Jihad Watch Board Vice President Hugh Fitzgerald assesses democracy on the march and makes a few suggestions for how to deal with Syria's Alawite regime:
"Democracy on the march"? Infidels should be largely indifferent to "democracy on the march" unless it means less Sharia, or a weaker Islamic superstructure. Ataturk was no democrat, certainly not in the 1920s when he began clamping down on the practice of Islam and diminishing its political and social influence. Others, including the late Shah of Iran, Mohammed V of Morocco, and Habib Bourguiba of Tunisia, quasi-enlightened despots who were variously despotic or enlightened, helped to keep Islam in check.The Middle East requires us to make sense of a seemingly inexplicable crazy quilt. It is really not that crazy. In Lebanon there are the Christians, the allegiance-shifting Druse and the chastened Sunnis, now chagrined at their demographic defeat by the Shi’a -- just as once the Christians, in what had always been the main Christian redoubt in the Islamized East, had been previously disturbed to realize that the Muslims, both Sunni and Shi’a, had overtaken the Christians in population.
In Iraq the American government has tended to see the Shi'a as Good and Sunnis Bad; in Lebanon, on the other hand, the Shi'a are Badder and Sunnis apparently Good; in Egypt Mubarak the Crook is Bad but the Muslim Brotherhood is Even Badder -- and of course the Freedom and Tomorrow Parties Are Okay But Perhaps Too Ineffectual to Hold the Muslim Brotherhood at Bay. In Syria the Alawite Dictatorship is Bad but Since the Chief Enemy of the Alawites are the Real Muslims and the Alawites Have a Vested Self-Interest in Protecting the Christians within Syria Because The Alawites May Call Themselves Muslims But Non-Alawites Do Not Agree, and Then Perhaps…well, at this point we need to take a break. How about a 2-minute time out, and then come back and we will resume?Okay, everyone here? We’ll wait just a minute, for the last straggler to take his seat.
Just keep in mind, to keep that same mind from reeling, that whatever helps constrain or weaken the hold of Islamic law, with its oppression of women and non-Muslims, is greatly to be desired. That’s it. That should be your anchor, your point of repair, your guiding light. Depending on the place, the means toward that end may vary. In Lebanon, among the various Muslim or quasi-Muslim (Druse) communities, the most fervent in their faith and in their malevolent intentions and acts are now the Shi'a. It is they who, while pretending to be Lebanese patriots, have turned themselves into the handmaidens of Syria and of Iran, treating Lebanon as a large army base and department store where being Syrian means you never have to pay for anything. Ergo, whatever the Shi’a want, they should not get, and that means embargoing weapons, and keeping them from getting money.
A superflux of capital letters. I wonder why.
Sellers and Yeatman would be proud.
Another Odd Thing. Usually Americans use 'z' where English use 's'. But I'd spell 'Druze' with a 'z'. And the zzz rhyme with 'beds', which is quite how it should be. Not that it matters.
Isn't democracy itself against sharia? If so, then at least it's a step forward.
It matters. As in zeds of zinnias in parterres and gardens. And there's that celebrated horticulturalist's recommending a particular rose named after some actress, quite possibly Zasu Pitts or Zsa Zsa Gabor, as "good in a zed, and even better up against a wall."
Wasn't that Zophie Tucker? I saw a show about her last week, and she said that line or something similar.
She could have 'arf inched it, of course, 'Sophie Tucker' being Cockney rhyming slang for 'thieving f-f-flibbertygibbert'.
The British have the zed bed, an uncomfortable folding contraption with steel springs and hooks that fails to be a useful table by day, and is nothing like a comfortable bed by night.
The Americans have the la-z-boy, with integral drink dispensor, fridge, telephone and massager.
Zed beds are unnecessarily nasty. But they are what gave us the stiff upper wotsit, so integral to the British character. This hardiness saw us through two world wars and the death of the People's Princess. Like semolina and spam, what doesn't kill us makes us stronger.....zzzzzzzz....
what doesn't kill us makes us stronger..
A bit like Druze trousers. I once drove through a Druze village in northern Israel. Our guide pointed out their distinctive trousers, which looked very uncomfortable, and expressed the opinion that their custom was to always be loyal to the national state in which they lived, the exception being Lebanon, where the the civil unrest meant that they were loyal to each other. He said that he found Israeli Druze to be excellent fellow citizens. That was 1992 and I don't know if that state of affairs has changed.
I saw some Druze in Lebanon when I went there in 2001. I'd heard a rumour about those trousers. Apparently they believe that the Messiah is going to be born from a man but they don't know who the lucky fellow is. So the men wear trousers like that to be sure of catching the sprog safely if one of them unexpectedly gives birth.
