MAIN IDEA:

The main idea of this book is to examine history in an attempt to identify the causes of society’s development within one or another political framework, be it democracy, totalitarianism, or something else. The author first presents the contemporary Arab world that failed to move to democracy after the Arab Spring despite all the promises. Then, he looks at the recent history of this and the surrounding areas and provides a detailed narrative of events he observed as a high-level journalist covering these areas for most of the second half of the XXth and early XXI centuries. After that the author concludes:” Rather than pine exclusively for democracy in the Greater Middle East, we should desire instead consultative regimes in place of arbitrary ones: that is, regimes that canvass public opinion even if they do not hold elections. Monarchies, including the Gulf sheikhdoms, tend to consult more with various tribes, factions, and interest groups than do secular modernizing regimes, which have too often been arbitrary dictatorships, Ba‘athist or otherwise. In other words, aim for what is possible rather than what is merely just. … Thus, it is the middle path that should be sought. The middle path offers the only hope for a better world. Idealistic raptures in the service of change must be avoided.”

CONTENT:

MY TAKE ON IT:

Whether we want it or not, we live in a globalized, highly technological world in which people with cultural development at the level of the 7^th century can obtain the technology of the 21^st century. Consequently, instead of stoning neighbors at a distance of 100 meters, they can send ballistic missiles over thousands of miles.

However, societies are not thinking, feeling, and acting entities; only individuals are. Even societies under the control of savages, such as Islamic ayatollahs, have plenty of individuals who are culturally and intellectually at par with anybody else in contemporary civilized societies. Similarly, modern democratic societies produced quite a few savages of Islamist, socialist, or other varieties.

Consequently, to avoid a tragedy in which millions or even billions of people will perish, individuals in control of the civilized world, where contemporary technologies were developed due to individual freedoms and distributed resources, must deny savages access to technology.

The solution should be to find ways to sort people out: savages with limited access to technology on one side of the wall and civilized people on the other. Since individuals tend to change over time, it would be necessary to ensure constant movement of people and exchange of information so that the individuals who become civilized can move to a civilized world. Those who become less civilized due to religious or secular indoctrination move to a savage world.