"Asked about hardliners who dismiss Western-style democracy and call for the creation of a traditional Islamic state, he said: 'Our position is very far from this idea, ... which we think has no place within the moderate Islamist tendency. It is extremist and ... not based on a correct interpretation of Islam.'" Ghannouchi's statement is ambiguous. Does he mean to establish an Islamic state or not? Generally the use of the term "Islamist" refers to exponents of political Islam, so it would seem so; apparently, however, Ghannouchi is maintaining that such a state could simultaneously continue to be a democracy. And indeed it could, although restrictions on the rights of women and non-Muslims would almost certainly come if such a government were to remain true to established Islamic principles as enunciated by all the mainstream sects of Islam and schools of Islamic jurisprudence.
"Tunisia Islamist leader rejects Khomeini comparison," from Reuters, January 22 (thanks to Amil Imani):
DUBAI, Jan 22 (Reuters) Tunisia's Islamist Ennahda movement is democratic and should not be feared, its exiled leader said today, rejecting any comparison between him and Iran's late leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.The Tunisian government said this week that it would lift a ban on political groups including the Ennahda, or Renaissance, movement, which was suppressed during the 24-year rule of president Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali who fled a week ago.
''We are a moderate Islamic movement, a democratic movement based on democratic ideals in ... Islamic culture. Some people pull Khomeini's robe over me, while I am no Khomeini nor a Shi'ite,'' Rached Ghannouchi told Al Jazeera television.
Asked about hardliners who dismiss Western-style democracy and call for the creation of a traditional Islamic state, he said: ''Our position is very far from this idea, ... which we think has no place within the moderate Islamist tendency. It is extremist and ... not based on a correct interpretation of Islam.''
Analysts say moderate Islamists in Tunisia may attract many followers after the overthrow of Ben Ali, while militants may be able to infiltrate from neighbouring Algeria, which has long fought Islamic hardliners....
Well, add one to the list of countries like Sudan, Yemen, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Somalia. Ok, I'll avoid including Iran, Iraq & Lebanon in the mix, since they are Shi'ite, as Ghannouchi notes.
Prediction - and you read it here first - don't be surprised when the Turkestan states like Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan start becoming Islamic like Tunisia. Kyrgyzstan (and to an extent Tadjikistan) are already there, and even Kazakhstan, which previously seemed immune to this, no longer is: previously, the Russian population was 50%, but now, the Kazakh Muslim population is 67% - enough to create the world's largest Islamic country (by area, particularly if Sudan splits - incidentally, what's the status there?)
The background of this oh-so-moderate Islamist.
http://www.martinkramer.org/sandbox/reader/archives/a-u-s-visa-for-rachid-ghannouchi/
http://www.meforum.org/1492/rachid-ghannouchi-a-democrat-within-islamism
or see my comments under
http://tundratabloids.com/2011/01/as-predicted-fundamuslims-in-tunisia-lead-the-pack-to-grab-that-golden-ring.html#comments
'We are a moderate Islamic movement, a democratic movement based on democratic ideals in ... Islamic culture.'
How is it that taqqiya comes so easily to these guys?
. .sure would be interesting to hear Ghannouchi debate Erdogan on the topic of what constitutes 'moderate Islam'. .
Tunisia on it's way to becoming an Islamic theocracy like Iran!!
Again I will ask the question. What proof is there that these protests are motivated by fundamentalists? There is none as these revolts are spontaneous outbursts against the ruling elite. There is not one shred of evidence of any Islamist involvement. Robert does himself no favours by making stuff up. It looks like scaremongering and is well below the usual high standard of JihadWatch.
Islam cannot be democratic. democracy is a man made assumption of human rights and rule by majority.
Rule by democratic ideals...in islamic culture is sharia law.
To accept democracy means they reject islam. if this is the case they should say so.
They say they are not extremist, well, they might not be "extreme" in the eyes of most people.
However the definition of Islamist is one who uses Islam for its political power built into it through the Qu'ran.
Its this political Islam that makes these parties just as dangerous as the violent groups.
One blows up a few people here and there and the other oppresses the masses.