This may be total twaddle, of course, but I like it.
"....whatever helps constrain or weaken the hold of Islamic law...is greatly to be desired.....Depending on the place, the means toward that end may vary."
From various sources...
1. All Muslims are brothers, no matter what sect, tribe, artificial boundary, etc.
2. The doctrines of Islam have been frozen for what, 1200 years?
3. There may be millions of moderate muslims, but Islam is not moderate.
So what we need is the Islamic Ecumenical Council, which will open up the frozen Islamic doctrines for revision, removing the dangerous provisions that endanger the rest of us. The problem is, as Islam has no Pope, who is going to call the council, who will host it, and how would the changes be approved????
The other alternative would be to destroy every copy of the Koran and every printed copy of teachings, doctrine, close every madrassa and mosque, sew shut the lips of every cleric, mullah and thinker, and somehow preoccupy Muslims for the next three generations so that they forget what they have been exposed to and it gets out of their system.
They are said to hold women in high regard as well so I think we do like it.
The doctrines of Islam have been frozen for what, 1200 years?
The Gates of Ijtihad closed some time in the 12th century. Some Muslims (a very few) deny that they are actually closed. A few more (among them Irshad Manji) want them re-opened. This is an article of hers from The Times.
http://www.thes.co.uk/current_edition/story.aspx?story_id=2025571
Unlike Aayan Hirsi Ali she remains a practising Moslem, and she has her critics within this site but I quite like some of the humorous comments in this article. Such as "At that moment, my camera batteries died and al-Hindi killed the interview, which, as the translator whispered while scurrying to the door, was a better outcome than al-Hindi killing me."
The Druze I saw were out in force Tyre and Sidon. Very smartly dressed and lively looking, wandering round the sights.
I've got very good memories of my holiday in Lebanon. Excellent food and wine, lots to see and next to no tourists. This was six months before the September 11 attacks, after which I started finding out about Islam. This would colour my perceptions if I ever went back. I'd hate to see the place go Islamic. They could dynamite Balbec. Why not? And what about the Chateau Musar?
Like your run-of-the-mill Moslems, the Druze are a real classy lot.
Caliph al-Hakim, whom the Druze worship as divine, when he was all of fifteen years old had his teacher the eunuch Barjawan butchered as they walked in the palace garden one day.
Also, young al-Hakim took frequent strolls through the streets of Cairo accompanied by a burly Black slave named Masoud. By order of al-Hakim, shopkeepers caught cheating their customers were publicly sodomized on the spot by Masoud.
Masoud's name entered the folklore of the city such that when Cairenes jokingly wished to express irritation with one another, they might say, "If you don't stop giving me a hard time, "I'll bring Masoud!"
Caliph al-Hakim also distinguished himself (and helped earn his divine status) through bloody persecution of Jews and Christians that raised eyebrows even among fellow devout Moslems.
Only in Islamia.
PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH PBUH
White robes flowing in the gentle breeze of Heaven itself, Mohammed must've looked down on young al-Hakim with misty eyes, Adam's Apple bobbing with emotion at the good old days of rape, sodomy, and murder long past...
Zut alors. And zounds. And Zuleika Dobson, minding The Bumps, as the sound of an aria from Aida, sung by some pre-war Zenaide or Zoe, comes from an old victrola strategically placed in an oriel window, overlooking a garden wall and beyond that wall, a greensward that lowers itself smoothly down to the embankment. Now getting back to that wall...
Typical projectionist, too many, nay most westerners tend to think that what we call democracy means the same thing worldwide.
Brute fact. Democracy means majority rule (from the Greek Demos) and majority rule it is in the land of Islam, Shari'a is not incompatible with Democracy.
As some wag correctly said, In Islam it is one man, one vote, one time (ex: Iran).
On the subject of Druze:
The Ilth edition of the Encyclopaedia Brittanica when discussing Druse (sic) admitted that its three pages of explanation were conjecture. But the secret of the Druze can be penetrated by looking in the 1974 Edition of the Encyclopaedia Judaica i vol 15, column 640. The sect was founded by the Jew Jacob Ibn Killis to placate the Moslems and have "remained loyal to their coreligionists"The Druze are the only "non" Jews who serve in the Israeli army as conscripts.
Nariz: In Israel, the Circassians (Sunni Muslims) also serve in the IDF.
Hugh, a good piece, and you've spelled out some of the reasons why I shudder at trying to democratize the area.
Hugh,
I'm sorry to say I disagree. The Iranian
Shiites want nuclear weapons, and I believe that
is exactly what we should give them. Many, many
nuclear bombs.
"The Iranian Shiites want nuclear weapons, and I believe that is exactly what we should give them."
