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Subject:
Does Islam Preclude Democracy?
Phoenix Rising
10/4/2002 8:12:37 AM
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This is primarily to Muslim, since he seems to be the primary advocate of political Islam here.
I've been wondering about this for a while now, just never got it into words. Why should Islam, if there is one particular correct interpretation of it, be inimical to democracy? I'm thinking here particularly in terms of the British parliamentary system, where almost all legislative and executive powers ultimately reside in parliament.
If there is anything that all Houses of Parliament universally agree on, it won't make the London Times, but it will definitely get put into effect. I'm not sure that they agree on much more than that the sky is blue, but in principle, if the tenets of Islam were so universal, then they would almost certainly be democratically legislated in the parliament of any Islamic state as easily and uncontroversially as the U.S. Congress does such things as naming federal buildings.
Furthermore, in a representative country, a vast majority of which would be theoretically composed of Muslims, any individual or party perceived as un-Islamic would quickly lose power, the way that scandal-tainted politicians tend to collapse here. Parties that eschewed Islam would have little chance of political success. The constitution of an Islamic state would almost certainly permit political lobbying on religious grounds, which I think would be innocuous enough that the West would not raise too many strenous objections, and the mosques tend to be influential and resourceful in the Islamic world. Whenever experts would be called to testify before the legislature, as legislatures are wont to so, they would almost certainly be drawn from Islamic universities and similar institutions.
At the moment, the climate there favors the extremists. The prevailing view that there is only "one true interpretation" of Islam means that for one Muslim to disagree with another is practically a challenge to a duel ... and the extremists tend to be the ones who are the most well-armed and the most ruthless. More proportional representation might do some good at moving the debate back towards the center, and might make some of the currently silent centrists, if they're there, feel a greater sense of empowerment and a willingness to take on the extreme elements of society.
The inevitable compromises of democratic politics might make it seem like a "pure" interpretation of Islam is getting lost in the mix somewhere. However, the existence of so many different interpretations of Islam as the world stands today seems to indicate that no living human has the 100% perfect solution today. As such, the inevitable compromises seem more likely to bring about a result as close to whatever the "true" interpretation might be as imperfect humans are capable of estimating.
In short, there is no reason why a Muslim democracy looks like it would be any less Islamic than an Islamic dictatorship or theocracy ... if that is honestly and truly what the people of the Muslim world really want.
I hope that this is what ends up happening in Iran, and hopefully Iraq as well, once Saddam is gone. Time will tell.
--Phoenix Rising |
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