Regime Change in Saudi

Tempest,

“might suggest INK, if I directed this question of yours at you and replaced the word ‘western’ with ‘serbian’, would it make sense to you?”

As I have already explained – I am almost infinitely more under the influence of western media than I am of its Serbian analogues. I rarely read “Serbian media” and tend to rely largely on my understanding of the region and my knowledge of Serbia in particular when receiving news about it from the UK media. You on the other hand have rightly admitted to being under a lifetime of influence by the media here…. Now I understand why you have such a superior, high-horse attitude about the west and western society.

As for this site – I don’t regard it as being part of the western news media as such… While it is in English and most posters are from the west one is quite free to read news from China, Pakistan, Russia or India. The news doesn’t got through an editorial process and tends anyway to be second hand information provided by individuals. Not quite the same as The Times or The Sun or the BBC is it? Also, if a poster here writes something you disagree with you have a right of instant reply which will be viewed by everyone who reads that thread…. Similar to the fora of ancient Rome I beleive.

I don’t quite know what your opinion or preconception of Serbian media happens to be but if you beleive that freedom of speech was highly restricted in some draconian sense – you’re misinterpreting the situation. Yes, it is true that under the last administration the state media tended to report what it was told by the government but even under Milosevic local TV stations, radio stations and news mgazines like Vreme could and did write what they wanted. Also, even under Milosevic it was a million times easier to read Time magazine, listen to the BBC World Service and watch CNN in Belgrade than it was to get any Serbian media in London. Similarly, I bet it’d be easier to get western media in Teheran than it would be for you to buy an Iranian newspaper in London.

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May I suggest that this failure to understand is partly due to a lifetime of influence by western media rather than a rational attempt to comprehend what I’m trying to get across?

I might suggest INK, if I directed this question of yours at you and replaced the word ‘western’ with ‘serbian’, would it make sense to you?

I admit freely that I am heavily influenced by the western media by choice, this website is part of the ‘western media’. I’m not sure what it would be like if I was influenced Serbian media.

Prehaps, INK you being an en expert on the subject of both the western and Serbian media, you might be able to answer this question better than myself??

MONGU AND DHFAN-
No freedom of information in Britain? What exactly do you mean good sirs when you make this statement? The concept of freedom of information is not an absolute one. By this I mean we can’t really allow people to sell child porn or incite hatered against others, there are limits to this so called concept of freedom. If you want to see a real lack of freedom of information go to Iran or North Korea, even China.

Tempest,

First of, I never even suggested that Serbian society is better than the society here in the UK (please re-read my post if you still think I did). Also, regarding your question on why I choose to live here, I am a British citizen by right of birth and while I was actually born in Yugoslavia I have lived most of my adult life here (the decision to come here was my parent’s and not mine) – the fact remains, I want to one day return to Serbia but currently London is as much my home as anywhere.

“I’m not trying to be superior to you, but to suggest that the US or the UK are not democracies is a little out of my league of understanding.”

May I suggest that this failure to understand is partly due to a lifetime of influence by western media rather than a rational attempt to comprehend what I’m trying to get across?

“Perhaps living in Serbia, as you mention you did, you have been exposed to an entirely different world view, which is why you think the media in this country is making it all up?”

As I mentioned, I have lived here almost all my adult life and have been influenced by the media here many times more than by Serbian media. I might already have pointed out that it is literally impossible to find Serbian newspapers in London – this is undoubtedly a contributory factor. Also, I have spent a lot of time in Belgrade and have many friends and relatives all over the former Yugoslavia and I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt that a great deal of western reporting of the situation and society of Serbia in the 90s was made up, deliberatly false, mis-understood or just plain wrong. The fact is that reporters for UK papers and news media often comment on Serbia having done little research, reading on the subject* or without even attempting to understand the situation because they know full well that 99% of their readers will not know the difference.

May I just add that during the last general election in this country I wasn’t even able to vote for the party I would have liked to vote for as they chose not to run in my constituency – not that it matters, I am unfortunate to live in a “safe seat”. Upon finding out that I couldn’t vote for my party of choice I decided to abstain… then I discovered that even if I defaced my ballot paper it wouldn’t be counted and that there was no way in which I could voice my abstention.

Mongu,

I have never read a copy of the New York Times all the way through and it has been a long time since I even saw one – from a distance. :p :p

Mate, replace “democracies” in your last paragraph with “liberal societies” and I might agree with you.

