Of Science, Christianity, Jews, War, Demography and Islam

 

We can cover the initial item, the war against the Jewish People, with a simple recognition of historical fact which has become so well known and uncontestable, as stated in the Passover Haggadah, “In every generation one rises up against us.” That simple sentence states the minimal condition where there is one person who will rise up and call for our murders. The unstated and unfortunate reality is that one is often a political leader, a leader of a nation, or the dictator of an empire who is the one rising to destroy us. The list is filled with illustrious names of their eras with names such as Pharos Ramses I and Pharos Ramses II, Haman, Nebuchadnezzar, King Ahasuerus, Tsar Nicholas II, Ottoman rulers Sultan Mehmed I, Mehmed II, Suleiman I, Mustafa I, Murad IV, Suleiman II, Mahmud I, Abdülhamid I, Mehmed V, Musa Çelebi and the remainder of the Ottoman leadership throughout the ranks all used the Jews to fund their positions. This continued from invader to invader and foreign rulers and dispersion sent Jews throughout the Roman and later the Ottoman Empires and beyond to every corner of the globe driven most often through the necessity to flee pogroms, rioting or genocidal efforts to destroy the small minority of Jews within almost every border.

 

Probably the least obvious but greatest surprise was the reaction by the Japanese High Command when visiting Nazi SS officers demanded that the Japanese release their Jews and send them to the German death camps. The Japanese flatly refused the German demands threatening to turn against Germany should these demands persist. The Nazi officers left empty handed and with much challenged authority after having their wings clipped. The Palestinians and their Arab and Iranian backers are the most evident threat to Jews with many others in the background ready to launch into the picture. Anti-Semitism has returned across much of the globe including Europe, Russia, the Arab World and even to include the United States and the rest of the Developed World. The new anti-Semitism includes two new forms, anti-Israelism and anti-Zionism. The sad part is that many far left Jews are what are referred to as Post-Zionists who no longer believe in a Jewish nation and instead call for a joint nation allowing all the Arabs claiming to have been dispossessed to return with full rights. The small problem is that under their solutions, hundreds of thousands of Arabs claiming refugee status would take advantage of the opportunity to move to the area and live in an area where the economy functions. These Arabs would far outnumber the Jews who would soon find Arab rule destroying their efforts and stealing all that has been built leading to their eventual destruction. Israel would be dissolved and the Jews fleeing or dead should such a plan ever be enacted. The problem is the leftist parties already within the Israeli governance who are willing to do whatever it takes to get into power and enact just such a dream under the idea of solving the problems. There are two ways of solving problems, allow the problem to win or to continue the limited immigration rather than opening the floodgates and surrendering to the coming destruction of all which has been built.

 

All right, so the Jews have been persecuted in both the Muslim and Christian worlds nearly constantly and before by the major idolatrous powers for close to four thousand years should one include the exile in Egypt which was where distrust of the Jews, known then as the Hebrews, first began and has continued unabated ever since. But the Christians have controlled almost half of the world for the past eighteen centuries, how are they now included as persecuted? That is an easy one to answer, there was the remainder of the world which they did not control and sometimes they suffered from Christian upon Christian violence such as the War of the Roses. the Hundred Years’ War, Second Hundred Years’ War (the first lasted 116 years and the second lasted 126 years), the Eighty Years’ War and the entirety of the Catholic-Protestant wars including the Thirty Years’ War and more all of which were ended by the treaties named the Peace of Münster and the Peace of Westphalia. Another war which has taken many forms and been fought on many fronts have been the wars between the ever expanding Islamic forces against Christendom which started as early as 622 AD or 625 AD (see map below) depending on the source, but all sources would agree that Christianity was being conquered by Islam and was well underway by 650 AD (see map below). This war is still being fought today, at least by Islam even if not by Christendom.

 

Christian World 500AD

 

 

Islamic Conquests Under the Caliphs

 

