UAE

Submitted by Gary Rose (Canada), Apr 11, 2016 at 14:25

"Better leave it be" - perhaps for now considering its neighbors, but "encourage its influence"? I think not. The more moral thing to do is encourage further reforms within the UAE Yes it is better to have some civility and a somewhat freer society within an area of the world that is lacking in both, but if we truly want to see Islam and Islamic states reform themselves, we cannot lower our own standards of measurement. What we will end up doing is lowering the bar of what is ethically acceptable by us just to keep the peace.

Small steps towards a moral society are paved with good intentions, but all that does is provide an argument for tolerating a society that we in the West still would not tolerate. All societies are corrupt but at least in ours we work to expose and our reform our corruption rather than tolerate and give license to it, which in effect we would be doing by encouraging the UAE.

What we need to encourage is further reformation with the idea that this catches on at the grassroots level within the neighboring states. Revolution within from the ground up is the only way, but for this to happen the goal has to be more than a paint job. It has to be so desirable that nothing but the goal will suffice.

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