*Often the reading they might do happens to be from writers who have themselves done little research and are not qualified to be writing on the topic in the first place. Malcolm is a great example of a writer whose experience and knowledge of the region is practically irresponsible considering how important his work came to be to western opinion aboutt he Bosnian war.

Dhfan – First past the post vs. Proportional representation, eh?

Both have their weaknesses; America has quasi-PR which resulted in the President having less popular votes than the runner up. They got a lot of criticism for that (mostly unwarranted).

The UN are as usual making a mockery of the word “democracy”.

5 tests my ar*e! You can’t reduce a noble concept down to something as simple as meeting 5 criteria. Plenty of countries meet those criteria, but are less democratic than the UK. Can I name Zimbabwe as an example? Or South Africa?.

By contrast the UK has a Monarch and we haven’t really got any freedom of information. But on balance, we are one of the better democracies around! Shss…don’t tell His Toniness though, he might get annoyed with us, his children, and try to take our powers away from us. Referenda? Bah, not for you kids!

I’m well out of my depth here.
Sorry if this seems a bit of a hijack.

The UK and the US are quite obviously democracies.
However, if the 5 stated criteria are applied, the UK fails comfortably.
2. We never elect a leader.
5. Freedom of information is oft trumpeted but totally ignored.

We regularly have a government elected by a minority vote. Admittedly it’s a sizeable minority but it doesn’t change the situation. It sems to me the problem is, the system is known to be flawed but nobody knows a better one.
We could try PR, as espoused by the Liberal Democrats, and have a new government every few months like the Italians I suppose.
As a fairly convinced monarchist I don’t want to elect a president. What I want is a government that does what the people want and that very rarely happens. Politicians ALL think “I know better” and couldn’t care less what the electorate wants or thinks.

On that basis, there isn’t a democracy anywhere in the world.

Ink, you probably read the New York Times too much!

I must say INK, I find you reasoning or opinions a little extreme. I’m not trying to be superior to you, but to suggest that the US or the UK are not democracies is a little out of my league of understanding.

Perhaps living in Serbia, as you mention you did, you have been exposed to an entirely different world view, which is why you think the media in this country is making it all up?

I’m interested to know, if the UK is as bad as you seem to say it is, why do you choose to live here and not in Serbia?

Tempest,

You’ll be pleased to hear that I studied politics specifically for a year at university and that the history I have studied has also given me an increased understanding about the way political systems work. Also, as I happen to be reasonably interested in the world of politics I tend to read about it fairly often from a number of different sources. I haven’t read abything in your posts so far which suggests to me that your knowledge is superior and even if I had I would still challenge the notion that a greater knowledge about a subject like this would make your opinion somehow more valid than my own. In fact, as far as I can see we only really differ in one respect; that is that I don’t buy into the concept of a “civilized”, democratic world offset by the “uncivilized”, undemocratic world which we – i.e. the west – have to urge to convert to our system asap.
I have lived in this country through effectively 11 years of demonization of my country, my people, the society back home etc. I knew then that the view most people had of Serbia was very far removed fromt he truth and that life in Serbia was actually more or less similar to life here – better in some ways, worse in others. But what was certainly true was that Serbia was a civilized society, filled with intelligent, bright, liberal people who were as politically aware as anyone I’d met here in the west. The view from here, however, was rather different – some quite well educated people have even asked me whether we have televisions in Serbia for Christ’s sake! I’d read articles in respected newspapers which appear to be quite made up – one, in The Times, actually suggested that young people in Belgrade were forced to listen to folk music and couldn’t listen to western pop-music!! This shocking and constant mis-representation of other nations and societies by the press and politicians here (even at the highest level) has made me very wary of thinking of other nations purely along the lines of general “western” opinion. Whats more, I have a friend who is Iranian and she loves going back to Iran and can’t stop singing its praises – she’s the one I rang to find out about Time magazine and her answer is what I posted above.

Well anyway, I hope you can now understand a little more about my opinions and why I hold them.

Ink, so your’e saying that you can get Time in Iran? I didn’t know that, but my point was that Iran is a very restrictive society in terms of information. You are not allowed to own a sat dish for eg, I do know people who have lived there.

As for the rest of your points, I do hear what you’re saying – it seems with politics everybody has an opinion on this kind of subject. An opinion however is not always the same as an established body of politcal or academic knowledge.

