In the Streets of All Our Fears
Fanaticism has two attack vectors: credibility and plausibility; in order for you to be its enemy, either of the two must be met. If it does not take you seriously (credibility), regardless of what you do or say, it will not be bothered. If your argument is preposterous or hard to believe, whether it is true or not, it will tolerate whatever you say. But, if you are credible and have a plausible argument, and by plausible I mean some might believe what you claim, you become the target.
I read way too many articles about why democracy does not prevail in the Middle East. On a scale of absurdity to illusion, most of them missed the mark, albeit they were written by bright analysts. My answer, however, is simple:
lack of targets.
Does this mean there are very few credible people? No, but they rarely, if any, raise legitimate arguments in public. And with this level of scarcity, when they do say something, they are easily isolated and marked as targets with the added benefit to the offenders that the incident itself becomes an exception, a rare event.
The mechanism is roughly like this: a 7-15% of the population has a fanatical view on something, but mostly related to religion. Rest, though not fanatical, share this ideology in varying degrees but will not approve violence or brute force. Let me emphasize: some parts of this ideology are appealing to the rest, one way or another. Now, when an isolated incident occurs, the masses seldom question the ideology thanks to the intrinsic mental laziness of the homo sapient. It is always easier to say: “I do not approve the method, but XYZ should not have done this or that.” So the core values or traditions are never disputed and a healthy debate never occurs (with some notable exceptions, mostly specific to Turkey rather than the Middle East).
Unfortunately, the “democracy bringers” of our planet seem to think by just sending troops and getting rid of tyrants, naturally only and only those who oppose their global agenda, and by setting up elections will create a democracy; forgetting of course, the first requirement of democracy is to have a democratic society that can create a healthy debate platform and openly discussing the issues at hand.
It is not easy to speak up when vultures circle over us, but see, your skies are clear.
