Frankly, I’m not sure about that one: “Islam was designed to break it with compassion and solidarity, but as the centuries wore on, the old ‘Pharaonic mindset’ reasserted itself.”

If Islam was indeed a social revolution for the bedouins living in the Arabic peninsula, on the contrary it was quite a social regression for the people conquered and converted.

The archeological findings in Damascus for instance is a testimony of that: two centuries after the muslim conquest, the old hellenistic city had completely disappeared along with its public places, its appartment blocks and the very notion of citizenship. Instead the town became a chaotic agglomeration of tribal houses built like forts.

The (painfull) truth (for muslims) is that the arab conquest were in effect quite similar to the barbarian invasions in the western roman empire. For the hellenistic world the regression was spread on a few centuries instead of a few decades, slow but steady … and without renaissance after a millenium.

What I believe is that, exactly like in the feudal europe of the 16th century, a dramatic reform is badly needed in Islam in order to break free from a millenium of social, scientific and philosophical stagnation.

Beeing myself a non-muslim, I can’t tell what to reform or what to repudiate in Islam. But I would suggest that a new look upon pre-islamic history would be a good starting pointing.

Kind regards,

Your post has a lot of interesting information about a country I know best from migrants settled in Belgium (where I live).

Having lived in central Africa and having traveled a to the four corners of the world, there is one thing you wrote I tend to disagree with:

“I think that Moroccans’ sense of resignation is a response to their social conditions, not its cause.”

My experience in very poor countries teached me exactly the opposite.

I came to believe that a culture of submission to state violence and religious dogmas is the main cause behind the widespread social stagnation you describe.

I don’t know Morroco but I visited Egypt a few times, mainly outside the tourists circuits. What striked me most when discussing with people there was how they were all trapped into a chain of oppression.

All ideas are submitted to the imams, men are subject of their rulers, husbands are the tyran of their wives, brothers are dictators to their sisters, etc, down to the children beating their donkeys.

A son that rebels against his father will loose the authority he enjoys upon his sister. A husband that defy the social order is at risk to loose his power over his wife. The ruler that wants to free himself from religious dogma puts his own position in great peril.

What I saw in Egypt is that since everybody is the tyran of somebody else, nobody can free himself without also loosing the benefits of oppressing the one below him.

Voila, that was my 2c tip.

Keep up blogging …

Kind regards,