What we are seeing is not so much a clash between civilizations as a crisis of Arab civilization: the failure of the Arab world to master modernity—to find a way to be economically and politically successful under modern conditions without losing the core cultural and social values. This is comparable to what happened in China in the 19th century, when China failed to find a way to adapt Western methods and ideas to Chinese conditions—which led to decades of state failure, weakness, and immense suffering for the Chinese people.To which he adds:
It looks as if for the foreseeable future, the rest of the world is going to have to deal with the consequences of Arab failure without being able to do much about the underlying conditions.Industrious Chinese stayed home and struggled through the adaptation. Slacker Arabs seem hellbent on dumping their problem on us, basically becoming our wards.
Angela Merkel is wrong; we must find the tough love to refuse to be the Arabs' safety net. They need to "cope." Hat tip to Cool Hand Luke for the caption.
