Political Islam Because Nothing Else
Ali Eteraz
From Ikhwanweb:
"The Bush administration sees all Islamists as radicals and all radicals as terrorists and thus they all need to be eliminated. But this attempt to corner Hamas – clearly has backfired," said Ahmad Moussalli, a political scientist at the American University of Beirut.
"It sent a message to the entire Arab world that the promise of democracy is false. And it handed a gift to political Islam by keeping it outside the halls of power, thereby giving them an even greater aura of sanctity."
Lebanese sociologist Kahi said Arab disappointment is underscored today by the evident backtracking of the Bush administration, which has ceased to even speak the word democracy as it works to rally authoritarian Sunni Muslim leaderships to help contain the political disintegration of Iraq.
"Arab Muslims today see the George Bush project of democracy in the Middle East crashing to a halt," said Kahi. "The only results they can see are McDonald's, Madonna and bombs. There is nothing real in it for them. The only place left to turn is Islam."
Blanket rejection also feeds radicalism, said Moussalli, as the pole of political Islam wavers between moderation and radicalism. "The more venues are closed, the more moderates get forced to the margins. The radicals are a much smaller force than the moderates, but without a political future some people will resort to military activities to change what they consider to be an evil reality."
Joost Hiltermann, Middle East team leader of the independent policy think-tank the International Crisis Group, predicts that sooner or later the West will need to find a way to engage political Islam.
"The West ought to at least contemplate it because you can't just keep this stuff bottled up and continue to support repressive regimes. It won't work," he said.
"It is a simple question of historical experience. The era of Arab nationalism, of secular ideology, is about to die because it has proved itself capable of delivering nothing but repression, corruption and illiteracy," he said.
"There are only two ways for the West to contend with this. Either give a comparatively moderate Islamic group like the Muslim Brotherhood a chance to live up to their promises by having a chance to govern. Or conversely, they can undermine the Muslim Brotherhood by actually forcing the ruling governments in the Arab world to clean up their act by fighting corruption, governing properly and actually offering some freedoms to their people."
I do not care for the Ikhwan. They do not make adequate assurances that they believe in separation of mosque and state. However, this analysis is mostly spot on.
That last sentence is the only alternative that the West has to the coming rule of Muslim Brotherhood types.
When the opening statement is as false as this, I just can't make myself read further.
So I skipped to your part. And then when you said:
I went back and read the last sentence:
Nothing there really to disagree with. But the people making this case start from false premises, so it makes me wonder if it's even possible to deal with them.
Or, these corrupt governments can reform themselves. There is no law saying that Arabs can't reform their own systems and institutions.
Bush can encourage reform but short of outright force you can't really force anyone who doesn't want to do anything.
Eventually Arabs will have to do their own housecleaning.
Let me offer a general observation of this viewpoint, and you tell me if you find it kinda paradoxical.
Many Muslims are offended by Bush's efforts to clean up Iraq by force. Then some Muslims also say Bush should do more to force other corrupt Arab-related regimes to clean themselves up, but of course Bush shouldn't use force to force this kind of thing. As if harsh words and tender insights have worked in the past in the respect of reshaping this part of the world. Or any part of the world for that matter.
I suspect you and I might just agree that many Arab governments (not to mention other kinds of governments around the world) are corrupt and need a good sweeping out.
Now you tell me how to get there by forcing people to change without employing any kind of force that someone might find offensive, even if you don't?
Truth is this is now an Arab/Islamic fight and they are the ones who should be bulldogging the sandal footed sheiks.
If Arabs want reform they could have it. If seven out of ten people fed up with all the shit in their country hit the streets then a good part of the military would follow and pretty soon
you'd see reform of all kinds breaking out. If seven out of ten people fed up with all the shit in their country actually would hit the streets. But they haven't.
It's not Bush's job or America's job to do that for them.
I hope you guys can reform these governments and bring real change to these countries.
But if you can't do it without somebody being offended, like people who have their own interests to consider, then welcome to the club, you've just learned a very valuable lesson in human psychology.
Everybody would love to tenderly and inoffensively fix a problem, but it don't always work like that.
Intellect has nothing to do with it. Fact is some very rational people never understand this til it's their time in the batting box.
So batter up, and when the crowd yells go home idiot at ya and it suddenly hits you that now that you finally understand how it all works, well, my sympathies are with ya, but
that's not what you need. What you need is to be stubborn enough, and courageous enough, to actually try regardless of who thinks you're a dumbass. And maybe you will be a dumbass, but
theoreticians don't change the world, people who won't give up, and who will risk everything and face any danger do. Better one brave dumbass who actually does something right than a million sophists who never do anything but sound smart not doing it.
In any case Godspeed with fixing the problem of corrupt Arab governments. You're gonna need it, because like human problems everywhere somebody ain't gonna like your fix.
C'est la vie.
But try anyway.
It sure beats the alternative.
So give em hell for me.
What happens when this reform installs a Muslim Brotherhood in a democratically elected capacity? Won't you flip your lid?
I was just giving you my initial impression. I think you should know that someone may find it difficult to digest something that begins so terribly wrong. You obviously want to make a very important point. Why would you waste pixels on a sentence that is obviously off base.
Why shouldn't I be insulted that you slap an insulting lie up there and get indignant when I don't like it?
Surely there is some group or some person more believable and agreeable who you can quote without insulting my intelligence and sensibilities.
ClareNancy
No, you get what you pay for.
I wouldn't have been happy if around when the Germans elected the Nazis or the Russians got communism by revolution either, but until the Nazis and Commies became a danger to everyone else then the Nazis were a German and the communists a Russian problem. That is decay doesn't happen overnight any more than progress does and at any point along the way the Germans could have reformed the Nazis and the Russians could have reformed the commies, or replaced them, had they really wanted to. Just because some nation elects Muslim Brotherhood governments doesn't mean they are stuck there from then on. But it does mean they will be responsible for what they allow after that happens.
In other words the Arabs will have to experiment and learn by trial and error like a lot of other people.
I hope the Arab reforms will lead to something better than the MB, but if that don't happen on the first step forward then, there's always tomorrow.
But then again people don't always have to reinvent the mistakes of others either. Maybe the Arabs and some of the other Muslims will choose in their own best interest to beneficially reform in a whole lot of ways; governmentally, politically, socially, religiously, psychologically, spiritually. If they don't get it perfect in every respect out of the starting gate then that happens to a lot of people. You gotta have a little patience and a little faith, give people time to reform. Feel this out, fix that, break something else. That's life.
But here's to them getting it right anyway as quickly as they can. You never know what might be done til it is attempted.
But personally I hope Iran gets it right before the Arabs. And I kinda suspect they will, but we'll see...
I favor our project to introduce democracy in Iraq. So should you, Ali. Iraqis (in the government) are learning to govern a democracy. They are learning how to live in harmony with those they disagree with. That's how we solve the problem.
And when we are done we have an existence proof: Arabs can live and prosper under a representative democracy. This will encourage the changes we want.
Yours,
Wince
I'm with the Hawkman on this one.
He's flying straight.
Of course we all lose our tempers now and then. Dean freely admits to being imperfect in this regard, which is why regulars to this establishment will generally be cut more slack than people who we don't know very well.
Still: behave like an adult, or go find somewhere else to play. Thanks.