This is my first post after posting comments on other folk's blogs. I welcome constructive, destructive, affirmative or negative comments. I have been wrong at least once!
I've begun to reread my entire Agatha Christie collection in alphabetical order, being pleasantly reminded of what a superb observer of human nature she was, and her excellence at plot construction. It is interesting to analyze a scene or character description compared to the world today. In her book Cat Among the Pidgeons published in 1959 she describes a mythical Middle Eastern State with a progressive western educated leader who is trying to lead his country into the modern world. His name is Ali Yusuf and he says:
"Already the chief accusation against me is of being pro-Western. It is difficult to understand. My grandfather was a cruel man, a real tyrant. He had hundreds of slaves and treated them ruthlessly. In his tribal wars, he killed his enemies unmercifully and executed them horribly. ..... And yet-he is a legend still! Admired! Respected! ..... What have I done? Built hospitals and schools housing........all the things the people are said to want.......Would they prefer a reign of terror like my grandfather's?"
His British friend replies: "I bet you anything you like that if they boot you out of here, some spouting hot-air merchant will take over, yelling his own praises, building himself up into God Almighty, and stringing up, or cutting off the heads of anyone who dares disagree with him in any way, And, mark you, he'll say it's a democratic government, of the people, and for the people. I expect the people will like it, too. ...... The thing people don't seem to want anywhere nowadays, is anyone who's got a bit of ordinary common sense. .....I often think that that's the only thing the world really needs---just a bit of common sense."
60 years later and the middle east still hasn't changed much. Can democracy succeed if the people of any country want to be led like sheep?
"Can democracy succeed if the people of any country want to be led like sheep?'
It's hard to lay blame on the people of most of these nations when the culture in which they live resembles the middle ages brought into the 21st century.
Posted by: Bubba | 08/05/2009 at 06:36 PM