-- from a posting above
Perhaps you think that with the Amerians out of Iraq, and the Sunnis and Shi'a going at it, and Saudi Arabia being a main source of aid (money, men, weapons) for the local Sunnis, the Islamic Republic of Iran would use such weapons on Saudi Arabia, so we should help them along -- and wouldn't dare use such weapons on Israel, or the West, because of what they would endure in response.
Or perhaps you have another idea.
I can't imagine anything but disaster from that country, and that regime, having those weapons. And why we keep funding Pakistan (and now American field hospitals originally sent after the earthquake are remaining in place to give gneeral care, on top of the money, on top of the debt relief, on top of the weaponry -- to a country that not only had at its center Dr. A. Q. Khan, still unaccessible to American interrogators, who not only stole weapons plans from Holland and used them for Pakistan, but gave aid both to North Korea and to Iran, and may have done so to others (including sinister Egypt, "our ally").
If you care to explain the otherwise curious remark above, do so.
I think he means we should give them lots of bombs dropped from a great height. It's a joke that bombed.
I could be wrong, though. This has happened many times.
You are right.
I stand, a dope, before the world.
Okay, "American," laugh at me.
I thought I had a sense of humor. The last presidential candidate I had any real enthusiasm for was Gracie Allen.
I see that I was wrong.
Here is more on Gracie Allen's Presidential run:
GRACIE ALLEN'S 1940 PRESIDENTAL CAMPAIGN
"Gracie Allen, the female half of the runaway comedy team of Burns and Allen, announced one March evening over the radio her intention to compete for the presidency at the head of a new third party, the "Surprise Party." Why the Surprise Party? As Gracie later explained, her mother was a Democrat, her father a Republican, and Gracie had been born a Surprise.
Gracie's presidental bid had originally been conceived as a simple radio gimmick with the expectation of a short half-life. George Burns later recalled its moment of birth: "Gracie and I were at home in Beverly Hills with our children [when she] suddenly remarked, 'I'm tired of knitting this sweater. I think I'll run for president this year.'"
The idea wasn't particularly new. Other radio personalities, notably Eddie Cantor and Will Rogers, had made slapstick runs in the direction of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Gracie's unique campaign, however, aquired a unique momentum.
To underscore in the public mind the extent of her determination as a presidental candidate, Gracie began making the rounds of other radio programs, frequently bursting in unannounced to offer her views on the burning issues of the day. Delighted listeners never knew when she would pop up; The Texaco Star Theatre, Fibber McGee and Molly, The Jack Benny Program, and even Dr. I.Q., the Mental Banker recieved visits from the candidate, who then outlined her offbeat political positions with little or no prompting.
When Ken Murray on The Texaco Star Theatre asked with which party Gracie was affiliated, ahe heatly retorted, "I may take a drink now and then, but I never get affiliated."
Gracie was the only candidate to encourage the American people to take pride in our national debt, boasting that "it's the biggest in the world." So impressed was she with the $43 billion owed by the government that she proposed depositing the entire amount in a "safe" bank at two percent interest.
Queried on the Neutrality Bill pending before Congress, her position was an unequivocal "If we owe it, let's pay it."
Allen was a strong supporter of the Dies Committee--"If we didn't keep [it] going, who'd color our Easter eggs?"
Asked if she would recognize Russia, Gracie showed uncharacteristic hesitation: "I don't know. I meet so many people...."
And though she was eager to serve the nation as president, Gracie had her limits. "I will make no fire-side chats from the White House between April 15 and October 15," she declared. "It is asking too much and I don't know how President Roosevelt stands it. Washington is awfully hot in summer."
Gracie not only understood the importance of taking positions on the issues; she recognized the importance of symbols. Mascot of the Surprise Party was a kangaroo named Laura (this was, after all, leap year); slogan of the new party--"it's in the bag"--adopted to demonstrate the level of confidence the candidate had in her campaign (as well as the fact that Laura was a recent mother). Gracie also pioneered the idea of the sew-on campaign button to discourage her supporters from changing their minds in midstream.
Songwriter and close friend Charles Henderson composed the Surprise Party's campaign song, a modest ditty entitled simply "Vote for Gracie." Proclaimed one line: "If the country's going Gracie, so can you."
Shortly after the series of whirlwind radio announcements of her candidacy, Gracie appeared in Washington, D.C., as guest of honor before the Women's National Press Club, at the special invitation of Eleanor Roosevelt. While in Washington Gracie unveiled plans for the Surprise Party's first national convention, to be held in Omaha, Nebraska during May 15 to 18. Gracie conceded that there was a danger in being the first candidate that year to hold a convention in as much as the Republicans would probably double any campaign promises she made and the Democrats were certain to follow behind and redouble the ante. However, she argued, if the other parties thought this would make her vulnerable they were mistaken, for she had some surprises up her sleeve, along-side a box of raisins that she proposed to nibble on while awaiting the election returns.
