How the Modernization of the Middle East Went Terribly Wrong

Reminiscing about life as a journalist in Tehran in the 1970s, Amir Taheri recalls the advice of the numerous foreign intellectuals who visited the once-cosmopolitan city, which could be summed in one word: “modernize!” The Middle East has by no means failed to modernize; however, Taheri argues, it has done so in all the wrong ways:

Traditions that had provided a moral compass for centuries were now dismissed as cumbersome if not a sure sign of backwardness. Old institutions such as tribes, guilds, Sufi orders, clerical hierarchies, and family networks that had counterbalanced the power of the state were dissolved or weakened, leaving power concentrated in a few hands at the center of government. The aim was to “Westernize” as quickly as possible even if that meant the destruction of the indigenous culture which now appeared atrophied or degenerate. . . .

Another thing [the apostles of modernization] ignored was that in our neck of the woods, that is to say the Middle East, the machinery of state had modernized itself by enhancing its powers and developing new modes of control, manipulation, and repression. That, in turn, had led to the Westernization of part of traditional society that now used an essentially Western narrative in its struggle against the established order.

For example, the late Ayatollah Khomeini’s discourse owed more to Lenin and Stalin than to the great Muslim philosophers and theologians of the ages. The seizure of power by mullahs in 1979 highlighted Iran’s jump to Westernization. The revolt was dubbed a “revolution,” a Western concept for which we have no word in the Persian language. The mullahs organized a referendum, wrote a constitution, devised a Western-style flag, raised a Trotsky-style militia, and built a cult of personality around Khomeini modeled on the one that existed around Stalin.

Read more at Asharq Al-Awsat

More about: Ayatollah Khomeini, History & Ideas, Iran, Iranian Revolution, Middle East

Why South Africa Has Led the Legal War against Israel

South Africa filed suit with the International Court of Justice in December accusing Israel of genocide. More recently, it requested that the court order the Jewish state to allow humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip—something which, of course, Israel has been doing since the war began. Indeed, the country’s ruling party, the African National Congress (ANC) has had a long history of support for the Palestinian cause, but Orde Kittrie suggests that the current government, which is plagued by massive corruption, has more sinister motives for its fixation on accusing Israel of imagined crimes:

ANC-led South Africa has . . . repeatedly supported Hamas. In 2015 and 2018, the ANC and Hamas signed memoranda of understanding pledging cooperation against Israel. The Daily Maverick, a South African newspaper that previously won an international award for exposing ANC corruption, has reported claims that Iran “essentially paid the ANC to litigate against Israel in the ICJ.”

The ANC-led government says it is motivated by humanitarian principle. That’s contradicted by its support for Russia, and by [President Cyril] Ramaphosa’s warmly welcoming a visit in January by Mohamed Dagalo, the leader of the Sudanese-Arab Rapid Support Forces (RSF) militia. Ramaphosa’s smiling, hand-holding welcome of Dagalo occurred two months after the RSF’s systematic massacre of hundreds of non-Arab Sudanese refugees in Darfur.

While the ANC has looted its own country and aided America’s enemies, the U.S. is insulating the party from the consequences of its corruption and mismanagement.

In Kittrie’s view, it is “time for Congress and the Biden administration to start helping South Africa’s people hold Ramaphosa accountable.”

Read more at The Hill

More about: International Law, Iran, South Africa