Trish > Books: africa‎ (108)

“The des

“The despots in the Arab world are on their last gasp,” he reflected. “Just like any last-ditch battles, they will do a lot of stupid things and leave a lot of destruction. But these will be the last battles. People have already broken the fear barrier. They are as ready for change and democracy as East Europe was in the 1980s and as Latin America was in the 1970s. History is moving. The moment is ours.”(prologue, p. 6)

Two dynamics will define political change in the NE for years to come. The first is…identity, the accumulative package of family, faith, race, traditions, and ties to a specific piece of land. The second dynamic is…youth and an emerging generation of younger leaders. The young have never been so important: More than seventy percent of the people living in the regions stretching from Tehran to Rabat are under thirty years old. (p. 137)

Change in today’s Middle East is likely to succeed only when all major players—not just the majority—believe they have a stake in the new order. Rival identities will otherwise derail it. The sense of common nationhood is still too fragile. Suspicions run too deep. ..Iraq is a telling, and tragic precedent.

"Regretfully, however, I realize that the maps I made helped others, with more material aims, to visit and corrupt a people whose spirit once lit the desert like a flame."