Christianity has been facing an even more insidious encroachment which has been eating at it from within. This has been the modernization and the growing Secular Humanism belief where there is no longer any reason to believe in a Supreme Being as technology and science have described most of what was originally attributed to the gods or to a Supreme Being. The rest of the reasoning for Secular Humanism claims that humans can act honestly and ethically without any expectations of rewards or punishments from any higher source. The only need is to rely on ourselves, our better inclinations, the laws we write, and the communal expectations and limits which are mutually agreed upon to prevent actions which would be deemed undesirable. Should we have any problems, those can be resolved through government actions and laws which will become the new guides as to how we live our lives. The new guardians of our humanity will be the new anointed ones in long robes, the judiciary, which will act by the cold application of the laws. This revolution has all but stripped the heart out of Christian Europe leaving it without the steadying guidance of a traditional set of moral truths which have been replaced by what one would expect of any faith where mankind is the highest moral judge, hedonism. This hedonistic value system which places the personal freedom and pleasures above any other expectation has led to a precipitous drop in the reproductive rate leaving Europe, including Russia, with a steadily declining population which has an ever increasing average age as in many instances the reproductive rate has fallen to 1.5 births per woman or even lower. Some examples include Moldova and Portugal with 1.2 births per woman; Bosnia-Herzegovina, Greece, Poland and Spain at 1.3 births per woman; Cyprus, Hungary, Italy, Malta and Slovakia at 1.4 births per woman; Austria, Bulgaria, Channel Islands, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Germany, Luxembourg, Macedonia, Romania, Serbia, Switzerland and the Ukraine at 1.5 births per woman. The replacement rate in the developed world is 2.1 births per woman with it reaching as high as 3.4 births per woman in some developing countries with higher infant mortality rates and with the global average being 2.33 births per woman. Modernity and the related influences have also had an effect upon the Islamic world or, as some have theorized, the conditions have grown unbearable to the point that people no longer desire to bring children into this world in these countries which does not explain why their birth rates were so much higher ten, twenty, thirty and fifty years ago. The evidence is the introduction of electricity, television, modern comforts and conveniences have brought the same problems to the Islamic world as it develops as it has the Christian world though in the Islamic world none dare claim they are Secular Humanists for fear of being executed. The other variable is education and literacy. These are related issues and for the majority of MENA nations, they have just started to witness changes in these areas. Below we have a graph of the literacy rates for women aged fifteen to twenty-four years of age in Oman, Iran, Algeria, Egypt and Morocco as these are the prime start of childbearing ages and increased literacy usually leads to higher grade education and even increased college admissions which raise the age of initial childbearing thus lowering the average number of births per woman in a nation.

 

Literacy in Oman, Iran, Algeria, Egypt and Morocco

 

Where this will make a difference in the future is with lower births, Islam will soon approach or possibly equal Christians in reproductive rates and thus an equilibrium will have been met. The main factor which has spurred the recent upsurge in Islamic expansion was a combination of retaining high reproductive rates while experiencing lower infant mortality rates thus leading to a rapid increase in populations which strained the economic growth, or lack thereof, across the MENA states. This was brought on with the introduction of modern medical facilities in many if not most of the major cities thus providing better prenatal and post-birth care resulting in lower infant mortality and better reproductive health for the women as well. But modernity has started to catch up in the form of education and literacy which has provided women with more information and a greater opportunity to work and find economic improvement. These are items which most often have produced dropping reproductive rates in nations worldwide. The MENA nations of the Muslim world are no different. With a more steady population returning, these nations are not going to be likely to feel any need for expansionist policies nor will they be demanding greater ability for their excess population to migrate into Europe and the rest of the developed world. Further, as their world develops they will find the need to retain their populations, especially their now educated population, and this will lessen their pressures on the rest of the world. This will lessen the pressures Islam has been pressing on the Christian world and the lines will remain drawn as they currently are with hopefully a lessening in the levels of violence experienced in these regions, particularly the African Transition Zone (see map below) where some of the greatest Islamic-Christian conflicts have occurred.

 

African Transition Zone

 

This will still leave the threats posed by the increasing Secular Humanism but there may even be a light in the darkness here as well. The last centuries have seen science remove much of the mysteries in our lives and explain away things we thought mystical removing their magic and cementing explanations. Now the scientists are really getting into the very fabric which our universe consists of and they are finding some things which are changing opinions and the argument. The first item was the realization that had any of numerous constants been different by even less than one single percentage point in relationship with all of the others, then our universe would have been very different or not have existed at all. Even had it simply been different, that would still have made lifeforms, such as ourselves, impossible, and that does put a different look to things. We are now realizing how extremely special and precious our universe actually is and that it appears in many ways to have been designed especially for life to exist. Still, even with such a design we are realizing that intelligent life, if that is what we qualify as being, may not be anywhere near as abundant and actually so special that there may only be a small number of other intelligent species in our galaxy if even one other and even so, they may not exist in our time frame. We are starting to see that we may be the only intelligent life in the Milky Way at this time and as such, we may not find other intelligent life with whom we would have anything in common. It may be that if there is another intelligent lifeform, they have colonized other star systems and are so far advanced from us that we would have nothing in common, and we would be fortunate if they even considered us intelligent. On the other hand, we may be the first and foremost intelligent lifeform and should we reach the point of colonizing other star systems, then when the next intelligent lifeform evolves, we might be so far in advance of them that we would not realize their being intelligent, though we would probably think so much of ourselves that we would posit we would be capable of realizing their intelligence. Our lack of ability to see the abilities of animals on our own planet does place this in danger.

