Saturday, July 2, 2011

Alien democracy in the Near East

When the fathers of Zionism arrived from Tsarist Russia to Ottoman Palestine and then to the British Mandate ruled Palestine they came with alien ideas about human society, social democracy and communism. These ideas were very un-Islamic and alien to the traditional Near Eastern societies.

The fathers and mothers established ideal societies, Kibbuts, groups, that lived to the fullest according to the theories of Karl Marx and Engels and succeeded in doing where the Soviets failed - creating living productive communities without the curse of private ownership and capitalism based on the freedom to stay or to go. 

The Zionists also made a green revolution, wanted to turn the deserts into blooming gardens as told by the prophets of Israel. Huge water channels were dug into the ground to bring waters from the North, from Kinneret and upper Jordan to Northern Negev. Beer Sheba was turned into a green area of lush wheat fields watered by artificial means in an area of very low natural rainfall. 

The father of modern Israel, David Ben Gurion (1886-1973), loved the desert and lived much of his life in kibbutz Sde Boker where he is buried with his wife Paula.

Those were people of vision and they made a great impact, watering the desert and establishing a genuinely democratic State of Israel with the separation of powers as Montesque had told, full voting rights to women and participation in Knesset for Israeli Arabs.

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But these are alien ideas to the Near East.

Slowly but surely the realization has sunk in that desert is desert and watering it is dangerous to the limited fresh water resources of the Land of Israel. The green revolution has stopped and may have to be reversed in some areas because of the lack of water.

Slowly but surely the genuine religious Jewish establishment is taking control of the State of Israel and the alien ideas of European and Russian social theorists of 19th century and the experiments in democratic rule following those godless French Revolutionaries is fading and is being systematically reversed.

Clean separation of the powers is history and State of Israel today is ruled by differetn power blogs: royalist Messianic religious Jews are very powerful as watching over the spiritual heritage of the people of Israel that also includes the Land and its Laws. 

The latest immigration wave of Russian Jews in the 1990'ies brought in a different kind of people from those 19th century Russian immigrants playing with the new ideas of communism and socialism. This generation of Israel Betenu and Avigdor Lieberman has experience socialism and communism and has no love for it. So how is modern Russia ruled? By strong men and their supporters, President Putin knows how to pull the strings to get things done. Democracy is not the top value in this kind of world.

Judaism is not democratic, nor is Christianity nor Islam - these religions understand God as an Absolute Monarch and earhtly monarchs and emires and rabbies present Him and interprate His will in the society.

This is natural in the Near East with its ancient history.

Democracy is in decline - naturally.

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