Much better to leave it to a Tiny Minority of Extremists to wield all legislative, executive, and judicial power, eh? This story appears to precede Bhutto's assassination yesterday, but is nonetheless highly relevant to yesterday's events.
"Taliban leader warns against using religion for electoral gains," by Iqbal Khattak for the Daily Times:
BANNU: A senior Taliban leader warned parties on Thursday against “using religion for electoral gains”, saying they would join parties urging boycott of January 8 polls.
“In Shariah, democracy is un-Islamic. Our movement is completely against what you call democracy in which a small majority can decide irrespective of the fact whether what they have done was good or bad,” the Taliban leader, asking not to be named, told Daily Times in an interview here.
He said the Taliban were “against elements who are using Islam for electoral gains”.
This un-named Taliban leader doesn't appear to take into account the fact that democracy might be used to bring about more Sharia law; after all, the success or failure of a democracy depends on the values that inform its participants-- both candidates and voters. But perhaps Sharia-by-democracy isn't fast enough, and those gains won't guarantee the abolition of the present system. And at any rate, this election won't hand the Taliban the absolute power to which they believe they are divinely entitled.
The warning comes at a time when Maulana Fazlur Rehman, contesting the National Assembly seat NA-26 in Bannu besides NA-24 (Dera Ismail Khan), is rallying for party candidates to win as many National and provincial assembly seats amidst stiff challenges from rival candidates in southern districts of the Frontier province, the JUI-F heartland.
Severe punishment: “Our members in Bannu district are strictly barred from taking part in the elections and anyone found guilty of violating the directive will be severely punished,” said the senior Taliban leader who did not wish to be identified.
He said there were around 500 Taliban members in Bannu city. “We will join forces trying to convince the people that people’s solution of problems does not rest with democracy,” he said.
"“We will join forces trying to convince the people that people’s solution of problems does not rest with democracy,” he said.
...Islamic methods of convincing people include but is not limited to : intimidation, murder, rape, extortion, bombings, and fatwas....
...Islam....feel the love....
“In Shariah, democracy is un-Islamic. Our movement is completely against what you call democracy in which a small majority can decide irrespective of the fact whether what they have done was good or bad,”
In a recent poll 76% of Pakis favored strict implementation of Sharia. (.pdf download) http://www.terrorfreetomorrow.org/upimagestft/Pakistan%20Poll%20Report.pdf
In past 24 hours all top republican candidates re-emphasized how important it was for Pakistan to overcome this tragedy and to continue the move towards democratic elections.
"Our movement is completely against what you call democracy in which a small majority can decide . . . ."
says Taliban leader
Last time I looked, a small majority was still larger than the largest minority.
"He said there were around 500 Taliban members in Bannu city."
Psst...Hey, NATO forces...bomb Bannu City
"In past 24 hours all top republican candidates re-emphasized how important it was for Pakistan to overcome this tragedy and to continue the move towards democratic elections."
Democratic elections got Hamas elected. Its not neccessarly a good thing.
"Taliban leader warns against using religion for electoral gains,"
.................................
See, in the US, such a headline would indicate disapproval of a candidate or supporter *using religion* for electoral gains--say, in the campaign of Mike Huckabee, or Mitt Romney. or Jesse Jackson, or Pat Robertson, or Pat Buchannan.
In the above statement, the disapproval is not about the use of religion, but using it to gain *electoral votes*.
Exsgtbrown wrote:
...Islamic methods of convincing people include but is not limited to : intimidation, murder, rape, extortion, bombings, and fatwas....
........................
Exactly so. Any election is an appeal to people, urging them to vote for the candidate or policy that is best for society. Candidates and backers of policies must convince the electorate--through emotional appeals, promises, or, ideally, through reason--that such votes are warranted.
As Exsgtbrown points out, the only alternative to democracy is force. This is what the Jihadists want to return to--*as a principle*.
And we know exactly what it looks like. Afghanistan under the Taliban was just about as close to hell on earth as is possible.
It is true, democracy and shari'a are incompatible. Shari'a is a "revealed" law, a one-off deal. Once the source, e.g., Muhammad, is dead and buried, the entire collection of statutes is complete and considered immutable. Sovereignty is vested in the revealer. Under such a system there is no need of a legislative function, only interpretation ("judges", imams, Islamic "scholars", etc.) and executive (enforcement) functions.