Returning to California to plan her strategy, await the results of the initial campaign salvos, and incidentally continue broadcasting the Burns and Allen Show, Gracie couldn't have helped feeling elated with the country's response to her efforts. The bandwagon effect began in St. Louis with one write-in vote for president; once established, the pattern repeated in Chicago. The wave of growing support crested when the citizens of Monominee, Michigan, a town of ten thousand on the southern tip of the upper peninsula, elected Gracie mayor. She was disqualified from assuming the office, however, on the grounds that a non-resident couldn't legally serve as mayor. "A person can't live everywhere," Gracie remarked philosophically as she continued her bid for the presidency.
Gracie even recieved the endorsement of Harvard University. (This must have been a serious blow to Roosevelt, who was an alumnus of the school.)
During the next couple of months, Gracie's campaign staff ironed out plans for the Omaha convention. Gracie arranged to whistle-stop all the way from Hollywood to Omaha aboard the same private car used by W. Averell Harriman, chairman of the board for the Union Pacific Railroad. Allen's campaign dovetailed nicely with Omaha's annual celebration of Golden Spike Days, a joint venture between Omaha and the railroad.
On May 9, 1940, Gracie, George, and their entourage boarded the campaign special. As the train pulled out of Hollywood Station the whistle played "Vote for Gracie." Between Hollywood Station and Omaha the Allen campaign train made more than thirty stops, including Las Vegas, Salt Lake City, Denver, North Platte, and Cheyenne. Decades later, in his affectionate 1988 tribute to his wife, Gracie: A Love Story, Burns recalled in detail the outpouring of affection and general good cheer the party encountered all along the route.
Upon her arrival in Omaha, the National Broadcasting Company--the Burns and Allen show's new network--carried her speech live.
On May 17, 1940, thousands of wildly enthusiastic delegates congregated in Omaha's Creighton University Stadium to unanimously nominate Gracie Allen for president of the United States. There was no vice-presidential candidate, however; Gracie had warned all along that she would tolerate no vice in her administration.
Gracie forthrightly referred to her platform ("redwood trimmed with 'nutty' pine") as having "such insignificance that future historians may well call it the Magna Carta of the Misdeal." Her platform ideas, she confessed, had come to her in a dream. Among the key provisions: (1) Put Congress on a commission basis. Whenever the country prospered Congress would get ten percent of the additional take. (2) Extend Civil Service to all branches of government, because "a little politeness goes a long way."
On election day, November 5, 1940, Franklin Roosevelt collected more than twenty-seven million votes and was re-elected president. Defeated Republican candidate Wendell Willkie recieved some twenty-two million votes. Gracie likely received a few hundred write-in votes, at best; no exact figures are available. In retrospect, her campaign had probably peaked in the spring with her Menominee victory and the Omaha convention."
Interested writes:
"I think he means we should give them lots of bombs dropped from a great height. It's a joke that bombed."
Indeed. Nice little flourish at the end there
too, Interested, if I had drums I could go
"ba da bomb"
My fault Hugh. I've been on the internet since
the mid 1980s and I should have used emoticons
(probably ;-) would have done it) since this kind
of humor always blows up in one's face!
Incidentally, I've read that many Bedouin's
(Sunni Muslim Arabs) also serve in the IDF.
Who can be surprised by that? The way Muslims
kill other Muslims, the Bedouin probably feel
no loyalty to other "Muslims" but rather to their
clan and the state which protects them.
And yes, I realize that Israel does not treat the
Bedouin equal to Jewish Israelis, but it is
better to be a "second class" citizen of Israel
than a first class enemy of a Muslim leader.
Kurds in Iraq and Turkey are Muslims too.
The use of nuclear weapons by the Mad Moslem is inevitable.
It was noted way back in the early 1950s that savage ideology is explosively incompatible with modern weaponry.
Enter Islam, the new star of the show, her slutty ugly face greased into the Belle of the Ball role by petrodollars and craven ex-communists.
DISLOYAL HARVARD DISLOYAL GEORGETOWN DISLOYAL USC DISLOYAL COLUMBIA
The question is not whether Moslems will perpetrate a mass murder on a grand scale; the question is what our response will be after.
Are the circassians conscripted into the IDF?
You will note that my statement said that the Druze were the only non Jews conscripted, which you translated into serve.
There is a difference.
I know that there are Arabs Bedouins who serve in the IDF.