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Ideology should guide you in your goals, and to a certain extent…

Posted on November 27, 2016 by Shahid Bolsen

Ideology should guide you in your goals, and to a certain extent, in how you respond to events, so that you can advance those goals through your responses. However, ideology should not become the lens through which you understand and interpret reality. I think this is where we tend to err. You can be an idealist as much as you want, but you do have to operate in the real world.

I have seen a number of memes and posts going around condemning Turkey for sending help to put out the fires in Israel. When I see these, what I read is the author declaring “I have no understanding of real world politics!”. If the affairs of our Ummah were placed in the hands of such well-intentioned, but ignorant people; frankly, I doubt that the religion of Islam itself would survive more than a decade. It is by Allah’s Mercy that these people never attain power.

Politics is rarely, if ever, a zero-sum game. You balance relationships, you build political capital and clout, you issue IOUs to both friends and rivals, you improve your negotiating position, and so on. This is how you create the power to pursue ideological goals. It is like the well-known concept of the Sphere of Concern and the Sphere of Influence. Your Sphere of Concern is always going to be larger than your Sphere of Influence; but the responsible and serious person (or state) will concentrate on developing their Sphere of Influence in practical ways that will eventually enable them to address the issues they care about in their Sphere of Concern. Yes, that may require you to do things you do not like. It may require you to compromise now in order to develop the power that will enable you to demand or dictate later. That is called wisdom.

Everyone who is celebrating the fires will no doubt wring their hands and slap their cheeks when Israel uses the fires as a pretext for building more settlements; Turkey, however, is building the political capital to potentially influence that decision, and any number of other maneuvers the Israelis may contemplate in the future.

That is how geopolitics works in real life.

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Retweet on Twitter Shahid Bolsen Retweeted
amazighishbalan avatar; Uncle Tom @amazighishbalan ·
16 Jun 2067028058633011530

@jem_toto @PhilConte007 @ShahidkBolsen @joekent16jan19 Apprend la langue. L'anglais ça ouvrira ton horizon comme jamais. Le frère Shahid est probablement le vulgarisateur géopolitique le plus acerbe que j'ai pu écouté dernièrement. Sa chaine youtube Themiddlenation est un must. Peace.

Reply on Twitter 2067028058633011530 Retweet on Twitter 2067028058633011530 1 Like on Twitter 2067028058633011530 9 X link 2067028058633011530
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