The convulsions rippling through the moslem world recently seem a litle strange to me. Maybe I'm used to fundamentalist uprisings in the wake of Iran's revolution and the anti-western stance of their factions ever since, but I do note the popular unrest in Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain, and now Lybia, where dissent is spreading among common folk. I must admit, it's a little baffling to me why there's a sudden change. Democratic movements in islamic countries? We're not used to hearing that.

For now, the idea that common people can overturn what they consider as autocratic and selfish regimes is spreading. In some cases, the regime has changed as a result. I have the luxury of not needing to worry about the political and strategic implications upon the worlds stage since I am only a bystander to events dislayed on my television.

My worry is that these democratic regimes have, in the long term, merely swapped one major problem for another one already existing among them. Fundamentalists don't like democracy. They want their own autocracies instead. How long will it be before freedom and fundamentalism turn on each other in the moslem world?

There And Back

Last night I stumbled across a film on tv. It's a spanish film called Timecrimes, a sort of psychological thriller in which a man inadvertantly finds himself in a loop in time and no matter how desperately he tries to control events, he can't, and the only escape from his dilemma is to see it all through to the bitter end.

I like the way each iteration of the lead character is visually identifiable. Good emphasis on props as plot markers, tightly scripted, pitched almost to the point of maddening inscrutability, and even with subtitles an oddly watchable film, even if it does delve into human ugliness at times.