“[I]f Cuba does not respect its citizenry’s human rights, it is necessary for the beacon of said rights across the water to starve those citizens into revolt. This is a special kind of tough love for the ordinary Cuban that emanates in particular from Florida and New Jersey fogies still embittered over things lost in the revolution; one deep enough to perdure for two thirds of a century, despite being forever in vain – those ordinary Cubans having bafflingly failed, decade after decade, to overthrow their government, however much hunger and desperation they are subjected to.”
By Nadeem Mahjoub Documentary film-makers G. Troeller and M. C. Defarge once asked a cabinet minister in South Yemen, why socialistic ideas were so readily acceptable in that part of the Arab world. He replied: “Because we have been communists for a thousand years! My mother was Qarmatian.” Official Muslim scholars and clerics, and many so-called moderates (whether individuals or groups) oppose sedition ( fitna ). Tensions and contradictions in society should be solved peacefully and even if the ruler was unjust and impious, it is generally accepted he should still be obeyed, for any kind of order is better than anarchy and sedition. “The tyranny of a sultan for a hundred years causes less damage than one year’s tyranny exercised by the subjects against one another.” Revolt was justified only against a ruler who clearly went against the command of God and His prophet.” 1 Here we look at not what happened in the minds of people who call for calm, oppose dissent and preach the re...
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