I think it's a crisis.
 
Adisa said:
Very true.
The huge drop in child mortality rate is the biggest factor in population growth.
The government hasn't even suggested the population is a problem do because they don't care or for cultural reasons.
Lagos, a city smaller than London in terms of area, has a population of 21m and is protected to double in the next three decades.
I think it's a crisis.
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The next 30 years could be absolutely horrendous in terms of global famine. Unpredictable weather patterns, resulting in unpredictable crop yields. Exploding population. The hardest hit areas will be places that rely on a lot of imported grain.
 
Adisa said:
Very true.
The huge drop in child mortality rate is the biggest factor in population growth.
The government hasn't even suggested the population is a problem do because they don't care or for cultural reasons.
Lagos, a city smaller than London in terms of area, has a population of 21m and is protected to double in the next three decades.
I think it's a crisis.
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Thankfully population pressure and a very young population leads to a drop in the fertility rate, Bangladesh has gone from a fertility rate of 5 to around 2.2 in the space of 30years. Bangladesh's pressing problem is a lack of living space with a density that is only beaten by Singapore, Hong Kong and Macau.

I think places like Nigeria and DRC will eventually correct it's high birthrate but at least you've still got overall density on your side .
 
RedTiger said:
Which pundit do you consider to be a neutral arbiter in this subject?
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To be honest, I think there are very few people who I would consider neutral arbiters in this subject (or surely most subjects).

Those who have the inclination to comment on Iran/Saudi, Egypt, Palestine/ Israel, Syria, Lebanon, the Iranian nuclear question etc etc etc often do so because they have a dog in the fight in some way or another. At the very least, they will have biases built up through their upbringings, experiences and what not.

Both on this forum and in general life, I can often tell exactly what religion/ nationality someone is by their opinions on some of the subjects above. Or at the very least, their general outlook on political matters (ie a supporter of the current status quo with the USA as enforcer or conversely someone who despises the American agenda so much that they immediately take up any position contrary to the official US position).

Whether I think they are right or wrong is of course a different matter but pretty much everyone brings their biases in.

The only exception to that on here is, imo, @2cents . He posts on these topics using actual fact, actual knowledge and without any real hint of where he is from or what his own beliefs may be. Which I think is no mean feat in this region.
 
Grinner said:
Egypt is a fascinating country yet it's rarely discussed
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Yeah, for demographic and geographic reasons the political culture there tends not to be as volatile as, say, Syria or Iraq, but it's the most important Arab state and in many ways the trend-setter for the region.

africanspur said:
The only exception to that on here is, imo, @2cents . He posts on these topics using actual fact, actual knowledge and without any real hint of where he is from or what his own beliefs may be. Which I think is no mean feat in this region.
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Nice of you to say that, I definitely have my own biases though which need keeping in check, I lived in Israel for a couple of years and have a lot of fondness for it in many respects, and also come from a typical secular-type Western background which maybe makes me a bit overly critical at times of the role of Islam (or what Islamists have made of it) in the politics of the region.
 
2cents said:
Nice of you to say that, I definitely have my own biases though which need keeping in check, I lived in Israel for a couple of years and have a lot of fondness for it in many respects, and also come from a typical secular-type Western background which maybe makes me a bit overly critical at times of the role of Islam (or what Islamists have made of it) in the politics of the region.
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But conversely you've also seemed to have spent a lot of time in the company of various different sects of Islam, even in a religious setting.

You're a very peculiar but very interesting individual.
 
2cents said:
Yeah, for demographic and geographic reasons the political culture there tends not to be as volatile as, say, Syria or Iraq, but it's the most important Arab state and in many ways the trend-setter for the region.



Nice of you to say that, I definitely have my own biases though which need keeping in check, I lived in Israel for a couple of years and have a lot of fondness for it in many respects, and also come from a typical secular-type Western background which maybe makes me a bit overly critical at times of the role of Islam (or what Islamists have made of it) in the politics of the region.
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Would things have been different if the West had supported Nasser? I can't really remember if this was even a viable option at the time.
 
