From: khaled Alkotob (khaledsa@juno.com)
Date: Fri Sep 23 2005 - 05:22:34 BST
Mike ( Platt, this is not for you)
Very well put. Before I elaborate on the middle eastern culture, let's
bring the issue a little closer to home.
What do you know about life in the US on Indian reservations? Do they
practice democracy?
Of course we feel that we have done the natives so much damage over the
last couple of hundred years, so we let them be.
They are Indian NATIONS on U.S. soil. Free to administer their laws as
they see fit.
As for the current administration, the latest buzz word is Freedom and
Democracy.
See, under the bill of wrights it says something about the pursuit of
Happiness. So if the people are happy in a theocracy or a monarchy, is
that wrong.
The whole idea is that any good nation, would be a republic. By the
People, for the People. With checks and balances in place to keep things
on an even keel. Great idea but here are a few questions.
1. When political campaigns cost millions, and only the privileged few
can run. Is it still a democracy?
2. When one political power controls all branches of the government, is
it still a democracy?
3. If the people go the poles and vote for a theocracy, is it still a
democracy?
The above is what happened in Algiers, and what the Economist magazine
called a One_Time democracy.
4. If less than 50% of those eligible to vote, vote, is it still a
democracy?
As for you asking about freedom and democracy in the middle east,
unfortunately there are too many factors that compound the issues, here
are a few
1. Rebellion against external interference
2. Religious resurgence
3. Economic hardship
4. Socio-ecological problems
5. Palestinian issue
6. Favoritism by the west to those whore are "friends" du jour.
7. Identity crisis
8. Unjust wars
9. Oil, the black curse.
And the list goes on. And there comes the point where those people will
chop their noses off to spite their faces.
The Arabian peninsula is mostly monarchies, principalities or
oligarchies.
So they let people go to the poles, then what. There are no checks and
balances and those who get elected, with the help of their cronies, run
the show until next elections. As my dad puts it, so I can go out in he
street and have the freedom to curse the president. So what.
Places like the Arabian gulf states, Kuwait and the like, are living like
kings. They don't care if the Devil is in charge. The are Happy.
As for the rest, well the US would have had better luck invading Syria
and spreading freedom there.
Here is the mentality that runs through the Iraqi mind.
You invaded our country and got rid of a bad dictatorship, now leave. We
had no time line for leaving, so then the people turned against us. The
other thing is that when the Iraqis do go to the pole, the majority are
Shiite who under "Democracy" would vote for a theocracy and would go in
an alliance with Iran. We don't like that.
Lebanon has a democracy, but there is a Gentleman's agreement to who gets
the Presidency, whose the head of congress and who is the head of the
senate DESPITE the democratic outcome of the populous vote. In other
words the president is a Maronite Christian even though that the
Maronites now are less that 30% of the population. There goes democracy
for you.
The bottom line is, just like religion, you can't dictate politics to
others.
On Thu, 22 Sep 2005 12:56:38 +0000 Michael Hamilton
<thethemichael@gmail.com> writes:
> . However, I am neither an Iraqi nor a Muslim. The social and
> intellectual values in which you and I have been immersed all our
> lives, the values that hold our (fairly similar) societies together,
> are not the same as the equivalent values in the Middle East. Before
> you scream "moral relativism!", I have _not_ said that the differing
> values are of equal worth, I am merely stating a brute fact - customs
> in the Middle East are different to those with which we are
> accustomed. Even if we accept the assumption that our values are of
> the greater moral worth/Dynamic value/whatever, which may or may not
> be the case, it would never be practical to attempt to inculcate our
> values - in fact, it would severely impinge on the freedom of the
> people of the Middle East if we were to do so. I say "if", but sadly
> the attempt and the impingement is already being made, and I believe
> that this partly responsible for fuelling the rise in terrorism and
> attacks against occupying forces in Iraq.
>
> Now, if "freedom" is the ability to follow one's own sense of value
> without undue restriction by the overarching social value systems of
> government, (I made that up as I went along, what do you think of it
> as a definition?) it follows that the peoples of the Middle East, if
> given the genuine freedom of which we are both supporters, will apply
> their freedom differently to the way we apply it, because their
> values
> are different.
>
> I realise that I'm speaking about these cultural value differences in
> an extremely vague way, because my knowledge of Islamic culture is
> very limited. Khaled, perhaps you might have something to say about
> mainstream, moderate Islamic views on democracy and freedom?
>
> Regards,
>
> Mike
>
MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archives:
Aug '98 - Oct '02 - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
Nov '02 Onward - http://www.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/summary.html
MD Queries - horse@darkstar.uk.net
To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Fri Sep 23 2005 - 06:07:34 BST