Rule Britannia
http://waeshael.wordpress.com/
The Secretary General of the Tunisian Islamic Front now predicts an extensive spread of Islam on the ground in Tunisia, a country which he describes as 100 percent Muslim, 100 percent Sunni, and 100 percent behind the al-Maliki school of jurisprudence. The al-Maliki school of jurisprudence is the Shariaa foundation of the Salafist trend, a trend which is becoming increasingly prominent in the field of Islamic Dawa, having always been prominent in the political arena.
With regard to the principles of the Tunisian Islamic Front, Harrath said: "[The Front] aims to spread the correct interpretation of the Koran and the Sunnah. We also call for greater public participation in politics, in order to reduce malpractice and consecrate the good in the country, and in the ruling regime. We consider our interpretation of Islam to be the solution for the people’s problems, because it is a religion that has come to be applied across the entire world."
Harrath said: "What we want, and hope from God Almighty, is that Islam will shine from Tunisia once again. In the past, this country was the base for spreading Islam into Africa, and the heart of Europe."
..There is no peaceful Islam, there are no human rights assoicated with shira law, there is no moderate islam.
Tunisia to lift ban on pro-Sharia political groups; Islamic supremacist leader says he's no Khomeini
.........................
Where's poster flarov222 and his hysterical screams that all of this is just Spencer lying, lying, lying to his sycophantic and unthinking "followers", who are unable to "look up the facts" on their own?
No one would be more thrilled than myself if the "Jasmine Revolution" turned out to be a genuine "homegrown" Arab Muslim democracy movement, resulting in a new Poland or new Czech Republic right in the heart of Dar-al-Islam.
If it even resulted in some sort of corrupt but relatively benign polity ala Mexico or several of the somewhat less appalling sub-saharan African regimes, I would be greatly relieved.
But Islam, free of the shackles Ben Ali's authoritarian policies placed on it, seems to be rearing its ugly head once more as a real power there.
The odd thing about being and anti-Jihadist—or anti-Communist or anti-Fascist—is that we so often *want to be proven wrong*.
Oh, sure, there is, no doubt, a certain grim satisfaction that can be derived from saying, "I told you so!".
But if the baleful creed of Islam either ceased to be a factor in world affairs—even in one small spot in the Muslim world—or if Islam mellowed and "modernized" and evolved into a faith that involved nothing but Ramadan fasting and five-times-a-day prayers, I would be thrilled, and would turn my attention to happier matters with a sense of profound relief.
@ Gunfire
Your post shows you haven't read Mr. Spencer's piece. He asks the question: 'Does he(Ghannouchi) mean to establish an Islamic state or not?'
There follows a couple of possible interpretations of what Ghannouchi might mean.
That's not 'making stuff up' as you say. That's speculation based on what is factually known. It's fair comment.
how do so many islamists get away with taqqiya,it must be the centuries of practice of lying in the face of non-Muslims.
Democracy within an islamic states, is like some people are more equal than others, that is women and non-Muslims are less equal to the muslim man.
It's fun to watch our news entertainers smirk with "I told you so" arrogance that Tunisia proves Moslems are ok. We'll see.
When that country goes Sharia, as it must and as it will, these same pomps (Bill Maher comes to mind) are bound by habit to move onto the next fantasy meadow, where they will continue to graze, forgetful of their bad precepts.
The ancient writer Polybius had a good deal to say about governance. What he wrote may not be relevant anymore, and contemporary historians, often with very good reason, warn against facile use of the past. However, here is a quote from his Histories, Bk. VI:
...[And][A]s long as any survive who have had experience of oligarchical supremacy and domination, they regard their present constitution as a blessing, and hold equality and freedom as of the utmost value. But as soon as a new generation has arisen, and the democracy has descended to their children's children, long association weakens their value for equality and freedom, and some seek to become more powerful than the ordinary citizens; and the most liable to this temptation are the rich.
So when they begin to be fond of office, and find themselves unable to obtain it by their own unassisted efforts and their own merits, they ruin their estates, while enticing and corrupting the common people in every possible way. By which means when, in their senseless mania for reputation, they have made the populace ready and greedy to receive bribes, the virtue of democracy is destroyed, and it is transformed into a government of violence and the strong hand. For the mob, habituated to feed at the expense of others, and to have its hopes of a livelihood in the property of its neighbours, as soon as it has got a leader sufficiently ambitious and daring, being excluded by poverty from the sweets of civil honours, produces a reign of mere violence. Then come tumultuous assemblies, massacres, banishments, redivisions of land; until, after losing all trace of civilisation, it has once more found a master and a despot.
