Saudi Shura Council Member schools youngster about Arab World failure

[Christians4LessGvt]

Saudi Shura Council Member Ibrahim Al-Buleihi:
"Progress for Arab and Islamic World Can Only Come from Western Civilization"
July 23, 2012

http://www.memritv.org/clip/en/3547.htm

[Plane]

Hey ! I like that guy.

I hope he survives.


I don't think he really made it clear that the caricter of a culture can be preserved in the midst of profound change.

Japan has taken from the West , everything they want , but it is still Japan.

[Christians4LessGvt]

Japan has taken from the West , everything they want , but it is still Japan.

He spoke about both Japan and China basically copying the West towards their prosperity,
but yes Plane he could have made it clearer they can remain who they are but adopt
pro-business, capitalism.....it can work ANYWHERE....and better than most collectivsm crap-ola!

[Plane]

  I think one of the things that frightens those who don't like us is "soft power".

  The USSR dies in a flood of jeans and rock music, they were relitivly modern.

  How do you think a guy feels stepping down from the 13th century to his son dancing like Michael Jackson?

  I don't think we can help it , just being ourselves , we will inspire emulation and irritation together.

  Are we going to have more or less problems as this relm grows more savvy and more educated?

[Xavier_Onassis]

The problem in Saudi Arabia is NOT collectivism, it is religious restrictions on all manner of stuff.

The UAE and Qatar have managed to keep the fundies from holding them back. Al Jazeera is the prime example of what is possible.

Things like TV have had both good and bad influences on our culture. Modernization is always a mixed blessing. But to reject it is worse than to adapt to its bad influences. Saudi men with access to Internet porn will surely become corrupted: many will become addicted and become unrepentant horn dogs. The Great God Horn is a powerful God indeed. Saudi women will eventually be able to drive and circulate in society as Western women do. The mullahs are entirely correct that Saudi society will be irrevocably changed by modern technology.

[Plane]

The problem in Saudi Arabia is NOT collectivism, it is religious restrictions on all manner of stuff.

I didn't mean to imply that it was.

The rest of your post I agree with.

I'll go take my tempreture now.

[Xavier_Onassis]

You said nothing about collectivism. C4 did.

Capitalism did not work at all in the Middle Ages, because lending money at interest was called usury, and the Church proclaimed that is was sinful. Socialism certainly worked better in China than in Russia, because collective labor for the common good (ie, all the peasants planting and harvesting all the rice (or wheat) as a team, rather than as individuals), was already an established and useful tradition.

It is basically the agricultural equivalent of an assembly line. It results in more labor getting done faster than individual planting, and of course, it means that the fields can be harvested in the same order, with the same number of days given over to growing the crop.
\
Mass production is a form of collectivism.

[Xavier_Onassis]

I think it is safe to say that the traditional Arab world cannot progress at the same pace as the rest of the world unless some traditions are abandoned. Women no longer have to fetch water, wash the clothes in the river and spend hours gathering firewood or shopping for food every day. They are not productive members of any traditional Arab society and as such cannot contribute to the advancement of that society. They are often uneducated as well.

Yemen spends 40% of its agricultural land and scarce water resources on the production of a narcotic plant called qat. People then spend 4 to 5 hours a day spaced out on qat. This explains why the standard of living in Yemen is low and why Yemen must import most of its food.

Of course, it is up to the Yemeni whether they would prefer to be poor and constantly spaced out or better fed and living longer lives in a consumer society. That is a value judgement that only they can make.