Arabs, Thomas Friedman and the ’iron fist’ | al-bab.com
▻http://al-bab.com/blog/2017/08/arabs-thomas-friedman-and-iron-fist
Nobody should be surprised when Arab countries fall apart because that, by and large, is how the state has been constructed – in the expectation that when citizens are presented with a binary choice between dictatorship and chaos they will acquiesce in the former for fear of the latter. As the French saying goes: Après moi le déluge.
The key here is to cut out the middle ground and ensure that other – less authoritarian – ways of running the country don’t become viable or seen as even potentially viable: keep the public disengaged from politics as far as possible, restrict civil society activity and treat free speech as subversion.
None of that means Arabs need a big stick or that they will always have to be ruled by one. But it does mean they haven’t been given a free choice or a fair chance to explore ways of managing their own affairs.
#enfin un article mainstream remarquable
