Moving abroad with a young family
Dec 8th 2018, 6:19 am
#16
BE Forum Addict
Joined: Jan 2015
Posts: 3,520
Re: Moving abroad with a young family
Take Saudi. People bash the House of Saud and rail against the West for tolerating them or putting them into power originally, but remove the House of Saud and what do you get? A peaceful, progressive happy clappy democracy? Excuse me while I roll around on the floor laughing. Then take Egypt. They tried democracy briefly, got a Muslim Brotherhood president, and suddenly it looked like the country was at high risk of slipping into a Syrian style debacle, so the military swiftly moved in and took over again and now it's peaceful and people can get on with life. And they did so without Western interference, thank you very much. Even Iraq, which the Americans had no business getting into, Saddam was hardly a saint and who knows what really happened under his reign of terror.
Dec 8th 2018, 6:30 am
#17
BE Forum Addict
Joined: Jan 2015
Posts: 3,520
Re: Moving abroad with a young family
Not ironic at all. I went in with eyes open, to make some cash and get out before I end up in jail or dead in a smoking wreck on SZR. Doesn't mean I have to drink the kool-aid and start thinking feudal medieval government underpinned by a belief in magic sky fairies is the way to go. And maybe when my kids are older, they might choose to do the same (if it hasn't gone full Taliban and descended into bearded religious freaks in rusty toyota pickups fighting over rubble, like most arab states tend towards eventually).
There's been massive crackdown on bad driving in the past few years. Speed cameras and radars everywhere. It's much better and driving much more calm now compared to five years ago.
The UAE is probably the best example of a successful government and country in the region. Democracy is never going to work in the Gulf and the failure of Western liberalism is the assumption that democracy is a 'human right' and the best form of government. Which I now know is nothing but arrogance and a perverse form of Western colonialism. The Gulf Arabs have a wholly different understanding of the social contract and I cannot judge them for the model they've implemented in the Gulf countries because it works for them and they seem quite happy with it. Probably happier than many people in the West are with their democracies. Your Emiratis or Qataris probably has a closer relationship with the ruler of his society than your typical Westerner does with his own government.