Politics and the study international politcal systems is a fairly complicated subject, perhaps far to much for someone like myself to discuss here. I might suggest you try get an understanding of how to rate and understand international political systems from your nearest bookshop, maybe even the web, which has some great resources, which might help you get a better view of how governments and politcals systems are judged.

I don’t mean to seem superior. I hope you understand.

Tempest,

“or even a copy of Time magazine “

Actually I beleive it is possible to buy a copy of Time magazine in Teheran but only in English as this magazine doesn’t print copies in Persian.

“To see if a country is a democracy it must pass the five follwing criteria, as listed on the UN Website:

1. Universal adult franchise
2. Leaders must be elected by this franchise
3. An independant judiciary
4. Equality under law
5. Freedom of information

Now you work it out if Iran is a democracy. Apartheid South Africa and Baathist Iraq both claimed to be democracies as well, what do you think?”

A few points about this comment. Firstly, a democracy isn’t neccesarily defined by points 3, 4 and 5 and some widely respected “democracies” fail to acheive these goals. Secondly, Britain doesn’t qualify as a democracy according to those principles as it fails on point 2 (nobody outside the Labour Party voted for Tony Blair – people vote for the party in their own constituency and any party is free enough to use their leader as a figurehead to get elected and then to change him/her the very next day). Thirdly, the asstoundingly disproportionate number of ethnic minorities in the US prision system and the fact that a kid wearing a “peace” t-shirt was arrested in the US suggests that the US doesn’t qualify for point 4. Furthermore, how easy is it for you to buy an Iranian newspaper in the US? I know that here in London I can’t find a single outlet selling Serbian newspapers (even ones printed in English) yet Bosnian and Croatian papers are rife – do Britain and the US really qualify for point 5? Finally, I’ll just add that the majority of the electorate didn’t vote for Labour in Britain and that the majority of actual voters didn’t vote for George Bush in the US – I know this is all according to the rules of the game but it isn’t very democratic.

Oh, damn! Just thought of something else – isn’t it illegal to teach “Darwinian principles of evolution” to school kids in Alabama? Sounds a bit, you know, “fundamentalist” to me.

Finally, I’ll just repeat that quote I posted earlier and ask you to reconsider your high-horse position:

“Fascism’s greatest evil is the beleif that one’s “system” and one’s society is superior to that of others.” – I beleive it was attributed to Charles de Gaulle during a conversation with Churchill but I can’t find the book I read it in.

I did ask nicely.

Sexzool? I prefer thehun myself.

Yes I’m a purveyor of the truth. I had to declare my intentions on my visa application because I was trying to get a story out of the whole deal. I thought it would be quite harmless, especially since I tried to pull it off with my other passport, not my British one, turned out not so. Usually in strange countries I tell them I’m a photographer or something, but it got a friend of mine into serious trouble in Zimbabwe because it proves you’re up to no good

So you work in the news business then?

M girl friend is very good looking. If you ask nicely I might post a pic of her.

Nope – i don’t give up. Hope you don’t mind though.

You were refused to enter Iran because of your dayjob – you’re a reporter as well IIRC? A lot of visa-requiring countries then only let you in if you come on an extra expensive business-sponsored press visa.

Answer? Do as i do! On a visa application, you’re a (copy)writer. It’s not really lying…

If the photo of your girlfriend in tight jeans is any good, you understand we might ask for other garments as well of course. And no, i won’t be asking for a burqah 😉

Snap – I’ll post a pic of my girlfriend in tight jeans when I have one meanwhile you may wish to try www.sexzool.com

Arthur – You dont give up do you? For the record I know a lot of people who have lived in Iran or who have tried to go there. I personally have been refused a visa because of my day job. I’d really like to see the place.

Tempest.

Please will you post a picture of your girlfriend in tight jeans? Thanks.

(Other tight jeaned girlfriends also welcome).

The question being of course…

…how many people you know have been in Iran? How many people you know lived there in the last few years?

Perhaps it’s illustrative for you that a dangerous hobby like planespotting is far less dangerous in Iran than it is in Greece, Israel or Mexico. Or that it’s easier to get a beer in Tehran than to get one in Karachi, and most certainly a lot easier than getting a McShake with your Big Mac in a Tel Aviv McDonalds.

Yes Yes Yes, I’m getting tried these arguments that democracy is not perfect. Nothing is perfect, but to compare US, Greek or Spanish democracy to Iran’s religo-political state is nothing short of crass naivety. I cant argue intelligently with you if you insist taking this kind of casual neo-Leninst critique. It just nonsense.

