If you give the people the power, you'll see tomorrow that most of the borders are removed
WTF? Have you ever spoken with an actual Arab?
If you had, you'd know that nationalism is alive and well. Egyptians are quite cognizant of the differences between themselves and Syrians or Lebanese or Jordanians. They have zero interest in abolishing borders and uniting with other countries.
I really don't know about you. I'm not saying they want to form a one country and become one nation; but make trade easier, one currency (may be in the future). I was speaking from the financial side.
For their support for brothers countries like Palestine, may be you won't support them, but the majority does.
And you being an Egyptian doesn't represent what the majority of Egyptians think. Only the future will tell what their orientations will be.
Look at how difficult any of this similar co-operation has been for Europeans.
You seem to suggest that you can't extrapolate from one Egyptian to all Egyptians, yet at the same time you seem to be talking about Arabs as some monolithic mono-culture, which seems like a very backwards and ill-informed view.
Sure, Egyptians and, say, Jordanians are both Arabs, but guess what, Brits and, say, Austrians are both Germanic Caucasians, don't expect them to team up anytime soon.
If you look at what has happened with Greece and Spain and Portugal and Ireland in the Euro... I strongly doubt any large group of nations will get on board the "one currency" train in the next 25 years.
Borders won't disappear, at least not over night, but Arabs have a sense of unity and brotherhood in their subconscious.
You know this is pseudo-science garbage, right? There is no reason to believe that Arabs have a particular "sense of unity and brotherhood". There is no evidence. I know that people like to make up stories about how awesome their national/religious/ethnic group is, but at HN I'd hope we could dispense with that BS.
And even if it were true, that doesn't tell us anything about whether Egyptians want to merge their country with Jordan or Libya or Sudan.
> There is no reason to believe that Arabs have a particular "sense of unity and brotherhood".
There's plenty, actually. Just walk around any street in any major Arab city/capital and ask the people:
* Do you view Egyptians as your brothers
* Do you view Palestinian as your brothers
* Do you support the Palestinian cause
* Do you support the Egyptian revolution
> I know that people like to make up stories about how awesome their national/religious/ethnic group is, but at HN I'd hope we could dispense with that BS.
I didn't make any such claim.
EDIT:
Right this second, Al-Jazeera (Arabic) is reporting celebrations throughout the Arab world.
Let me break it down for you: you made a claim about the sub-conscience of a group of hundreds of millions of people. You've supplied zero evidence. You've cited no scientific studies, nothing.
There's plenty, actually. Just walk around any street in any major Arab city/capital and ask the people
Let's assume everyone says yes...so what? What does that tell us about a sub-conscious sense of unity and brotherhood? If you went to many European countries, there'd be huge public support for the Egyptian revolution or the Palestinian cause, but surely that wouldn't be due to a sub-conscious sense of unity and brotherhood, right?
It's not a scientific claim; it's impossible to provide a scientific evidence about any sociological claim.
However, I believe my claim is not without evidence; there's plenty of evidence for it. You just have to be a part of the culture.
You do have to interpret it charitably, though. If you interpret it as "Every single Arab person has this ideology", then of course it's a false claim.
It's not too different from the claim that "Egyptians are fed up with Mubarak". I can assure you there are Egyptians who were against this revolution. For that matter, normal, educated Egyptians; not police thugs or businessmen. Maybe 10 million people marched to the street, but Egypt has way more population than just 10 million.
Going by your logic, one would dismiss the claim that "Egyptians are fed up with Mubarak" as non-scientific.
(Edit: I said you're not making sense because it doesn't make sense to use the word "scientific" when talking about this issue).
If you reject my claim about the existence of an "Arab brotherhood" spirit, then you're making a much more substantial claim than I am: you're claiming Arabs don't care about each other.
On that we agree. But its also not an empirical claim: it is something that exists outside the realm of evidence.
it's impossible to provide a scientific evidence about any sociological claim.
Do the sociologists know that?
If you reject my claim about the existence of an "Arab brotherhood" spirit, then you're making a much more substantial claim than I am: you're claiming Arabs don't care about each other.
No, you are very confused. You are the one making a claim. You are the one failing to provide any evidence for it. I'm not claiming that no such spirit exists: I'm pointing out that your claim is garbage because there is literally no evidence behind it. I don't have to prove anything because I'm not making a claim. All I have to do is show that your claim has zero evidence behind it.
WTF? Have you ever spoken with an actual Arab?
If you had, you'd know that nationalism is alive and well. Egyptians are quite cognizant of the differences between themselves and Syrians or Lebanese or Jordanians. They have zero interest in abolishing borders and uniting with other countries.
But what do I know, I'm only an Egyptian.