Democratic rule on the other hand, vests sovereignty in the people who are living. They may choose to incorporate statutes which their deceased forebears enacted but the living always have the option of abrogating those statutes and enacting their own. It is the ultimate definition of self-determination for any society.
Islamic law is codified by the Islamic canon, Koran, hadiths and the biography of Muhammad. It is elaborated by over a thousand years of interpretation by Islamic "scholars". No amount of interpretation can abrogate a single syllable of the canon. So for all practical purposes, Islamic law (a.k.a. "shari'a") began to lose its relevance to the living as soon as the Prophet exhaled his last breath.
Now 13 centuries later, shari'a persists as a 7th century warrior code that has been poorly scaled up in an attempt to meet the needs of political and social conditions that could never have been envisioned by the illiterate desert brigands who conceived it. By modern standards it is atavistic and is only suited to a social order that civilized peoples in Europe, Asia, the Americas, and Australia abandoned centuries ago.
It is an ideology that is a self-evident failure in the modern world and it must be either confined to the primitive societies that desire it, with extreme force if necessary, or, like the barbaric religions of rain forest cannibals, it must be extinguished.
Norman Davies in his 1996 book, Europe, A History:
"... Democracy has few values of its own: it is as good, or bad, as the principles of the people who operate it. In the hands of liberal and tolerant people, it will produce a liberal and tolerant government; in the hands of cannibals, a government of cannibals."
Why are we threatening Pak to democratize now, when polls show that if he ran, Osama Bin Laden would win? The first priority of our foreign policy should be to further our own security. We can best do that by supporting anti-jihadist elements, even if that means postponing democratic change.
Somehow, it has become axiomatic that democracy cures terrorism. It's more like a chain of events, where less Islam leads to greater tolerance and respect for human law, which leads to less violence, which leads to social cohesion, which leads to more voluntary political arrangements like democracy. Note the essential first step.
New speech for Bush, or any other would be presidential canidate ... reposting from yesterday
Bush:
"Fellow countrymen I must say now that I have been misleading you. Islam is not a peacefull faith. It is a faith designed around Arabic imperialism, and the subjugation of all non-Muslims. Yes this includes you and I. From now on all American foreign policy towards Islamic nations will be backed by knowledge of Hadith, Sura, and Quranic texts. We understand now that we are Dar 'Al Harb, which translates to the land of war. At best non-Islamic states can only live in a fragile coexistance on the same planet with Islam. Today I am asking the Supreme Court to reclassify Islam as a cult, which is bent on overthrowing our government. The scope of this conflict has been clouded by words like al Queda, moderate Islam, radical Islam, War on Terror ... The world has been at war since Islam became a political force, and will continue to be at war. From now on all U.S. foriegn policy will be based upon these facts. There will be dark days ahead of us now that I have spoken to you in plain English about this threat, but this is the first step in defeating the spread of this cancer, which threatens our very existance. Thankyou very much for your time ... you may direct your questions to my new Secratary of State Robert Spencer
Sharia and democracy are incompatible. It's that simple. If true democracy (which must be accompanied by an enlightened legal system and a proper moral order, neither of which can be found in Islamic religious law) takes hold in any majority Muslim country, it will be in spite of, not because of, Islam. This is not the case for the other major religions of the world which pose no obstacle to democracy as Islam does. Thus Islam reveals itself to the world again as a burden, in this case respecting the institution of democracy, but there are numerous other ways it is a burden as well, as so many who post here know only too well.
Democracy and sharia are fundamentally incompatible. Muslim political leaders say it, Muslim scholars say it, illiterate Muslims say it. Non-Muslim scholars say it. The common man in non-Muslim societies say it. Our ancestors said it. So we all know it. That is, we all know it with the exception of our young children, the severely mentally handicapped and our politicians.
Sharia and democracy cannot coexist in any society. I choose democracy and am willing to fight to the death to ensure that neither my family nor I shall ever have to live under the tyranny of sharia. I am willing to fight myself and am willing to commit my children, my treasure and my energy to a nation that employs a professional armed force to utterly exterminate anyone on the planet who designs that we shall be subject to sharia by force of arms.
It's way past time for our politicians to wake up and smell the napalm. The world is at war and it is a war that the proponents of sharia have declared on us, not the other way round.
DrMack,
Excellent summation of the competing systems of democracy and Sharia. The entire Sharia system really is hermetically sealed, whereas democracy continually experiments with new forms of law. It has not yet permeated Western consciousness that Islam contains within it a legal code. Westerners still think of religion as something protected by law, not the something that contains the law.
