people under the influence of technological progress change their attitude to the world.
I agree. They change it.
But how they change it. What do they understand? What do they forget? What do they remember?
Do the former Zerefs have no memory at all or do they all get blood transfusions? To the point where they forget who their kin are?
No way. They don’t forget. They remember.
Maybe they cease to be courageous people at least in their hearts? To the point that in the first urban generation they are a little rude, primitive cunning, excessively greedy, and at the same time patriotic?
Yes, it is. The tradition of capture, plunder, war, in general, any past historical rudeness, cannot immediately disappear. But it is now past feudal qualities that are rude. For feudalism, all means are good in order to obtain material goods in any way. But first, need the fame, then rank, then caste.
Today, observing how in former republics (namely former socialist republics, not past monarchies!) nepotism, tribalism, corruption have flourished, and this is despite the fact that the same modernization and urbanization was carried out in the former republics, what can say?
We can say that the technological revolution, the construction of cities, mass education were important for the mass rebirth of the local population. All the local peoples have changed a lot. Mass education cannot fail to change the quality of a person.
However, what each individual person remembers, as well as every traditional people, could not disappear in time. The political form, and in our case socialism, was important so that the peoples did not immediately wake up the old memory. And the Soviet education and the remnants of culture are still working, working so that the awakened reflexes do not absorb all the peoples back to the old time.
We will be interested in the question again and again.
To what extent can modernization (technological revolution, urbanization, education) change mass reflection? It is reflection. Because there are no other ways to explain the massive conservative revival after the collapse of empires but only through mass reflection.
It is to understand the situation that the facts of the Arab Spring will be used.
Why the Arab Spring?
Yes, because before European modernization, the countries of the Near and Middle East were the cradles of an ancient civilization.
So ancient that judging by the degree of influence of urban culture and culture in general, the descendants of Sumerians, Assyria, Babylon the Arabs should have already colonized Jupiter. What do they do now? What is a paradox?
Chapter III
If the president rules for 30 years
If you look at the map of the Arab Maydans, you can immediately see that the Maydans did not expand the borders of the Arab Caliphate, but exactly fit in the old place. We can safely say that the Arab Spring of 2011 is the spring of the Arabs.
But who are these revolutionaries?
Why did they rebel against the traditional order? After all, the peoples of the past Arab Caliphate are very conservative: the elites are very revered, the peoples are obedient to them.
Of course, you can immediately put the Maidan and the Ottoman Empire on the map. But it won’t be the same.
First, because the Arab spring was attended by Arabs, not the South Slavs, and even more so, not the Turks but only the Arabs. Therefore, we will consider this speech more Arabic and less religious. Religious strife on the basis of different trends of Islam has always been, since the time of the fourth righteous Caliph. The influence of religious intolerance is still not the most important thing in Arab nationalism although the religious component is less important (At least from the point of view of over-conservatism. Why didn’t the Arabs colonize, say, Mars, or get ahead of Europe in creating the internal combustion engine?), it also explains a lot.
How did it all start?
It all started with the fact that the Arabs were nomads of the Arabian Peninsula. That explains a lot. Many things explain, but not all.
They would have remained in the old place, even if the future colonizers, and we mean those Europeans who brought modernization to these places and, perhaps, would have presented us with an Arab version of pure bourgeois nationalism. However, the founder of the new faith, the Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him), was born in Mecca. And after the preaching of the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him), the Arabs turned from local nomads of the aborigines into nomads of proselytes, spreading the faith among other peoples with the sword and preaching. So they would have stayed in place and lived no less well.
Thus, the Arabs could not have turned into nationalists either in the XIX century or in the XX century, when modernization took place among the Europeans. To do this, they did not just have a material base. There was gold, there were material values, there were troops, talented generals, great scientists in the east, but the main material principle was not there.
First, it means that the traditional Muslim people did not welcome the trade business like all nomads. Caliphs, sultans, viziers knew only about the benefits of trade, so they tried to protect the caravaneers and merchants represented by different peoples from violence and plunder, but the trade itself was not welcomed. First, nomads have always been warriors. And where there is a military caste, there is always a traditional hierarchy. Secondly, the Koran did not welcome loan interest (how it practiced the ancient Jews). Giving money at interest and taking money at interest is a grave sin.
Now you can just look at the late leaders of the Arab countries during the modernization period and draw some conclusions:
Tunisia.
First President Habib Bourguiba. He ruled for 30 years. He left the post under the pressure of protests and old age. He was replaced by Ben Ali. Ben Ali ruled for 24 years. But in January 2011, riots broke out in Tunisia. Like Bourguiba, Tunisia’s new leader, Ben Ali, has been re-elected several times and extended his term through referendums. For two, three decades, all the dictators in the East quickly turned state power into a personal feeder and the feeder of their clan. Another big minus to the same: Ben Ali was henpecked. Everyone saw and believed that the country was ruled by a woman. The second wife and her ten brothers were hated.
As already mentioned, Tunisia has the highest educational level in Africa. High development indicators. The government raised only the price of bread and everyone was immediately outraged by the regime. The market jobless merchant committed self-incineration. One thing overlapped with the other and there was an explosion that caused a domino effect throughout the Arab world.
But, once again! The Tunisians hated his wife. In a Muslim country, provided with the Internet, this turned out to be the main fuse of the Tunisian Maidan. Before that, there was a rumor that Leila Trabelsi was going to become president. And this would be outraged by any traditional people, not just Tunisians. Although Tunisia has been modernized, urbanized, and so on. And what is the effect of this? Nothing. And this is despite the fact that the Tunisian elite is partially Europeanized. French influence is traditional. Ben Ali himself studied at Saint-Cyr.
Egypt.
Now fast-forward to the centuries-old administrative and spiritual center of Islam, to the capital of Egypt – Cairo.
Egypt remained a landmark for the Arab world, not just an administrative legacy. After independence, Egypt was one of the first to break free from colonial dependence (1922), although