Okay, here’s a lesson on How to Wreck an Article Gracefully. First make a bunch of interesting observations about how both Mikhail Gorbachev and F.W. de Klerk let reforms go too far and lost control of their respective countries. Then, right at the end, say something criminally uninformed that makes all learned people mock you. Like this:
Congratulations, you ousted the tyrant, you won an election, your inaugural address stirred the hearts of your people. Now here’s your giant goodie bag of festering misery — Egypt! — where the army runs the private sector, the mullahs may or may not be spoiling to impose shariah law, the tourists have been scared off, poverty and unemployment are rife and any day the score-settling will begin.
The “mullahs”? Really? You had to bring mullahs to a discussion about Egypt? That was dumb. As even Wikipedia knows, “mullah” is not a term often used in the Arabic-speaking world. It’s also not a word that it is used often among Sunni Muslims, except on the subcontinent. In Egypt, the only mullahs are Iranians.
And, in Iran, “mullah” is a term of derision used to mock the learning of young ayatollahs. You don’t ask what the mullahs of Egypt want because they have no mullahs. It’s an Urdu term, anyway. The Brits brought it back from Pakistan. And it’s normally applied to Shi’ite scholars, not Sunnis. Egypt is a heavily Sunni society.
Yeah, so, you just ruined your column by demonstrating that you don’t know shit about Egypt.
The author doesn’t know s&$t about Gorbachev either. Russia didn’t collapse because of glasnost, it collapsed because of perestroika. Glasnost means openness, and this was political. Perestroika means restructuring, and this was economic. Gosplan, the state planning agency, resisted Gorbachev’s policy. So they lost their jobs.
The problem with this is that when the planned economy lost its planners, things collapsed. Particularly, inflation set in. People were screwed, and here is where glasnost played a role: they let the government know it screwed up. Then coup, then Yeltsin.
Your average writer for a major paper does his business not by actually understanding what he’s writing about, but by understanding what he needs to say about it. Of course it was an abstract freedom that Russians wanted, not a maintenance of price controls. Of course if they’re Muslim they have mullahs. Mullah is a Muslim word and they speak Muslim over there…
It sells.
to add a bit to your comment, specifically Soviet Union collapsed because of internal economic issues, especially unsustainable emphasis on armaments industry at the expense of other sectors. But that’s certainly something the have-mores in the usa do not care to know
I feel like the have-mores in this country and their hangers-on can’t conceive that events in world history are not always the direct results of United States actions. The US defeated Hitler, not the USSR. Reagan brought down the USSR, not Gorbachev. I do think there’s a cognitive issue at work.
indeed, completely agree
The Soviet Union was collapsed before perestroika or glasnost. Gorhachev tried to unwind it before the collapse was total. Gorbachev and Yeltsin did unwind the separation of the constituent republics through the legerdemain of the Commonwealth of Independent States, an empty shell that has recently become somewhat useful to its members. Without glasnost and perestroika and the parallel international agreements with the US, the collapse of the Soviet Union could have been a much more dangerous affair. In the post-Soviet era, the US blew an opportunity to get a real democracy in the Russian Federation through its recommendation of a shock doctrine capitalism that resulted in oligarchy and the return of autocratic leadership.
One wonders why George H. W. Bush let this slip through his fingers, but in retrospect it looks like he was scared that a peace dividend might end the military-industrial complex that was an anchor of Republican politics at the time. And that peace would be more suited to Democrats taking back the presidency (as indeed happened). So he whacked the Middle East hornets nest in a way that ensured further war.
I wonder what you mean by it was already collapsed. In danger of it, I know. The faction that really supported Gorbachev’s rise, or a faction, was the KGB. They spied on people and knew that something needed to change or it was done. It was done in any event, but it shows something.
Everything about that paragraph is appalling. How can one compare Soviet Union and South Africa? was it all about Gorbachev and de Klerk? how about the ANC, which was a unified force for a non-racial society, ready to take over reins of gov in South Africa with a saintly leader (one struggles to find an adjective to describe Nelson Mandela). What about the high level of education throughout the Soviet Union vs the large % of population of South Africa being denied all resources for the past 100 yrs. Keller’s ignorance about Egypt is appalling.
Well, there was Keller, Judith Miller and Iraq. Keller got away with that.
The comments are wonderful this morning. Thanks, all and boo for the post.
Muslim is the new commie.
NY Times does another awful report on the arab world. No surprise there. Their own particular bias is not to see what is happening happen and of course the frustration and anger becomes noticeable
not a sychophant like Bill Keller. Pigs don’t fly and Keller has never had a serious thought in his life.
Instead of Chris Collingsworth I’d put my money on Howie Long. His keen insight into America’s social issues, his position on our country’s foreign entanglements and his history of fiscal responsibility puts him in a unique position to lead this country. Plus, he’s shown that he can stand up to Jimmy Johnson who is surely the equal to any Middle Eastern despot.