Instead, she bases it on history. Not recent history, either. Her surprising data, presented in easy-to-understand spiral pie-charts, indicates that democratic revolutions like these are usual about a decade into the beginning of a century.
According to Claxton-Dong, without the pressure of democracy on leaders to be more responsive to the needs of average working people, we can expect decades of uprisings and strikes, creating further chaos in the region and driving up the price of oil.
On the other hand, with democracy should come a more modern and forgiving Islam – just as Chrisianity has changed with the times. And the “inevitable”
Catherine Claxton-Dong received her Ph.D. in government from Cornell and is also the author of The Middle East Revolutions. She can be contacted at ccdong@sbcglobal.net.
