The Arab World: The Ilusion and the Truth

Oneofmany writes:

I wouldn’t compare the Arab states and Iran to the Western and Asian ones in terms of socialism or economics.The Arab peninsula has socialized food distribution and medicine paid for by high oil revenues to feed almost everyone but everything else is a joke. There is no real middle class, little economic activity derived from intellectual and artistic skills or interests, very little business and hobby types forging creative industry and small businesses, no political will to make upper and lower class interests work together. Your either a wealthy connected type who lives in segregated properties and developments with lavish imported architecture, food, cars, and toys or you live in the depressing spans of identical government housing blocks and work in an underpaid servicing job. Of course that’s not even counting the virtual slave labor they bring in from south east Asia and India. The West and Japan (as well as China to lesser degree) have far more fleshed out economies and social capital, a real middle class driven economy and far more opportunity to economically and socially advance. Also, if happiness and fulfillment mean anything than their certainly a bust in that area. Based on self reporting the Islamic world is the most miserable place on Earth outside of the poorest parts of Africa and Haiti.

These sort of comments are typically tossed about by those who hate Arabs such as Hindus and Jews. I am amazed you are parroting this stuff. This is not really true. Most Arab countries are pretty socialist. If the state doesn’t take care of it, the Islamic charities do. There is what you call socialized food distribution all over the region, including Iraq, Syria, Egypt and Palestine. All of North Africa has been pretty socialist for a long time now. All of Gulf is socialist for its citizens. North Africa and the Gulf have huge middle classes, as did Syria and Iraq. Lebanon has a vast middle class. Palestine is a mess, but the people are pretty middle class in behavior and outlook and further, horrific 3rd World slums do not exist. What passes for so-called poverty in the Arab World is really not so bad compared to the true poverty of Latin America, India, the Philippines, Indonesia, Africa. Everyone has a place to live and enough food to eat and generally education and medical care is available as is transportation. There are no homeless. Yemen is the only Arab state with a lot of real poverty and malnutrition but I do not understand that situation well. I believe that the state is broke too. Oligarchic neoliberal Libertarian laissez faire economies simply do not exist in the Arab World. They simply do not believe their fellow Arabs should go without food or medicine. You are wrong about businesses in the Arab World. In the Levant, Mesopotamia, and North Africa there are a vast number of small businesses and quite a few Arab-run large businesses too. Economies boom right along. I do not know much about the Gulf, but looking at Dubai, I would hardly say there is little business activity going on there. The slave labor in the Gulf is really the only real true poverty in the Arab World. I have known a number of folks from that area, male and female, from Morocco, Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, and Kuwait, and all of them were living pretty nice, rather middle class and happy lives. Arabs do not seem to be miserable type people. They like to enjoy life. I do not agree that Arabs are the most depressed people on Earth. Look over at Scandinavia or Russia for that. If you think this website is valuable to you, please consider a contribution to support the continuation of the site.

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0 thoughts on “The Arab World: The Ilusion and the Truth”

  1. Could you do a piece on what you think of Narendra “Genocide” Modi’s election win in India?

    1. Oh he won? OMG. India was a shithole and a hellhole before, but now it has truly gone to Hell for real. Indians can’t seem to do anything right. No matter what problems they have in their countries, all the Indians ever do is make things work. They never fix or solve anything. Basically a failed race.

      1. Great that the BJP won.. Atlast, Indians did the right thing by bringing the right man to power. Its been ages waiting for this to happen
        BJP will fix everything and emerge successful at the end of its tenure

        1. I agree modi would have his hands full when he comes to power, I guess he’s evolved as a person really, not to repeat his past mistakes, the dark past of muslim pogrom would still be lingering in his mind and he would very well be aware that it would follow him every where. Thats where i feel he would consciously take decisions to reach out to Muslims. I wouldn’t be surprised if some special packages are allowed to Muslims and lower castes( since Modi is one from the lower caste) in the forthcoming years. People may call it an attempt to polarize, flattery by BJP, let them call whatsoever as long as there’s communal harmony Modi would be able to deliver unlike previous dynasty regime. As i said earlier, it all depends on how close he keeps the RSS goons under check.

      2. Good news that Modi won because it is good to see dynastic rule being routed. The Gandi family has ruled India for many decades and what the hell have they done to fix the grinding poverty and malnutrition.
        A few bread crumbs thrown towards the poor in recent years doesn’t change the fact that for decades India’s elites showed apathy to outright hostility towards the poor.
        Modi has far more in common with the poor Muslim or Hindu or Christian than any Gandi, who are all foreigners with nothing in common with the vast majority of Indians.
        People pick on Modi for the riots in Gujarat but ignore the genocide committed by Indira Gandi against the poor with her eugenics sterilization programs of 7 million lower caste persons. Whatever the case of Muslims in India , it is still light years better than the case of Hindus and Christians in Pakistan, who are constantly under attack despite being a tiny minority. India has 200 million Muslims but Pakistan is resoundingly Muslim and still the Pakistanis are unrelenting in their hatred and genocide of Hindus and Christians.

