tw....

We sometimes hear that Islamic fundamentalism is "inconsistant with democracy".

In your judgment, how true would that statement be?

In America, we observe the conflict between the highly vocal (but normally not physically violent) Christian fundamentalists and the attempts of others to maintain a democracy, where no one's strictly religious beliefs are forced on others, and that situation is problematic enough.

Anytime religious values are justification for morality, government action, or laws, then we have corruption. That is corruption by American standards and not necessary by other local standards. Religion was good in its time; the only basis for civilization. That time has long since past in the first world. Trend probably first started when Socrates so successfully used logic to expose the contradictions of religion.

Islamic fundamentalism is based upon the principles of religion. Those principles are ordered by 'interpretation' of clerics and by the 'emotion' on which religion is based. Islamic fundamentalism was as good for government as a Kingwas good for government. Some (religions and dictatorships) do good for people and culture; others are destructive. Since then we have advanced to a better 'inferior' system of government. Democracy can work when religion is removed from the process. Democray based upon religion is the unstable situation in Iran; where democracy really does not exist. Government only by religion and dictators is the unstable situation in Saudia Arabia (unstable but not in the form so often believed by Americans).

And so we again have the real purpose of any religion. A relationship between you and your god (period). Once your religious beliefs are imposed upon others, then we have 'religion gone wild' - and the resulting videos if they can be leaked out.

Lets keep something in perspective. Not all people want democracy. If not obvious from the interviews by BBC et al; almost no one in Iraq even knows what democracy is (except in Kurdish areas). How could they want something that they don't even understand? The current administration says Iraqis want democracy while Iraqis in the street think democracy means a dictator government that does not torture. Democracy means the people must take responsibility - still a foreign concept to many people. This requirement still is not understood in many parts of the world where government and religion are considered same.

IOW first the people must learn what democracy is; that government and religion are two separate entities. Such concepts are completely foreign in a large part of the third world.

Just like those dirty Japs. Warlike, religious, completely foreign to western Democracy. Why it has never taken anywhere in that area of the world.

tw wrote:
This brings to mind the way in which many former Soviet citizens have become, and remain, disgruntled at the way their new government is no longer as intimately involved in all of their personal decision-making as the previous one was. Collectivism - like any 'good' religion - had all of the answers, even if it did tend to treat people like ignorant children.

I have always maintained that members of the human race, generally, are motivated by a desire for simple, authoritative answers, and it really doesn't matter all that much who is providing them. We tend to like it when there's a written 'handbook' to which we can always refer, or a spokesman who can come out and explain how we should be feeling or thinking about any given subject.

Given that, and especially combined with a tradition that has really known and taught nothing else, I can see where the idea of a truly secular government might be anathema to many people...and I'm speaking of people in America pretty nearly to the same extent as those in Iraq.

Having just read the last line of my previous post, I was suddenly struck by the irony of the government of the United States being currently focused on two major efforts - the installation of a secular democracy in Iraq, and the nationwide codification of laws prohibiting gay marriage.

Wow!

You may be on to something there, UT. There are many parallels between the Iraquie and Japanese cultures, so all we have to do is nuke 'em into complete submission and start from the bottom up building a democracy.
Hey, it worked before.;)

Damn good point UT.

From my modicum of understanding the issue is that the only real authority is meant to be god, therefore man made governments are somehow unholy. I'm not sure how it all works in practice or in places like Iran.

The bigger issue in Iraq is the extremeist external elements that are stirring up trouble along the lines that divide the different sects of Islam. Kind of like the catholics and protastants killing each other. Unless those rifts can be healed there will never be a stable democratic government. That takes decades of peace, at least. It took Switzerland centuries.

And for fucks sake, make a goddamn Kurdistan already, you'll solve about 3 conflicts in one.

I was under the impression, Turkey strongly objects to a Kurdistan.

Hard to say why. I suspect that if there were a Kurdistan, Turkey might be able to get rid of their Kurds. But maybe they're worried that they'd take their land with them.

Yeah, now I remember. They don't want a Kurdistan that's contiguous with their border.