Of Freedom and Stability

First posted on my short-lived blog Tharwalizations.

We should give as much thought to the issue of quality with regard to the peace and stability that many of us are advocating and holding on to, as we do to the consequences of change and instability. After all, the search for freedom, progress prosperity and justice is no longer reconcilable, if it has ever been, with the status quo in our part of the world, and does indeed pose a serious challenge to it. Our search to improve the quality of lives requires and necessitates radical change. Continue reading “Of Freedom and Stability” →

The all too real need

First posted on my short-lived blog Tharwalizations.

Nationalism, Baathism, Islamism, whateverism, etc, indeed, the various isms that have swept across the region in the late 90^th and early 20^th Centuries onward have been nothing but a betrayal of its amazing ethnic diversity and all the intermixing that has been taking place for centuries. What we need is something new, a new idea of who we are, a new conception, no matter how vague, that can allow us to celebrate our differences and turn them into a source of strength rather than trouble and internecine warfare and mayhem. WE need to knit ourselves again into new fabric that can be reinserted back into the civilized world, for all our sakes.

A few thoughts on modernity

First posted on my short-lived blog Tharwalizations.

Many if not most of the main problems facing us in the region and hindering the process of change and modernization therein are psychological in nature. One such problem is the inability of our people to reconcile themselves with the necessity of making that crossover from the traditional to the modern. Instead, most seem to believe that they can keep one leg in each world thus maximizing their benefit, that is, they think that they can avail themselves of all those advantages that modernity has to offer while holding on as hard as they can to traditional values. Continue reading “A few thoughts on modernity” →

Democratize but Stabilize

First posted on my short-lived blog Tharwalizations.

No one can any longer deny that there is a real and serious need for a concerted well-coordinated multilateral approach to the processes of development, modernization and democratization in the Broader Middle Eat and North Africa Region. Quick fixes are indeed impossible, but a need to shake the status quo is, nonetheless, quite urgent. If the UNDP reports of 2002-4 have served to elucidate anything, it is the necessity of drastic changes in policies in the region, but few of the existing leaders seem willing and/or capable of this. National interest considerations are not at stake here for them, it is their parochial interests, and, in typical cynical human fashion, they tend to override all other considerations. Continue reading “Democratize but Stabilize” →