Word: fundamentalistic
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...universe of sometimes incapacitating grievance, a practical Arab future opening onto a larger world, onto a new century, may be more difficult to imagine than a romantic past. The past has a powerful, seductive glory. It seamlessly encloses itself within fundamentalist Islamic virtue. It mobilizes the mind for a classic conflict of Islam vs. the West, that historical cliche -- the sword of Islam against the last crusade...
Much of Egypt's vast population of 55 million survives barely above the level of subsistence and would seem an ideal constituency for Saddam. Yet notwithstanding the presence of radical and fundamentalist sentiment, his appeal there is limited. One reason is the bitter experience of thousands of Egyptian laborers maltreated in Iraq at the hands of their employers; hundreds are believed to have been killed. Another reason may be the strong leadership of Hosni Mubarak. By supporting the U.S. and Saudi Arabia against Saddam, Mubarak won considerable financial benefits. Both nations have forgiven billions in Egyptian debts, for example...
...much as the King is cursed among Saddam's opponents for his neutrality in the gulf conflict -- often miscast as support for Baghdad -- the probable alternatives to his rule would scarcely suit their interests. Among the leading contenders would be a radical Palestinian administration or a fundamentalist regime...
...Jordan's King Hussein mounts a last-ditch effort for peace, he is sporting a silvery new beard. Some of the King's subjects believe he is trying to appear more pious as the gulf conflict heats up. Just after Hussein grew the beard, he appointed members of the fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood to his Cabinet, thereby including that group in the government for the first time. Others see the beard's purpose differently, concluding that months of fruitless diplomacy have caused the King's stress-induced skin rash to act up again...
Aside from the Islamic world, where laws based on fundamentalist strictures often forbid access to any entertainment, there seem to be very few places where that is not the case. Even in secular Iraq, teenagers jam the half a dozen or so little shops in downtown Baghdad that sell pirated copies of American rock-'n'-roll tapes and where the walls are covered with posters of Madonna and Metallica...