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Spengler gives us much more on the food crisis in the Middle East. He also provides examples of the Mubarak efforts made towards modernization which have been poorly received by a recalcitrant Muslim public.
Even Islamists have to eat. It is unclear whether President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt will survive, or whether his nationalist regime will be replaced by an Islamist, democratic, or authoritarian state. What is certain is that it will be a failed state. Amid the speculation about the shape of Arab politics to come, a handful of observers, for example economist Nourel Roubini, have pointed to the obvious: Wheat prices have almost doubled in the past year.
Egypt is the world’s largest wheat importer, beholden to foreign providers for nearly half its total food consumption. Half of Egyptians live on less than $2 a day. Food comprises almost half the country’s consumer price index, and much more than half of spending for the poorer half of the country. This will get worse, not better.
Not the destitute, to be sure, but the aspiring and frustrated young, confronted the riot police and army on the streets of Egyptian cities last week. The uprising in Egypt and Tunisia were not food riots; only in Jordan have demonstrators made food the main issue. Rather, the jump in food prices was the wheat-stalk that broke the camel’s back. The regime’s weakness, in turn, reflects the dysfunctional character of the country. 35% of all Egyptians, and 45% of Egyptian women can’t read.
Nine out of ten Egyptian women suffer genital mutilation. US President Barack Obama said Jan. 29, “The right to peaceful assembly and association, the right to free speech, and the ability to determine their own destiny … are human rights. And the United States will stand up for them everywhere.” Does Obama think that genital mutilation is a human rights violation? To expect Egypt to leap from the intimate violence of traditional society to the full rights of a modern democracy seems whimsical.
In fact, the vast majority of Egyptians has practiced civil disobedience against the Mubarak regime for years. The Mubarak government announced a “complete” ban on genital mutilation in 2007, the second time it has done so – without success, for the Egyptian population ignored the enlightened pronouncements of its government. Do Western liberals cheer at this quiet revolt against Mubarak’s authority?
Suzanne Mubarak, Egypt’s First Lady, continues to campaign against the practice, which she has denounced as “physical and psychological violence against children.” Last May 1, she appeared at Aswan City alongside the provincial governor and other local officials to declare the province free of it. And on October 28, Mrs Mubarak inaugurated an African conference on stopping genital mutilation.
The most authoritative Egyptian Muslim scholars continue to recommend genital mutilation. Writing on the web site IslamOnline, Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi – the president of the International Association of Muslim Scholars – explains:
‘The most moderate opinion and the most likely one to be correct is in favor of practicing circumcision in the moderate Islamic way indicated in some of the Prophet’s hadiths – even though such hadiths are not confirmed to be authentic. It is reported that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said to a midwife: “Reduce the size of the clitoris but do not exceed the limit, for that is better for her health and is preferred by husbands.” ‘
That is not a Muslim view (the practice is rare in Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Pakistan), but an Egyptian Muslim view. In the most fundamental matters, President and Mrs Mubarak are incomparably more enlightened than the Egyptian public. Three-quarters of acts of genital mutilation in Egypt are executed by physicians.
What does that say about the character of the country’s middle class? Only one news dispatch among the tens of thousands occasioned by the uprising mentions the subject; the New York Times, with its inimitable capacity to obscure content, wrote on January 27, “To the extent that Mr. Mubarak has been willing to tolerate reforms, the cable said, it has been in areas not related to public security or stability.
For example, he has given his wife latitude to campaign for women’s rights and against practices like female genital mutilation and child labor, which are sanctioned by some conservative Islamic groups.” The authors, Mark Landler and Andrew Lehren, do not mention that 90% or more of Egyptian women have been so mutilated. What does a country have to do to shock the New York Times? Eat babies boiled?
Middle East historian Bernard Lewis is interviewed at The Corner.
… And here is a question of the hour: Is Egypt 2011 like Iran 1979? Lewis: “Yes, there are certain similarities. I hope we don’t repeat the same mistakes.” The Carter administration handled events in Iran “poorly.”
The Obama administration should ponder something, as should we all: “At the moment, the general perception, in much of the Middle East, is that the United States is an unreliable friend and a harmless enemy. I think we want to give the exact opposite impression”: one of being a reliable friend and a dangerous enemy. “That is the way to be perceived.”
These revolts are catching, and long have been. Tunisia precipitated Egypt. “One country throws out its tyrant, and the rest are immediately encouraged to do the same.” I ask whether the Jordanians will revolt. Lewis answers, “Depends on what happens in Egypt.”
He notes that “many of our so-called friends in the region are inefficient kleptocracies. But they’re better than the Islamic radicals.” Democrats, however, are best of all: “and they do exist.”
