| June 2005 |
Tocqueville on... Mideast anarchy"People will sometimes submit to humiliation, to tyranny, to conquest, but they never submit to anarchy for long.... When the Arabs, whom we often sought to conquer and subdue, but never to govern, had surrendered for some time to the savage environment to which individual independence gives birth, they sought instinctively to rebuild what France had destroyed. Enterprising and ambitious men began to appear among them. Great talents were revealed in several of their leaders, and people began to cling to certain names as if to symbols of order. "The Turks had prohibited the Arab religious aristocracy from the use of arms and the direction of public affairs, but once the Turks had been eliminated, they almost immediately became warriors and governors again.... They once again took up the scimitar of Muhammed to battle the infidels, and lost no time using it to govern their fellow citizens: this is a great fact and one that must capture the attention of all those who are involved...." |