I fear that it is the inability of the average Westerner (an inability abetted by the continual obfuscation of Islam's natural tendencies by our self-anoited elites) to understand such simple political and philosophical distinctions, though, that leads us to be vulnerable.
It needs to be put in simple terms for the simple people: Would you rather be ruled by the terms laid out by Mohammed, who claimed they were also the rules laid out by his god, Allah, or would you rather make your own decisions based on your own conscience?
The whole argument that the Islamic tradition refers to "consulting" the people is a far cry from compatibility with democracy. As I understand it (and I'm probably right because it's not really that complicated an issue), this "consultation" with the people only occurs in rare circumstances, chosen by the caliph or the ruling class. In other words, the idea of regular elections, which is a cornerstone of democracy, is completely alien to the Muslim tradition. What good is it to have the "right" to be consulted when the ruler has no corresponding obligation to consult you?
Emphasizing democracy over freedom and individual rights was a HUGE goof on the part of our government. And one from which I fear we may not easily recover.
Consider:
If the pro-democracy parties win the public debate, they vote in a Sharia gov't and the jihaddis win.
If the anti-democracy parties win the public debate, they appoint a Sharia gov't and the jihaddis win.
Is it really possible that the people in Washington are that stupid?
" “In Shariah, democracy is un-Islamic. ... (in) what you call democracy a small majority can decide irrespective of the fact whether what they have done was good or bad,” ..."
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Which is SO MUCH WORSE than having a handful of mind-controlled mullahs decide (irrespective of the facts) that what they've done is good...
One thing not mentioned: the Quran exhorts true believers to follow the leader Allah has appointed for them as they would follow Mohammed or Allah himself. In other words, once someone is declared the new leader, the "little people" (the ignorant masses, as instructed by the ignorant mullahs) must follow his dictates. Under Sharia, power devolves from God to the leader he has appointed, so there is no concept of "government by consent of the governed"; no belief that power resides in the people. The prophet tells believers that they will get the kind of leader they deserve: if the populace is religious, obedient and faithful, they will be blessed with a beneficent leader; if their leader is cruel and corrupt it's because the people were not firm enough in their religion. So the leader is not responsible for what he does, it's all up to Allah. (How convenient.) And thus the little people can do no more than mutter "inshallah" if asked how they want their country run.
I'm soooo glad I was born in America!
Democracy gave us reason to cut off aid to Hamas.
It will work for Pakistan to.
Turn a negative into a positive. Let Pakistan expose itself for what it is. then we can stop pussyfooting around with it.
In the mean time, they can get on with killing each other over who is the greater Muslim. They have received enough aid to do a really really good job at it.
Even a stopped clock is right twice a day. And in their repellent way the savages are on to something.
Perhaps we should simply concede the point. Questions of right and wrong, justice and injustice, truth and falsehood cannot be decided by popular vote.
And no sensible person thinks so either.
Democracy is only valid within the boundaries of a moral code, a sensible rational code of justice. And the whole question comes down to what that code is.
For the savages that code is sharia. Pure brutal authoritarianism encoded as a way of life.
For us is is the the inaliable rights of man -- enshrined in the Bill of Rights
Our way is better. Pure and simple.
Democracy has nothing to do with it.
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Perhaps our idiot governors in DC imagine that they can exploit the forces of envy and and the principles of pork barrel politics, through the mechanism of democracy, to bring some kind of peace.
Perhaps they imagine, block-head politicians that they are "Hmmmm... Everybody is greedy. Everybody likes a hand-out. Maybe if they're arguing over who gets the next public-works project they'll stop shooting each other for a while. Forget their vendettas and go for the bucks ...".
After all, that is how they themselves think. They are, well ... politicians.
Career politicians are completely incapable of getting us out of this for that very reason -- their basic way of thinking is off.
The human spirit, the human mind works on principles, not on bribes.
We are not domestic animals to be trained and brought to heal with treats, petting and bits of food.
It's not merely a matter of pride (although that's very much the way the jihaddis see it), it's a matter of simple fact. It's just not how the psyche operates.
Deep in our heart of hearts we run on principles. Everybody does. Even crazy people.
Good principles lead to good actions and good results.
Bad principles lead to bad actions and bad results.
It's just that simple.
The miserable, ignorant, impoverished and violent life of the mohammedan cultures is the product of their principles.
And our condition of life, is the product of ours.
Our principles are better.
And you can bet the farm that that's what the fight is about, and that's the ground on which we'll win it.