Aboutreika18 said:
But conversely you've also seemed to have spent a lot of time in the company of various different sects of Islam, even in a religious setting.
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Yeah, but I try not to equate 'Islam' - and the limitless range of ritualistic, artistic, legalistic, theological and philosophical traditions which have been expressed in its name throughout history - with the narrow modern political ideology of 'Islamism' which owes as much (or maybe more) to 20th century totalitarianism and the general alienating effect of the modern world than to anything in the Islamic historical tradition.

You're a very peculiar but very interesting individual.
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Ha, thanks!
 
Grinner said:
Would things have been different if the West had supported Nasser? I can't really remember if this was even a viable option at the time.
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That's one of the big historiographical questions of that period. I dont think an American alliance with Nasser was possible while maintaining the alliance with Israel. I'm doubtful it would have been possible even without the Israel factor - there were certain wider trends going on in the third/non-aligned world at that time which maybe inevitably pushed Egypt toward the Soviet camp (although they didn't go all the way into that camp until after the 67 war) - the wave of populism that gave Nasser his legitimacy required the adoption of nationalisation policies, land reform and a general anti-imperialist posture, all incompatible with American interests and always going to make him more receptive to Moscow.

In any case, while it might be argued that the Soviet-supported 'secular' regimes in Egypt, Iraq, Syria, Algeria and later Libya and South Yemen turned into nastier police states than the Western-backed monarchies, they probably achieved slightly better results (however briefly ultimately) when it came to things like land redistribution and women's rights - but in general, all the states whether in the Western, Soviet or non-aligned camps have shared a very similar set of problems.
 
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The West really fecked up the post-war nationalism wave. So many countries that are problematic today. But then again, can it be argued that the West's policy did lead to the demise of the USSR in part? Domino theory makes some sense to me. But preventing it with war instead of economic support was the wrong approach.
 
@2cents

U.S. President Donald Trump's incoming national security adviser John Bolton linked the terrorist People's Protection Units (YPG) in Syria to the PKK terrorist group in Turkey, by admitting that the United States executed an "inadequate strategy" supporting Kurdish forces, who were actually "allied with a Marxist Kurdish group inside Turkey" to defeat the Daesh terrorist organization.

Appearing on Fox News on March 14, Bolton was asked about the U.S. supporting groups in Syria, such as the terrorist YPG which is the armed group of the Democratic Union Party (PYD), also known as the Syrian affiliate of the PKK.

"This is, I think, part of the inadequate strategy from [Barack] Obama that unfortunately the Trump administration continued," said Bolton, a former U.S. ambassador to the UN.

"We supported the Kurds, we supported the Iraqi government … to defeat Daesh," Bolton continued. "But what we didn't adequately recognize is that these particular Kurdish forces are allied with a Marxist Kurdish group inside Turkey, that the Turkish government has been fighting for many years," he said
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These two may be related:



 
https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/israeli-drone-crashes-in-southern-lebanon-1.5962549
Israeli drone crashes in southern Lebanon

Ok guys, grab the wreckage and straight to the UN.
“Do you recognize this Mr Netanyahu?”

benjamin-netanyahu.jpg
 
Israel has done a good job of muddying the debate by equating criticism of the state/Zionism with anti-Semitism.
I don't know of any case in human history where the promise of peace has come before the promise of freedom.
 
Adisa said:
Israel has done a good job of muddying the debate by equating criticism of the state/Zionism with anti-Semitism.
I don't know of any case in human history where the promise of peace has come before the promise of freedom.
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It's the classic defense mechanism of the oppressing regime.

Oppressors whining about being oppressed while doing the oppressing.
 
Even if they want to use the argument that protesters who appeared harmless could have been dangerous, we've seen plenty of riots/clashes in other countries where that's been the case and the police have been able to avoid resorting to murder.
 
Chairman Woodie said:
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I opened the story to read and was greeted by this in the sidebar
Hours after announcing it, Netanyahu suspends deal to let 16,000 migrants stay
Buckling under criticism, PM says he hears 'residents of south Tel Aviv,' will only reexamine agreement after consultations with them and interior minister
:lol:

Edit - the twitter comments were very interesting as well. Is that specific to the paper's audience or a more general feeling?
 
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