Wishful thinking on democracy in Arab states

In some ways journalists want to drink the Kool-aid of speculative thinking. They wish to draw parallels between change in South America and Arab world. Is it possible? Surely anything's possible. But there are several differences between Latin world and the Arab world.

These revolts have immediately performed a kind of ideological house—cleaning, sweeping away the racist conceptions of a clash of civilisations that consign Arab politics to the past. The multitudes in Tunis, Cairo and Benghazi shatter the political stereotypes that Arabs are constrained to the choice between secular dictatorships and fanatical theocracies, or that Muslims are somehow incapable of freedom and democracy. Even calling these struggles “revolutions” seems to mislead commentators who assume the progression of events must obey the logic of 1789 or 1917, or some other past European rebellion.

However without calling it thus, the writers imagine this as a socialists wet dream.

This is a threshold through which neo-liberalism cannot pass and capitalism is put to question. And Islamic rule is completely inadequate to meet these needs. Here insurrection touches on not only the equilibriums of north Africa and the Middle East but also the global system of economic governance.