If you want go to Iran, assuming you can get in, drape yourself in an American flag, ask where you can buy a satellite tv decoder to watch your favourite world news, or even a copy of Time magazine and see how long you can stay out of prison. Or if you must, walk down the main street of Teheran with a t-shirt saying the “Real political rights now” and see what happens to you.

I could go for pages here.

It’s just plain dumb to compare Iran to the US, Greece or Spain.

Originally posted by Tempest
I would say you are trying to censure me by trying to enforce your world view on me and then you are accusing me of being a bigot and of being less than intelligent.

If i come across as trying to forbid your way of thinking and speaking it out, you’re wrong. My intentions are to show you things i consider flaws in your reasoning, nothing more, nothing less. I am most certainly not censuring you. In that case i would just tell you to shut up 😉 As for me calling you a bigot: well, even as we speak the Christian Army of the Lord in Uganda is butchering villages in names of Christianity. Jewish fundamentalist Rabbis preach ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian territories and Lebanon to create pure Jewish lands. Yet you keep insisting that only fundamentalist Islam is bad, and a threat to civilisation, democracy and human rights? In my book, that is indeed bigotry.

[b]Go back and read my post to INK to understand my position this matter.

[/b]
I understand your position, but i disagree with it. I disagree with it because i find it fundamentally (yes, a pun 😉 ) flawed because you refuse to look at incriminating evidence on other religions, and therefor only consider fundamentalist Islam to be ‘evil.’

North Korea is not a religious fundametalist state. It’s something else.

Their God is Kim Il Sung, their current Messiah is Kim Jong Il, the religion is called Juche. If North Korea is not an absolute theocratically ruled country, then what is it?

[quote]
To see if a country is a democracy it must pass the five follwing criteria, as listed on the UN Website:

1. Universal adult franchise
2. Leaders must be elected by this franchise
3. An independant judiciary
4. Equality under law
5. Freedom of information

Now you work it out if Iran is a democracy.[/quote]
If you take for issues 3,4 and 5, as Hand IMHO correctly remarked, the same reservations you would take for, let’s say, Spain, the US or Greece – yes, Iran is a democracy. Although their democratically elected government is checked by the Islamic clerics which have been appointed through less democratic channels. Just like the House of Lords in Britain.

This begs the question, how can a non-democratic state claim consensus or legitimacy if they do not reflect the will of the people they claim to represent? How can a government like Syria or Iran claim to speak for all its people? It’s a government speaking for itself only.

The Droit Divin, a European concept in which the ruler is in power because of divine permission to do so. It doesn’t make much sense of course in a seculair society like the Western world, but it does in a religious society.

You should of course be aware that i can’t think of any dictatorial government which isn’t aware of it’s lack of populair support and legitimacy. That is why they have several means of opression to keep the population in line with what the government thinks. Rhetorics aside, i have never heard any dictatorial government claim to speak on behalf of all it’s people.

Likewise, if a democratic government speaks of behalf of all their peope, they are lying. Plenty of people who have voted otherwise. But that’s the majority-sponsored dictatorship called democracy for ya.

Tempest ,

I understand your point of view.
However I don’t think that many coutries pass the tests 3 4 5 ,even our so-called democracies … unfortunately 🙁

I’m not censuring you, i’m only accusing you of short-sightedness and a monomanic fear of Islam. I’m trying to show you you are inconsistently intolerant against and afraid of Islam.

I would say you are trying to censure me by trying to enforce your world view on me and then you are accusing me of being a bigot and of being less than intelligent. This is a rather personal indictment and, I would say, an indication of your general abilty to employ reason.

Go back and read my post to INK to understand my position this matter.

North Korea is not a religious fundametalist state. It’s something else.
Bhutan – maybe.
Kentuck – silly

To see if a country is a democracy it must pass the five follwing criteria, as listed on the UN Website:

1. Universal adult franchise
2. Leaders must be elected by this franchise
3. An independant judiciary
4. Equality under law
5. Freedom of information

Now you work it out if Iran is a democracy. Apartheid South Africa and Baathist Iraq both claimed to be democracies as well, what do you think?

I never said democracy should be enforced, my wording was different, read it again.
This begs the question, how can a non-democratic state claim consensus or legitimacy if they do not reflect the will of the people they claim to represent? How can a government like Syria or Iran claim to speak for all its people? It’s a government speaking for itself only.