Monday, February 06, 2006
About That Ferry Disaster
I am writing this a couple of days before I will post it, so if the news is a bit stale, forgive me, I don't think what I want to talk about will grow stale, however.
Hugh Hewitt spent a lot of time on his Friday show (the day of the disaster) trying to warn people off of comdemning Islam in general and the Middle East even more generally, trying to remind them that we fight a fascist sect in Islam. Fair enough, that is until I got up Saturday morning and read these stories:
Point 1: This is a human disaster and much sympathy goes to those dead, missng, and to their families, but...
Point 2: It should be clear that Middle Eastern culture, Islamic or otherwise has problems. I mean captains that abandon their vessels and people that riot in the wake of a disaster -- come on, that is simply uncivilized behavior.
Disaster is endemic to every culture, but it is the response to disaster in which the quality of that culture is measured.
We really are engaged in more than a war against terrorist organizations and the nations that support them. We are enagaged in civilizing a region. Therein is where democratization matters. Nothing has a more civilizing effect than being made a responsible part of your civilization.
Related Tags: ferry, Red Sea, disaster, Islam, Middle Eastern culture, civilization
Hugh Hewitt spent a lot of time on his Friday show (the day of the disaster) trying to warn people off of comdemning Islam in general and the Middle East even more generally, trying to remind them that we fight a fascist sect in Islam. Fair enough, that is until I got up Saturday morning and read these stories:
Unrest broke out in the Egyptian port of Safaga as relatives desperate for news clashed with riot police.
Point 1: This is a human disaster and much sympathy goes to those dead, missng, and to their families, but...
Point 2: It should be clear that Middle Eastern culture, Islamic or otherwise has problems. I mean captains that abandon their vessels and people that riot in the wake of a disaster -- come on, that is simply uncivilized behavior.
Disaster is endemic to every culture, but it is the response to disaster in which the quality of that culture is measured.
We really are engaged in more than a war against terrorist organizations and the nations that support them. We are enagaged in civilizing a region. Therein is where democratization matters. Nothing has a more civilizing effect than being made a responsible part of your civilization.
Related Tags: ferry, Red Sea, disaster, Islam, Middle Eastern culture, civilization
