TedPage: From Cartoons to Violence

I think that most of the world is shocked by the violence unfolding, all caused by some political cartoons. I hope that Americans get one thing out of the events: there is civil unrest in the middle east. It is much less about "hating freedom" or wanting to "kill the US" than about dealing with the inequalities in their own societies. They are repressed by their governments, but not in a traditional way.

The governments in the middle east have found a much more effective way of dealing with civil unrest. They're redirecting it. They're allowing the people to be told, by fridge fundamentalists, that they reasons for all their problems lie in the west and Israel. They don't let the camera turn to their wealthy indulgences, or the criminally small amount of their country's oil wealth that they're reinvesting into the country. There is no good reason that Saudi Arabia couldn't have the best civic infrastructure the world has ever seen, but they instead have one of the worst.

One of the interesting parts is how this plays out on the world stage. Almost every industrialized nation has its economy dependent on the energy derived from fossil fuels. Most of those are oil. In this light, they want to be able to get the oil out of the middle east, and thus would like it to be a stable, safe place to protect their own interests. The question then becomes, if it isn't, what should they do about it? For the most part, world leaders have chosen the status quo. The governments don't have programs that are specifically targeting mass numbers of political dissidents, so there is limited public support for stopping the repression. All they are doing is lying to their people, and what government official wants to claim that lying is wrong? So, in effect, the western powers (and increasingly India and China) are funding this situation of inequality, hoping it doesn't fall apart on their watch.

In the end, I think the only real way that we can have peace in the middle east is to remove the money. The only other option is "peace making" which never will work out. Yes, removing the money will allow the governments to collapse, and this will risk the world's oil supply. But, that is something that we have to be prepared for. These governments are as likely to collapse under their own weight with or without western intervention.