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Islam and Democracy

seayakin

Graduate Poster
seayakin
Joined
Nov 30, 2003
Messages
1,437
Maybe some of you are already here but I have become convinced that conservative and fundamental Islam are simply incompatible with democracy and that any country that contains a majority of potential voters who adhere to these forms of Islam will always vote their rights away and if nothing else religious dictators in.

Maybe I'm stating the obvious but from a policy standpoint, I don't know if we can talk about democracy in the middle east until more liberal forms of Islam spread.
 
seayakin said:
Maybe some of you are already here but I have become convinced that conservative and fundamental Islam are simply incompatible with democracy and that any country that contains a majority of potential voters who adhere to these forms of Islam will always vote their rights away and if nothing else religious dictators in.

Maybe I'm stating the obvious but from a policy standpoint, I don't know if we can talk about democracy in the middle east until more liberal forms of Islam spread.
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Islam and democracy are not compatible to anyone who strictly follows the Q'uran:

# 18:26 "He maketh none to share in His government."

# 42:10 "And in whatsoever ye differ, the verdict therein belongeth to Allah."
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Zarquawi stated as much explicitly berfore the two ago Iraqi election.
 
seayakin said:
Maybe I'm stating the obvious but from a policy standpoint, I don't know if we can talk about democracy in the middle east until more liberal forms of Islam spread.
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Assume, for the sake of argument, that this statement is correct? What then? Or, to paraphrase Jim Malone from The Untouchables, what are you prepared to do about it?
 
Fundamentalist Muslim are diametrically opposed to democracy. Moderate Muslims are not. Turkey has been an imperfect democracy for years. If it joins the EU, it will soon be a liberal democracy.

Iran is an example where the mullahs have the power and voters get to choose basically powerless leaders.

CBL
 
seayakin said:
Maybe I'm stating the obvious but from a policy standpoint, I don't know if we can talk about democracy in the middle east until more liberal forms of Islam spread.
Click to expand...
What we've been seeing over the last few decades - which is the short-term in the big picture - has been a spread of less liberal Islam onto what was an established moderate scene. It's happened in Pakistan (an egregious creation), Iran, Palestine, Lebanon Afghanistan, Nigeria, Indonesia and beyond. The Islamic threat wasn't on any Westerner's - or Russian's - mind 30 years ago. Of course, there was still the Cold War in those days ... hey, I'm just saying. Maybe there's a connection. Maybe the attention paid to a new enemy has created its own monster. :con2:

Islam is not incompatible with democracy, any more than Christianity or Judaism are. Some interpretations of Abrahamic religions are incompatible - the current Iranian system provides an example.

To my mind, what's lacking in the Middle East is trusted institutions. A Ministry of Government is not regarded as there to serve the public, it's regarded as a source of patronage and budget which enhances the influence and wealth of the Minister. These institutions have to develop over time, they can't be created by fiat. The closest thing to trusted institutions in the Middle East are religious houses and charities.

You suggest that Muslims will always vote "their rights" away, but perhaps they don't share your concept of what "their rights" are. (The same might be true of the Chinese, etc.) I'm sure they'd overlap on such matters as arbitrary confiscation or punishment, safe streets, life and liberty - but the degree of liberty might well differ. Where lies the line between liberty and licence? Between the communal and the individual?
 
CBL4 said:
Fundamentalist Muslim are diametrically opposed to democracy. Moderate Muslims are not. Turkey has been an imperfect democracy for years. If it joins the EU, it will soon be a liberal democracy.
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Brave on the "will", but the "if" won't be answered soon and the "soon", well, I'm not convinced I'll live to see two more soons.

Iran is an example where the mullahs have the power and voters get to choose basically powerless leaders.

CBL
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The democratic element is not entirely powerless, and it is a wedge. Iran has its peculiar history, which should not be confused with the Arab experience to their west. Iran was never formally part of any Western empire. It had a democracy back in the 50's, and even the Shah was never able to suppress it entirely. True enough, only two parties were permitted : locally known as the Yes Party and the Yes Sir Party. Khomeini wasn't able to do away with it entirely. Ahmadenijad is a last desperate throw of the mullahs, because they had nothing better. He - and the mullahs - are an embarrassment to the Iranian people. Iran has been dragged into a delicate situation, one which, above all, calls for cleverness and competence. Neither are forthcoming from the mullahs, who've had 25 years to demonstrate their idiocy.
 
seayakin said:
Maybe some of you are already here but I have become convinced that conservative and fundamental Islam are simply incompatible with democracy and that any country that contains a majority of potential voters who adhere to these forms of Islam will always vote their rights away and if nothing else religious dictators in.

Maybe I'm stating the obvious but from a policy standpoint, I don't know if we can talk about democracy in the middle east until more liberal forms of Islam spread.
Click to expand...

I'm told by people who would know better than I that Islam has many traditions that are quite compatable with Democracy, and that it's only the violent Wahhibist philosophies exported primarily by Saudi Arabia that are the problem. Unfortunately, Saudi Arabia seems to be exporting it everywhere in the form of funding Mosques, Clerics and extremists literature, so the problems are likely to get much worse before they get better.
 
