Saturday, September 21, 2019

Twitter: AOC, Yang, Climate Strike, Pete, Slack, Hong Kong, Greta, Trump

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Friday, September 20, 2019

How Will Democracy Come To The Arab Countries?

While we are on the topic of China is an excellent time also to talk about Arab countries. How will democracy come to Arab countries? Most of them are monarchies.

There is the Bhutan way where the monarch decides he has been king long enough. Now he should choose to become a constitutional monarch and let an elected parliament run the show. That is the least disruptive path for all parties concerned. The people get their rule. The monarchs keep their wealth and respect. Although it should be noted, some of these royal things have obscene amounts of wealth. Nobody really needs that much money.

They should pay a generous wealth tax.

But this option does not seem on the horizon. I don't know of any monarch who is considering it.

But the current arrangements are inherently unsustainable. They will not go on forever.

2010: Bridging the Gulf: Bahrain's big experiment with democracy Though more liberal than its neighbours, the country is feeling the impact of political Islam. ........ Saudi Arabia. The two countries are linked by a 16-mile toll road, the King Fahd Causeway, but Khadija would not be welcome on the Saudi side where women are not allowed to drive even private cars. In Manama City, she bowls around in a stylish white London taxi, wearing a black hijab and grasping the steering wheel with white gloves........... worried about being cheated. "They pay or I drive on," she says bluntly........ "One hundred per cent of the male drivers see her as a threat" ........ a modernising experiment which was begun by the royal family a decade ago. ....... Eight years ago, Bahrain underwent a startling transition from an absolute to a constitutional monarchy; this archipelago with a population of around a million people is still getting used to political campaigns and four-yearly parliamentary elections. It's an experiment that has some limitations: political parties are not allowed and most candidates belong to political "societies" which function like parties in all but name. Ministers are appointed by the King and after the 2006 elections just over half the cabinet were relatives of the royal family; the long-serving Prime Minister, Sheikh Khalifa bin Salman al-Khalifa, is his uncle........ But while the royal family retains a great deal of power, political exiles have been allowed to return home, newspapers have more freedom than in most Middle Eastern states, and there has been a concerted attempt to give women more rights......... It's a standing joke that wealthy Saudis barrel across the King Fahd Causeway in gas-guzzling limousines, eager to enjoy the bars and casinos that are banned in their own country......... Bahrain has a history stretching back several thousand years. The glass-and-steel towers of Manama City are joined by another causeway to the old capital, Muharraq, where wood-shuttered pearl merchants' homes are being turned into museums. Bahrain Fort is a restored 15th-century complex at the northern tip of the archipelago, near Bahrain airport, but the site on which it stands has been occupied for almost 2,500 years. What looks like a set from Lawrence of Arabia was once the capital of the Dilmun, one of the most important ancient civilisations in the region........... Bahrain's pearl-fishing industry, which fell into disuse when oil was discovered in 1931. ........ The Khalifa family has ruled Bahrain since the 18th century and the present king, 60-year-old Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa, has been in power since the death of his father in 1999. As in many Muslim countries, the ruling family follows a different branch of Islam from the majority of the population; the Khalifas are Sunni, while most Bahrainis are Shia. It's hard to believe that this wasn't a factor in the King's decision to start introducing political reforms, and the success of Islamist "societies" in parliamentary elections has exposed – and thus far contained – profound underlying tensions. Official briefings are at pains to characterise the royal family's modernisation programme as the result of "a genuine benevolent attitude towards citizens", but the government has benefited enormously from its support for the US during the Iraq and Afghan wars............ In 2002, the results of the first parliamentary elections in Bahrain were ominous for secular politicians: the elected lower house was immediately dominated by Islamist parties and not a single woman candidate was elected. The same thing happened in 2006, when the Al-Wefaq National Islamic Society took almost half of the 40 seats, although on that occasion one woman was successful.......... Dr Salah Ali, a former political exile who now chairs the Al-Menbar Islamic Society, a Sunni group which has seven seats in the lower house and is widely believed to have close links with the Muslim Brotherhood.......... there has been a ferocious campaign by Islamists in the lower house to ban alcohol in Bahrain ........ Mohammed Khalid, an outspoken MP from the Al-Menbar Society, who has made a name for himself as an opponent of anything he regards as un-Islamic. Mr Khalid embarrassed the government when he hailed terrorists fighting American forces in Iraq as "heroes"........... Diplomatic and business sources confirm that Bahrain is under pressure from political Islam, suggesting that the Shia parties in the lower house are worryingly close to Iran. That isn't much comfort to Bahrain's small Jewish population, although the government is fighting back; this is the only Arab nation in the world whose current ambassador to Washington, Houda Noono, is a Jewish woman........... One of the ironies of Bahrain's democratic experiment is that it depends on the unelected upper chamber, the consultative council (Shura), to defend the state from political Islam and a socially conservative electorate. ........ 45 per cent of public employees are female. Recent laws have given women paid leave to look after their children while the Shura is trying to establish workplace nurseries "with some resistance from colleagues" ........... This is the problem of the Middle East writ large. In the West, it goes without saying that democracy means respect for the rights of the individual, but across the region,

Islamist parties are attracting support on programmes that deny the most basic human rights.

......... the Al-Menbar Society vociferously opposed government plans to ratify the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights which allows individuals to change their religion. "This means that Muslims could convert to another religion, something against Islamic law, since those who do so should be beheaded," declared a leading Al-Menbar MP, Dr Salah Abdulrahman........ Opposition to the protocol was eventually defeated, allowing Bahrain to ratify the treaty in 2006, but the episode demonstrates the difficulties facing the royal family's modernisation project. ........

Bahrain's experiment with democracy is being watched closely across the Middle East.

"It's having a positive effect on the region, including Saudi Arabia," Dr Haffadh told me. What is undeniably true is that

Saudi women, who are among the most cloistered in the world, now have only to cross a bridge to see Bahraini women dress as they wish, enjoy the same legal rights as men

– and even drive taxis.......... Iran... A woman's testimony in court carries only half the weight of a man's.

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Kashmir: Not Normal Yet

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