The Ascent of Culture

The Middle East needs cultural--not regime, change. Observers can lament all they wish about the merits of new government, but without a fundamental reformation of cultural statues and beliefs no established authority will be able to last as a fully legitimate structure above the people that it subjugates. Only a change of mindset thta embraces free will and individual liberty from religious requirements can hope to unravel the sad tale of partial disassembly that has always appeared to be the home front condition of every country in the forsaken region. 

(Courtesy of Associated Content.com)

Around 70 years ago, the State of Lebanon was a thriving hub of mixing cultures and business activity that served as a model in contrast to even the Zionist Israel to its south. With a narrow Christian majority and political supremacy vested in the presidency, Lebanese politics remained a matter of electing a power-sharing government to overturn the problems of ethnic division and Muslim radicalism. 

But like all good things, even the Lebanese dream could not last forever, and the 1991 Ta'if Agreement sold out the Christians, empowering the prime minister and ceding religious authority to the Sunni and Shiite Muslim blocs. In a matter of 20 years, the country changed from an open and more secure land to an intensely restrictive zone where growing populist Shiites prevent the moderated state of the old country from remaining ever-secure in its place.

Lebanon's dilemma is regrettably a cancer which has spread across the Middle East since the end of World War II, and only a swift intervention of western religion and culture can hope to overcome it. At a basic level, we must come to realize that our culture is superior. In the West, a promise between two individuals is entirely binding, whereas Muslims disagree with this unless both people pledging themselves are of the Islamic Faith. Obviously this creates a conundrum as they are not viable forces to debate with or live in proximity to. 

Instead of these weak short-term operations by the Western bloc, the world should embrace a partial recolonization of the region in order to reinvest civil values in cultures that are dangerously verging towards radicalism. As long as these nations maintain their current path, they will inevitably converge in a point of issue when there vanishes the remaining cooperation needed to hold together the current peace. 

Michael Veramendi

National Alliance Vice President for Foreign Issues