View Single Post
Old 10-30-05, 01:50 AM   #3
caspofungin
Commander
 
Join Date: Apr 2005
Posts: 459
Downloads: 41
Uploads: 0
Default

you're absolutely right -- the quran and the hadith (holy laws) do have parts that relate to government of people. But at the same time, no arab country today follows those laws -- not even iran, or the taleban in pre-2002 afghanistan. a lot of it has to do with the responsibilities of a ruler -- responsibilities to his people's welfare -- and the responsibilities of people to society as a whole. There's a difference between true islamic law and islamic law interpreted through cultural bias. that's why even though 2 arab countries may claim to follow sharia law, it will be very different in each. there's things you can do freely in sudan that will get you thrown in jail in saudi arabia.

it would be like equating canada and australia, for example. both western democracies, both majority christian, both with a legal system derived from the uk, but very different societies nonetheless, due to cultural differences. some guy from yemen might see them as exactly the same, but someone from the us knows they're very different. same with arab countries.

and muslims that aren't against the west aren't the minority, they're the majority. unfortunately, the media and your politicians feel it makes a better story or gets more votes to show islam as exclusively the domain of mullahs burning the israeli flag. that's part of it. the other part is that the west, since 1923, has propped up monarchies and dictatorships to secure the supply of cheap oil. suddenly, when they realize the ong-term cost of such a policy, there's a clamour of "why can't you guys clean your house" or other such comments. well, how long did it take for modern western democracies to form? certainly more than a few decades.

take the us -- almost 200 hundred years from the bill of rights to actually allowing every citizen to vote. or the uk, or france, or germany. all went through a long and painful series of changes before emerging as true democracies.
caspofungin is offline   Reply With Quote