In his article, “A Bleak Anniversary for the Arab Spring” Thane Rosenbaum writes in The Wall Street Journal January 28, 2013 that while the Arab Spring may have ended the regimes of secular strongmen in many Muslim countries throughout the Middle East, North Africa and the Persian Gulf, these changes have not brought about the desired central features of a democratic society in any of them.
The question that is never asked is how can Muslim people who have lived under extreme authoritarian rule for centuries be expected to function overnight in any way similar to people living in a modern Western style democracy? This question, which goes to the heart of the emotional sickness of human beings, lies outside the framework of current medical and sociological thinking. Without recognizing the emotional sickness resulting from individual and social armor that prevents people from being able to regulate their lives and function freely and responsibly in a democratic society it is not possible to understand why all Arab Spring movements must fail.
Without knowing the answer, the author does touch on this inability of people living in Muslim countries to establish a democratic society. He finds that the only thing that Muslims in the Arab world seem to be capable of achieving is a limited, short term goal, to free themselves of their current oppressor. This myopic vision of the world is, in fact, an indication of the severity of the ocular armor of the masses in the Muslim world, the biophysical condition that prevents them from being able to see and find the way out of their current trapped existence.
Neither Left Nor Right
The Emotional Plague
Charles Konia, M.D. 