        1. TQ pepperoncini… Hope modi tones down his hindu nationalism, keeps RSS away and concentrates on Development.. We dont need temples & mosques we need to eradicate filth, bring in development. Hope the BJP realizes it and steps forward..

        2. People wanted a change from pseudo secular, corrupt congress government just like when American people wanted a change from years of Bush misery. Modi winning augurs well for the lower caste section of the society and for India. It’s a great prize for standing the vitriol he received all these years and would inspire to work for the cause of downtrodden, BTW, I would love to see him keep a check on his aides who will probably land him up in trouble.

      3. I call it the ‘messiah effect’. The hindutwadis are desperate and looking for a messiah, so the BJP created one and the scheme works.
        1)Short term euphoria
        2)Medium term they’ll face the same music:A large caste ridden poor country. If they try doing everything at once, the already high inflation rate will shoot up.
        3)Long term,you guess is as good as mine

        1. India’s best solution is to turn back to Buddhism. Restoration of Buddhism in India will calm the Hindu arrogance, rid of Muslim violence and begin an era of a caste free society. India should have traded Hinduism, to keep Buddhism, its greatest jewel. Or another solution is to go socialist and follow the foot steps of China and other socialist countries. Otherwise, India is fated to repeat another painful history lesson.

        2. Congress has fooled around people for 10 long years, none of the promised things were fulfilled all people got was one corruption after the other, Tainted Netas surpassing each other in looting country’s property so its clearly the anti-incumbency factor that worked in favour of Modi. Not because of people looking for Messiah..

  2. Now back to the the Gulf States ,
    The oil rich Gulf States are National Socialist, not Socialist. Yes they do have lots of benefits for the locals but the society is brutally Capitalistic for everyone else. So it can’t really be considered Socialist because the Socialist policies are ONLY for the local Arabs.
    The Oil rich Gulf states are a lot like Colonial era Western nations, in that they practice no holds barred Capitalism with little to no: worker rights , human rights, civil liberties and enviromental rights.
    Blue collar workers who are all migrants from Africa,South Asia and South East Asia are not treated like human beings. A Socialist society takes care of all its inhabitants especially the working class.

    1. This seems to be a true analysis. When you look at the numbers of slaves in these states (who outnumber the locals) it does indeed look like a colonial western style set up. National and international socialism are world’s apart but of course related. Nazi is just a shorten form of Nation Socialist. It was god send to the social engineers such as emigrants from Germany who fled the Nazis and arrived in the US, as it got that troublesome word out of the name; but us Turd world (my magazine) statisticians of shit are not so easily fooled.
      When I was younger I met an Arab guy. I was about five at the time and I asked him about the shit statistics in his country. He said his country did not do stats on shit. I was shocked. Even now there is not enough focus on shit. Even today Dubai has a sewage problem. Not enough spent on the sewage infrastructure and too much spent on glass towers to impress and so the sewage ends up on the beach.
      So the arab states need a healthy focus on shit and a healthy focus on slavery. They need to end slavery and have ways of dealing with the shit produced by the ex slaves and by the locals. Go Arabs! Go International Socialist (Trotsky) and leave behind the national socialism. Get your shit together.

  3. From Pranav
    “TQ pepperoncini… Hope modi tones down his hindu nationalism, keeps RSS away and concentrates on Development.. We dont need temples & mosques we need to eradicate filth, bring in development. Hope the BJP realizes it and steps forward..”
    Less Temples and less Mosques the better. Such an utter waste of resources to build places of worship when there are hundreds of millions destitute. A gross humanitarian crime. Temples only benefit the priests .
    Now that Modi has won, hope he subtly gives the middle finger to the RSS/VHP/Hindutva elites and intelligensia .

    1. You said it right man,,, Its good to see a man from a lower section of a society come up. Hope he makes the most of it for his kind

      1. The one thing I like about the building of temples and monasteries is the use of Indian architecture. Even I have to admit that Indian architecture is quite beautiful. However, now is not the time for Indians to spend their money on religious sites. Now, they must move towards helping those disadvantaged.

  4. I’m pro capitalist but feel that the most capitalist and individualist people left those countries in the late 1800s and early 1900s to build capital in the Western hemisphere. They were often the upper class merchants and more educated and richer than the people they surrounded.
    They also had a higher intelligence level as well. The descendants of these people are very fiscally to the right. They don’t believe in sharing with takers and don’t feel unity with families less educated than them. In fact, they look down on uneducated families and think they are the trash of the region they left years before.

      1. Countries such as the USA and also in various countries in Latin America. Most of them came from the educated classes of the Levant and were often although not always Christians.

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