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Culture War Roundup for the week of July 22, 2024

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Islamists have mixed views of Khaleejis (although even there there’s a lot of deference). I agree that there’s a general dislike for almost all extant Muslim governments, certainly in the Gulf but also in North Africa, Jordan, Pakistan, whatever. At the same time, the vast majority of the Ummah is not even-marginally-scholarly young Islamist men with views of any substantial kind on KSA’s adherence to Islamic values. Most of the Ummah continues to practice deference to Gulf Arab wealth, takes their money, and asks few questions. I don’t think the Saudis paid too much heed to the demands of the Yemeni government during the war, I think they were on ever-thinner ground in general and they were worried about oil facilities and fields getting bombed in a war the Americans didn’t seem to care about anyway.

Some years ago I was exposed to the idea of a wild frontier transaction trying to arrange the sale of Yemeni pipeline construction rights for land under Houthi control that were being sold off cheap by the internationally recognized government. We didn’t end up having anything to do with that deal for obvious reasons, but I do feel some measure of sympathy for anyone who ended up buying in.

Thats some South Sea Trading Company shit: I am selling you stuff I do not have rights to.

For the khaleeji the ummah envies their money and their access to western whores, but despises their unislamic hedonism and fundamental immorality. In general southeast Asians want to be arab in looks and money and respect, and do not want to be arab in conduct and disposition - although cars and whores will not be rejected if offered.

I am close to the malay muslim communities because of roles I engage in, and I am confident that muslims are not particularly concerned about theology and doctrine save for what their ustaz tells them to believe. All anger at the west for humiliating the muslim world is just deflection, with the angry young men being upset that the lives of plenty and excess they see in their social media being denied to them due to a perceived conspiracy of jews and whites out to subjugate the browns. Why there is general incapability in the broader Muslim world is different, but suffice to say the gulf arabs are respected only for their excess visible consumption not their morals or conduct, people or governments.