 

What does any of this have to do with the threats to Christianity and Judaism or belief in a Supreme Being at all? What would be the result of science proving that there was an actual intelligent design to the universe? What happens when science postulates the existence of a Supreme Being which came before and may very well exist currently and will continue existing even after our universe dies? Does that definition sound familiar to anybody? Should science, or a fair number of scientists which has already begun, start to make an argument, then religion, Judaism and Christianity would find their beliefs becoming more aligned with science, actually, it would be science becoming aligned with them, and this could benefit both sides of that equation. There will always be those areas of doubt where science has yet to assign numbers and equations and is still somewhat fuzzy on what is occurring, but we are not referring to using lack of knowledge as the reasoning for Supreme Being. What we are referencing is that science will have found formulations and such proofs and items which point to there being a necessity for an ordering intelligence to the universe and that this creates the need in science for a Supreme Being. Professor Einstein believed in the existence of an ordering logic behind the universe and was a believer in Hashem. His belief may not have fit with your average Rabbi, Priest, Minister or Cleric, but at least he saw a necessary place for such belief. We know that Physicist Stephen Hawking is a doubter who does not believe or find any need for a Supreme Being. But what can you expect for a person who also lends his name to the BDS Israel campaign, which is an attempt to economically cripple the Jewish State. Guess one could say that Stephen Hawking and the Supreme Being are not in agreement, and we know on which side with which we prefer to reside. But, science is growing closer to religion and religion has learned from their mistakes and has left room for science, being assured in their belief that the proof is out there. Christianity can take faith from the fact that the Jews remain a force in the world that there is hope for them to have similar lasting power providing they remain open to ideas and willing to meet facts with reasonable skepticism and sufficient confidence to admit when perhaps they had made an error in their previous position. We can only hope that the world of science can be equally acceptive and honest.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

A House Divided Cannot Stand

 

Our title must give thanks to President Abraham Lincoln who used it in his accepting speech upon receiving the Illinois Republican Party’s nomination as that state’s United States senator. His review was about the issue of slavery which was tearing the United States in half and eventually led to the Civil War. Things back then were likely worse than they are currently but also moved slower thus tempers and reactions were not immediate and thus did not have quite the additive nature of items today where a comment Tweeted in a reference can reach around the world and back within seconds and millions can be roused from dead asleep to enraged by their i-Phone tones that something is up and so should they be awake and as enraged about the latest scandalous event or phrase made in passing. The threat developing in the United States is just as serious today as things were in Lincoln’s day, and that is making a dangerous measure which some will claim is over the top and others will claim that we haven’t seen nothing yet and admonish that just wait until the truth hits and the reality becomes unstoppable. These are some of those we should fear no matter which side they appear to represent in this struggle. The divide in the United States which is breaking-up friendships, marriages, families and even business partners is not as much about the loss of Hillary Clinton to Donald Trump or the end of the Obama Presidency and his replacement with what many believe is a reprobate.

 

The root of the problem goes beyond the two parties or liberals and conservatives and is really being driven by a group which remains unseen who wish to change the governance of the United States. These forces do not believe the people are wise or intelligent enough nor do they possess the understanding and deep thought necessary to rule themselves. These people are not newcomers to this thought but go back deeply into history. This was the argument made by the Kings and Emperors who along with the rest of the elite as Barons, Earls and the rest of the aristocracy made for their rightful place ruling over the serfs in their charge. They claimed that the serfs would starve and die without their administering and knowledge of things greater than they could understand and the protection they provided from those outside forces which would take everything if the serfs were not protected by their betters (view Monty Python spoof of monarchy in below video). These archetypical elitists continue to this day with some actually tracing their family trees back to those very leaders from before the democratic revolutions progressed across Europe coming to a head during and immediately after World War I, the last destructive war caused by the monarchies and their interwoven treaties and intricacies. The next phase of rule of the masses by their betters followed in two opposing political theories, Communism and Fascism. Fascism fell out of favor due to World War II which resulted in two opposing themes taking hold in the more developed world, this time Communism and the varying forms of Democratic rule from Republic to Parliamentary systems. Communism was the preservation of the theory that the people required a class of elites to lead them while the Democracies where trust was placed in the common man to be capable of collectively proving to be smarter than those perceived elites. William F. Buckley, Jr. gave this idea a solid understanding and easy to understand example when he stated, “I’d rather entrust the government of the United States to the first 400 people listed in the Boston telephone directory than to the faculty of Harvard University.” Me, I would rather be ruled by a random choosing of one-hundred midlands farmers than the United States Senate. If others have said this before, then I thank them for implanting the thought in my head, if not, may I please claim this one?