Mycroft said:
I'm told by people who would know better than I that Islam has many traditions that are quite compatable with Democracy, and that it's only the violent Wahhibist philosophies exported primarily by Saudi Arabia that are the problem. Unfortunately, Saudi Arabia seems to be exporting it everywhere in the form of funding Mosques, Clerics and extremists literature, so the problems are likely to get much worse before they get better.
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The Saudi family and their hangers-on have survived by buying-off their opposition, and directing it externally. The smarter of them recognise that this will rebound at some point, but they've secured assets outside the region and each year they earn far more than they spend on people that choose to live in caves.
 
Mycroft said:
I'm told by people who would know better than I that Islam has many traditions that are quite compatable with Democracy, and that it's only the violent Wahhibist philosophies exported primarily by Saudi Arabia that are the problem. Unfortunately, Saudi Arabia seems to be exporting it everywhere in the form of funding Mosques, Clerics and extremists literature, so the problems are likely to get much worse before they get better.
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Right on. And the fact that the Bush administration is a close friend of the Saudi royals is a good indication that this "war on terrorism" is either some form of contradictory delusion or an elaborate demagogic scam, maybe even both.
 
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Orwell said:
Right on. And the fact that the Bush administration is a close friend of the Saudi royals is a good indication that this "war on terrorism" is either some form of contradictory delusion or an elaborate demagogic scam, maybe even both.
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The Law of Unintended Consequences will not be mocked.
 
CapelDodger said:
You suggest that Muslims will always vote "their rights" away, but perhaps they don't share your concept of what "their rights" are.
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I was not suggesting that all muslims would vote their rights away but fundamentalist and more conservative muslims will consistently favor religious dictatorships or tyranny over democratic institutions. There definitely is a democratic element that can be drawn from Islam. There is the concept of ijma (not sure if I spelled it correctly?) which means consensus. This comes from the tribal traditions where decisions were made for the Arabic tribe by concensus (although this is not to say this was/is unique to Arabic tribes).

Regarding Manny's question, if so, what to do about it? I don't have a specific solution but I must question a foreign policy that talks about bringing democracy to the Middle East. Democracy cannot be brought to the Middle East until more moderate forms of Islam are allowed to flourish.

I do not want to suggest that other religions do not have the same problem. I think many fundamentalist Christians have problems with a truly liberal democratic society. However, they do not reperesent a large majority of the population in western industrialized nations.
 
CapelDodger said:
What we've been seeing over the last few decades - which is the short-term in the big picture - has been a spread of less liberal Islam onto what was an established moderate scene. It's happened in Pakistan (an egregious creation), Iran, Palestine, Lebanon Afghanistan, Nigeria, Indonesia and beyond. The Islamic threat wasn't on any Westerner's - or Russian's - mind 30 years ago. Of course, there was still the Cold War in those days ... hey, I'm just saying. Maybe there's a connection. Maybe the attention paid to a new enemy has created its own monster.
Click to expand...

Excellent point, CapelDodger!

It seems that with each and every military action against Muslims more extremists are drawn into the fray. As you mentioned it's happened throughout the middle east, and I'm almost certain that "the attention paid to a new enemy" created this monster. It's nearly impossible to demonize a culture, a religion or an ethnic group without someone getting angry enough to do violence and when those few have the ability (through money, or religious influence) to incite others, it's a problem that grows proportionally.
 
seayakin said:
Maybe some of you are already here but I have become convinced that conservative and fundamental Islam are simply incompatible with democracy and that any country that contains a majority of potential voters who adhere to these forms of Islam will always vote their rights away and if nothing else religious dictators in.

Maybe I'm stating the obvious but from a policy standpoint, I don't know if we can talk about democracy in the middle east until more liberal forms of Islam spread.
Click to expand...

I suggest that a more accurate description would be that any form of religious based government is incompatible with democracy in the long run. God always demands more than the status quo and always discriminates against someone.

One can find that in Israel too, and in Pat Robertson's America for example.
 
Mephisto said:
Excellent point, CapelDodger!

It seems that with each and every military action against Muslims more extremists are drawn into the fray. As you mentioned it's happened throughout the middle east, and I'm almost certain that "the attention paid to a new enemy" created this monster. It's nearly impossible to demonize a culture, a religion or an ethnic group without someone getting angry enough to do violence and when those few have the ability (through money, or religious influence) to incite others, it's a problem that grows proportionally.
Click to expand...

There you go again, clutching at straws to put all blame of evil on yourself (ourselves that is). You lack self esteem it seems.

Does it not occur to you that friction between civilizations that are at least 1000 years apart in the fundamentals, is pretty much guaranteed no matter how much you will kiss a$$?
 
Religion is set up as a dictatorship. All religions basically. None of them jive with democrasy.
 
It's all in the interpretation of the religion. You can claim that Buddhism "jives with" democracy, but there was nothing democratic at all about Tibet under the Dali Lama. At the same time, we have western countries that are very democratic, yet they have state churches.
 
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