>
> > The Iranians are the Jacobins of the Middle East.
You've said before that you regard the populations of France, Venezuela and Iran as being the respective historic jacobins to their regions. This analogy does fit France--- and there is the only place it is not anachronistic, because their political culture actually does flow from the courses of the french rev. But can you say why you feel it applies to the other two? Venezuela, during the revolutionary upsurge of latin america in the 60s and 70s, actually lagged the pack, which was led by chile, bolivia and el salvador until exterminist terror stepped in. Venezuela simply does not have the left history other countries in the region do, and today's bolivarian project I feel is very very much the product of one group of people running a very effective populist-nationalist-socialist program. Certainly the venezuelan masses have mostly stepped up in support, but at the end of the day, one ex-army christian socialist does not a whole jacobin tradition make.
And Iran? To call their political traditions Jacobin, I think, is extreme wishful thinking and anachronistic misapplication. The middle east has never been the terrain of the ideologies of the french rev--- it was once a battleground of nationalist nasserist type pan-arab projects (which I think was their best shot at social justice and resistance to imperialism, if the douchebags who took over the nasser project and the baath project hadn't turned out to be such vile pieces of shit), and since then, a series of autocracies where populist islam leads the resistance to dictatorship and imperialism. Its one thing to make a case that populist islam is cool, but I predict you're gonna have to tie yourself in knots with you citations and claims in order to show it is in fact 'jacobin'.
Which part? Their opposition to the Church, or their love of terror?
>
>
Doug's grumpyness to Yoshie is making him seriously contend with ravi for title of most intentionally funny person on the list. Speaking of which, welcome back ravi.