 

 

Today there are groups of elites who believe they should be granted the right to rule over the people because the people are too easily mislead and choose the wrong people to lead them and thus cannot be trusted to choose their own leaders. Some of these people are behind some of the unrest fomenting in the United States over the election of Donald Trump as President. An interesting aside could be taken that this election was exactly the above as Trump was elected by those hundred farmers over the choice of the urban elites. The reality today is there are groups of elitists who really do believe they should hold all the power simply because the people know not what they do. They are the leaders in the centrality of a number of movements, professions and former aristocracy. Examples which are immediately obvious include the mainstream media, the ecology elites, political elites, the extremely wealthy, academia, the political class and the leaders of industry among others. This struggle is being played out right now in the United States. What is truly sad is some are following the elitists for all the wrong reasons and because they are unaware of the reality driving much of the debate. The one thing the elitists have learned in their past centuries of attempting to regain their treasured positions of complete control is that the people must be tricked and fooled into bringing these elitists back into power, a reality which will lead to a loss of freedoms and liberties which will no longer be retrievable for generations afterward. The problem is that the elitists have a strong argument this time simply because their opposing side is represented by a questionable and untested leader who has a list of flaws in his past and personal traits which make picking him apart excessively easy. The side of leadership by the common man is represented by President Trump, whose every misstep, and let us admit there have been a plethora, while the elitist side is an unknown onto what each person can write their own desires, be they a return to President Obama, the election of President Hillary Clinton or something entirely different, thus one is easily faulted while the other can be portrayed as perfection. Unamazingly, this is exactly the way everything is unfolding, President Trump is being faulted for every shortcoming while the opposite side can claim their people would have performed perfectly. What is never depicted is whether their people means Hillary Clinton’s administration, the former administration of President Obama or some mythical administration of some thus far unforeseen President who was the ideal amalgam of former and potential Presidents from all of history and potential future Presidents.

 

Much of this battle is taking place on the many social networks from Twitter to Facebook to numerous chatrooms and discussion forums. The rancor is unprecedented, but then attempted revolutions often start with increased rancor and an escape from the normal channels of mediation which allow for differences of opinions in a normal and, for lack of a better term, congenial manner. There is another difference which signals troubles ahead. The rancor in a normal transition of power usually begins at an elevated level and steadily tones down until it become almost silent but this time the decline appears to not have taken a normal decline in intensity and instead has appeared to be refreshed whenever the slightest lull even shows the slightest inclination to start. This could be due to some having serious problems accepting the results of the election and they appear simply unable to allow their anger to dissipate as is the usual nature after losing an election. But there is a more sinister and troubling possibility which should scare every individual no matter which side they find themselves. The more troubling reason would be that there are those whose desire and are leading the charge towards a critical point where they plan to lead a revolution, a coup, and take charge of the controls of power and install themselves as the new leadership, unelected and soon to install their permanency through strict control and enforcement of their policies, and by that, their rule. Rousing the public in what can only be termed a holy anger, leading a rising struggle replete with violent demonstrations leading to rioting throughout the major metropolises, this followed by citizens demand for order, and then taking temporary power to restore the order demanded and then simply never relenting that power has been the exact means of destroying democracies and replacing them with some form of absolute rule, be them autocracies, theocracies, oligarchies, aristocracies or any other “crazies”, as we prefer to label them. There are reasons that France is in its Fifth Republic, or is it Sixth, no Fifth but soon it just might be the Sixth Republic which very well could be a theocracy or some other form of the “crazies.”

