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Heterodork's avatar

Thanks, nuanced take. I don't know enough to judge the sources. Yousef's take on Arafat seems a little too tidy a narrative for US, Israel. I defer to Chomsky (the man did read a lot) but despite the corruption of Arafat, I'm open to the idea that it was also a deliberately unpalatable proposal from Israels side. The way I see it it's 3D chess by hawks on both sides.

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e.pierce's avatar

On another example of kinship networks and dysfunctional institutions, see Eric Stetson's book on the toxic family squabbles of Baha'i leaders (late 1800s, to about WW1). The more pro-unitarian (anti-authoritarian, liberal-secular, western) faction, the majority, was marginalized (more or less ex-communicated) by Abdul-Baha, who defended his claim to being the legitimate hereditary leader. Stetson's material shows the inherent authoritarianism and patriarchal nature of kinship group leadership, even in a "reformist" offshoot of Shi'ism that claimed to be seeking "harmony" of spiritual and modern-rational, scientific perspectives. In reality, the authoritarians set in motion a series of events that led to a long decline into increasing fundamentalism. Weirdly, as a persecuted minority religion in Iran, Bahaism became more fundamentalist under the post-revolution national govt of the mullas. (also see Juan Cole's critiques of Bahaism).

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