The contrast between what is happening in Hong Kong and in the Middle East couldn’t be greater. In Hong Kong idealistic young people fill the streets because they know that a better society and greater prosperity depend on democratization. They are asking, not just for elections, but for elections that are not limited and censored by the regime in Beijing.
In the Middle East young men are in such despair that they have joined a vicious, violent movement that gained publicity-most recently– by beheading an idealistic British cab driver who went to Syria because he wanted to help.