 

The main thing is that we have witnessed is an unrivaled level of distressed anger in the just over two-hundred days since the election and barely passed the one-hundred-thirtieth day of the Trump administration. The main message behind much of the angst has been that only the selected few with the right political and social orientation should be permitted to lead the United States. These people are also only to be found on the coasts and the largest of metropolises and who have the correct education and breeding to be true and reputable leadership. Many of the people making all the noise and, in some cases, demonstrations and rioting are completely unaware that their movement, “The Revolution” crusade, is being orchestrated by people from behind the scenes and who are not ever to be found on the frontlines in the streets being arrested and in time facing water cannons and other nonfatal means of dispersion and suppression being used. What they are completely unaware of, and are blinded from seeing, is that these very behind the scenes instigators will some day, should their plans lead to the coup they hope to realize come to fruition, they will use far more lethal means including military weaponry slaughtering the rioters and demonstrators in the streets while subjugating the rest of the population as they install their form of “crazies” on the United States. History has shown this methodical series of manipulating events to start a revolution and take control of all forms of political, societal, police, military and productive power establishing absolute rule. The picture is familiar to those who have studied history, which in the United States means those above fifty-five years of age, or otherwise known as back in the day when most of the public school system still taught world history, civics, and especially American history.

 

Images from American History

 

Perhaps this plan has been in the incubator for almost a half-century and explains why those graduating after approximately 1980 were never taught civics or any form of history as required for graduation and merely as electives, and sold as very difficult electives which could more easily be earned with basket weaving or any of the newest soft-sciences including many of the specialized fields or disciplines such as psychology, sociology, anthropology, or political science, that interpret human behavior, institutions, society often where all opinions and interpretations are acceptable with the grades given depend on accepting preconceived dogma regurgitating exact phrases without any requirement for understanding or logical arguments. This has allowed for many amongst the youth and young adults to be led without their having any references by which to judge that which they are being fed to instigate their actions including demonstrating and rioting. They are unaware that their continued agitation could simply be agitprop leading them to be used for the gain if unseen manipulators whose real plans do not include their continued good health. In many ways, the scene is worrying and can only elicit mourning over the potential for an end which leads to a frightening end. As we have stated, this scenario has happened before, and if not taken seriously, will result in darkness beyond anything seen previously in history. Many studiers of world history have predicted that if, or when, the United States democratic republic is brought down and replaced with some autocratic or other of the numerous “crazies,” it will become the greatest tyranny of evil and may bring on the end of history as we know it.

 

Normalcy as we have known it since the end of World War II and the end of the Soviet Union with a massive decrease in the horrific costs of war, is only because a nuclear conflict made war almost unthinkable leading to proxy wars where main powers took sides in lesser conflicts. The major wars have shown ever-growing casualty figures with a drastic decline since the end of World War II and the onset of the Nuclear Age. Major wars between the greater powers of each age have extracted the greatest number of fatalities and total casualties but this number has approached zero since the onset of the Nuclear Age (see graph below). This is a slightly misleading graph, as there have been proxy wars, but this shows direct conflicts which became improbable due to the risk of escalation to a nuclear war which would completely ravage all warring nations. This leads to asking a disturbing question, what happens when those wielding nuclear weaponry are not aware or take no heed to the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and have no reason to fear a nuclear exchange either between one another or with one of the established major nuclear powers? What will be the result to the world when, not if, some neo-nuclear power decides that they not only can survive a nuclear exchange, but welcome the opportunity for a nuclear exchange, as martyrdom is preferable to life where they are not the supreme power and authority over the world? What does the world look like once one of the neo-nuclear powers attains sufficient nuclear weapons to reduce all of their perceived enemies to nuclear rubble? This would mean they have made sufficient first generation nuclear weapons with a low yield but emit an unimaginable EMP pulse reducing an entire continent’s electrical grid to ashes and destroys nearly all electronic devices, even many not even powered, and still retain sufficient advanced thermos-nuclear warheads to reduce every major nuclear power as well as all perceived enemies main cities to nuclear rubble, then what? How will the world move further into any form of future as long as such threats exist? The answers to all these questions are unsettling and may depend on a functioning United States behind which the world can find to rally and defeat any such threat before it completely actualizes one of the above scenarios.