Paul Johnson takes a measure of our place in the world.
… China would be more likely to become an economic–as opposed to a military–threat to the U.S. if it embraced democracy and freedom. Therein lies the paradox, for a truly free and democratic China–and thus an increasingly prosperous and friendly one–must be a welcome phenomenon.
Another factor to consider is India. China has chosen to expand its economy via traditional smokestack industries and cheap, mass-produced exports. In contrast, India is moving more rapidly into high tech. For the time being this means a less showy performance than China’s. But in the long run this offers India a much more promising future, which by 2050 may be apparent.
What is clear today is that India, as a working democracy, a respecter of the rule of law and a potentially hightech superpower, will be an immensely valuable U.S. ally. Therefore, a cardinal object of American policy must be to cultivate India’s friendship and cooperation in every sphere. And at the same time, if the U.S. remains a firm friend and ally of Japan, I doubt there will be much to fear in China’s creating a huge economy. On the contrary, that might well prove, in the end, to be a blessing for mankind.
Thomas Sowell tells us about more EPA regs.
Despite the old saying, “Don’t cry over spilled milk,” the Environmental Protection Agency is doing just that.
We all understand why the Environmental Protection Agency was given the power to issue regulations to guard against oil spills, such as that of the Exxon Valdez in Alaska or the more recent BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. But not everyone understands that any power given to any bureaucracy for any purpose can be stretched far beyond that purpose.
In a classic example of this process, the EPA has decided that, since milk contains oil, it has the authority to force farmers to comply with new regulations to file “emergency management” plans to show how they will cope with spilled milk, how farmers will train “first responders” and build “containment facilities” if there is a flood of spilled milk.
Since there is no free lunch, all of this is going to cost the farmers both money and time that could be going into farming– and is likely to end up costing consumers higher prices for farm products. …
Democracy in America Blog posts on the healthcare court decision.
MONDAY Roger Vinson, a district court judge in Florida, ruled that Obamacare’s controversial individual mandate is, as the federal government maintains, necessary for the law to function as intended, but that it is not proper, because it oversteps Congress’ commerce-clause powers. Moreover, because the legislation failed to include a severability provision, which would permit the excise of unconstitutional elements while leaving the rest intact, Judge Vinson struck down not only the individual mandate, but the entire act.
Now, the inclusion of a severability clause is not strictly necessary for a judge to void only part of a bill on constitutional grounds, which is why liberal legal eagles were hoping that the Democrats’ failure to do so would not be a problem. However, as National Review’s Avik Roy argues in an excellent post, Judge Vinson makes an independently compelling case for the inextricability of the individual mandate, but really drives it home simply by citing Obamacare’s own advocates and the text of the bill itself. “In order to overturn Judge Vinson’s ruling upon appeal,” Mr Roy notes, “it will be necessary for the government to rebut itself: to disprove its own arguments that the individual mandate is essential to PPACA.”
If the Supreme Court buys this, then a final decision against the constitutionality of the individual mandate on commerce-clause grounds would kill Obamacare entirely, leaving us at the status quo ante. A more humiliating reversal for the Democrats is hard to imagine. …
Pat Caddell and Doug Schoen write on the healthcare bill and the problems it causes the Dems.
Despite talk earlier this week that the health care law was gaining favorability in the wake of the House repeal effort, polls now show it continues to be unpopular among a majority of the American public.
Indeed, directly after the House voted to repeal, a few polls showed slight upticks in favorability. But whatever ground the health care law appeared to have gained proved fleeting. A poll released Tuesday by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Harvard School of Public Health shows the law remains unpopular — with 50 percent of respondents viewing it unfavorably, up 9 percentage points from the last survey.
The health care law is at its “lowest level of popularity ever,” said Jake Tapper of ABC News, citing a recent Washington Post-ABC News poll. Rasmussen Reports, which has measured support for repeal since the bill passed, continues to find more than 50 percent of respondents in favor of repeal.
It could even be that no such piece of major legislation has created the continued, vehement public opposition that health care has provoked since the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 — which resulted in the abrogation of the Missouri Compromise.
The Republican Party was created in opposition to that act — and went on to win control of the House in the 1854 elections. Last year’s health care bill in great part spawned the tea party, a driving force behind the GOP’s big House wins. …
Al Gore has actually surfaced to claim the snow storms are caused by global warming. His blog has a pic of his office. We enlarged it so it is now as fuzzy as Gore’s thinking. We also have a link to a bunch of Dems claiming the lack of snow five years back was caused by global warming. Sound like a good start to the humor section?