Hilaire Belloc Versus John Derbyshire On Arab Culture

Crunchy Con has a post on John Derbyshire very blunt and controversial column on Arab culture.

See Why Derb doesn't care about Palestinians. Basically he finds Arab Culture worthless it appears and not worthy of producing anything. Of course as pointed out while Derb points out Hong Kong as a example of success he fails to mention places like Dubai which is a pretty good equivalent in many ways.

Derb has good points and it is worth considering. However I think it is wise to take the words of another Englishman on this subject that wrote a quite long time ago. That is Hilaire Belloc. He wrote on Islam here

I think Belloc might be talking about Derb when he said in 1936 "I say the suggestion that Islam may re-arise sounds fantastic_but this is only because men are always powerfully affected by the immediate past:_one might say that they are blinded by it."

Now of course Arab and Islam are two different things. We have Arab Christians for that matter. But still Islam is a part of the culture and political environment.

It is a long piece but about 3/4th through his presentation (See above link) I think he sends a warning to people of Derbs mindset not to be so sure of themselves.