 

 

The world has a wondrous future providing our societies can remain intact and free, or at least moving towards a world where liberty and freedom are the norm. This will require one simple realization, education of all the people making sure everybody is literate and capable of understanding the most basic means for survival in a technical world which is rapidly approaching. We can start with one real and exciting challenge by reaching at the very least fifty percent literacy rate in Egypt. With its current democratic governance, which is protected by the military, a system not too dissimilar to what Ataturk set up in Turkey and worked well until recently when President Erdoğan took control, should President Sisi step from power, as he is currently a populist president, or is defeated in an election, and there is a president of Egypt who is not from the military but whose rule is still protected by the military, then Egypt would be the perfect test case. The one exception would be any Muslim Brotherhood candidate, or other terror representative such as Islamic State, are prevented from becoming a candidate for president. This makes Egypt an exceptional nation for installing such a remedy to their current high rate of illiteracy. Then Egypt could be used as a kind of laboratory where increased literacy and improved education of a population and the ensuing results can be used to determine the levels required for true and ultimate change from a third world to a first world nation and all that should ensue. Then other nations can be enticed to follow the Egypt example of improving their populations through education which enables them to become engaged in more productive and technical employment raising the population’s quality of life and their standard of living. The third world requires proper education to levels sufficient such that they attain near 100% literacy along with basic abilities in simple mathematics and understanding of basics such that their employment opportunities are enhanced. Achieving such an outcome will, unfortunately, be excessively difficult, as many of the non-free nations will refuse to permit their populations to be so educated as an educated populace would make their dictatorial rule more difficult. This is why freedom and liberty are so vital for the future of our planet. This is why any challenge to the Constitutional rule of law in the United States, no matter from which side of the political divide it arises, is a threat to the health of the entire world as currently there is no free nations ruled by law rather than men to replace the United States. Is the United States Constitution perfect; no, but it is the best system yet devised allowing the rule by the governed and until something better comes along, it will suffice. That is why the constitution is more important and demands preservation no matter who sits in the White House, and that is an important piece which must be understood by all sides.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

What Will the Future Bring in Egypt?

Egypt is once again on the cusp of a civil war, one that will never be permitted to be fully born. What we have been witnessing over the past days has been the last gasps of the democracy movement in Egypt. The demonstrations were likely used by the government and the Muslim Brotherhood to identify who are the newest leaders who oppose the power-grab by President Morsi and the coming Islamist Constitution which will establish Sharia as the basis for all law in the new Egypt. After a few days of allowing the opposition of President Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood free reign. We then witnessed the release of the Muslim Brotherhood enforcers who were cast as simply being President Morsi supporters. Things in Egypt will be kept from boiling over while the voting for ratification of the new Constitution is carried out. Once the Constitution has been validated by the people of Egypt, which is a given despite what some correspondents have claimed in the West, and once the Constitution is validated we will see the full force of President Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood utterly close down any demonstrations against either President Morsi or the Constitution. Egypt will soon be the Sunni version of Iran with the Muslim Brotherhood providing the religious oversight of the country and those who will make up the government.

One mitigating factor is the literacy rate within the Egyptian population. The CIA Factbook reports for 2010 the literacy rate for the total population over age ten is 72% while for the male population it is 80.3% and the female population it is 63.5%. The lower the literacy rate the higher the influence of organizations like the Muslim Brotherhood or the Salafists. This likely is an indicator that over one out of every four voters will be voting most likely exactly as his Imam will tell him to vote. Combine this with the organization and large membership and influence of the Muslim Brotherhood will likely prove more than sufficient to have the Constitution as proposed validated in the vote. This will make a basically Muslim Brotherhood written Constitution the law of the land in Egypt as the majority of the democracy delegates and Coptic Christian delegates resigned from the committee claiming they were being closed out and not allowed input to the process. This left them with absolutely no input or influence and is why the Egyptian Constitution will enforce Sharia though not immediately directly. With time Sharia will be stepped up one step at a time until Egypt will have become a Sharia State with little to no rights for anybody other than the Sunni Muslims.

This new set of developments has led to exactly what we and other pessimists had predicted would be the result of the Arab Winter transformation across numerous Arab countries. We have also seen a similar result in Tunisia which is again having riots and demonstrations as the government continues to slowly enforce Sharia based laws. This is also what will replace President Assad in Syria once he has been removed from power. The actual truth is that all of the revolutions, which so many western reporters and experts predicted would result in the flowering of democracies across the Arab World, are simply replacing secular dictators with Sharia based Theological dictatorships which will rule with harsher oppression than the governments they overthrew. Put plainly, the revolutions were hijacked by the Muslim Brotherhood with assistance by the Salafists who would prefer even more strict forms of Sharia. The real problem is that the change to Sharia, Muslim Brotherhood governance is far from over and will continue to spread and will not be finished until Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and the rest of the GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) have had their monarchs replaced by Muslim Brotherhood leadership and Sharia. In time historians will look back and ask, “What were they thinking?” Unfortunately, I doubt they will be able to fathom an answer to their query.

Beyond the Cusp