This is the regular cycle of constitutional revolution…
Polybius was writing about the degeneration of democracy as the ancients knew it, and we should not read the words, “constitutional revolution” to mean anything modern. Still, Polybius gives something to think about. There was once democracy in Carthage. In The Politics, Aristotle called it that; but that democracy, as well as the city itself, perished long ago. The final sentences of the Polybius quote are striking. In a sense, what is a Muslim polity but a kind of mob? The concept of citizenship does not really exist in Islam. Instead, the constituent is a slave, like one of Allah’s camels, or maybe just one of Muhammad’s camels. What was Muhammad but ambitions and completely ignorant? He was arrogant enough to believe that he had solved the problems of governance, but there has never been a legitimate Islamic government. Muhammad is to blame for that.
Don’t be fooled by the apparent sophistication of modern Tunisians, or the oil wealth in the Muslim world. There is no civilization there. The effects of Islam on a people last a long time I should think.
The Tunisians seem to be in a cycle of struggle between the authoritarian and the totalitarian, between the oligarchy of kleptocrats and the ludicrous promise of Islamic utopia. Muhammad was nothing if not authoritarian. The theologians who have followed him have created Islam's totalitarianism.
Gravenimage is right. And so is Buraq. With his long experience of living in a Muslim dominated country, I’m sure Buraq can see the likely future of Tunisia very well.
I think you may be right, Infidel Pride, about these other Muslim dominant ex-USSR countries moving toward becoming Islamic states. I have often wondered about this, as well. To be frank, I don't see that there is any power on the ground in any of them capable of resisting. Russia has completely lost its mojo, and the West is in the process of losing its. What's to stop them?
(Some have suggested China might be an ally in holding back the Islamic tide. I doubt it. My prediction is that, all the current brouhaha aside, the China bubble will collapse, probably sooner rather later, like Japan's before it - and for similar reasons.)
It's doubtful that any benevolent islamic democracy can ever come into existence. Trying to mix islam and democracy brings to mind the old analogy of sewage and fine wine.
Add one teaspoon of wine to a gallon of sewage, and you get sewage.
Add one teaspoon of sewage to one gallon of wine, and you get sewage.
There is NO such thing as " moderate " islam never has been never will be. There is only strong islam and weak islam. We in the west are wasting our time and hopes on the myth of islam reform. It would not be islam. Recap Tayyip Erdagon of Turkey made it as clear as he could when he said as much " THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS MODERATE ISLAM " The sooner we come to that truth the sooner we can begin preparing for the inevitable clash.
Eastview
China's views of the world are even more mercenary than that of the 'decadent' West. If they can make money by selling Muslims anything - from hi-tech to nuclear reactors, they will. Vladimir Lenin's famous quote - the Capitalist will sell you the rope you can use to hang him - is more true of China than it ever was of the West, including now in the Obama era.
If the Chinese bubble bursts, it will be good for the rest of the world, in that all the world manufacturing will no longer be concentrated there, but can once again be more distributed. In the process, a major cost-down will have to be achieved in the West to accompany it.
Only thing - if China implodes, Tibet will be free, which is good, but so will Xinxiang, which is bad. If the Islamic movements in Turkestan manage to gain popularity, a worst case scenario will be a huge Sunnite country (let's call it Turkestan) comprising Xinxiang, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan & Uzbekistan will be created. It will be heavily underpopulated, which would mean that even if a government there decided to be fully co-operative w/ the West, it would have huge tracts of territory that could be used as al-Qaeda hinterland - they would no longer need the mountains in Pakistan or Afghanistan. And w/ people who resemble White Caucasians, it will be even more of a struggle to track them than it is to track Arabs, Pakis, Somalis, etc.
Western law enforcement will have a fun time when that happens, unless they decide in time to not just end Muslim immigration, but actually reverse it.
We're not gonna stop Islam. The religion is too primal and basic without the theological and philosophical complexities of Christianity or Hinduism.
Islam is too blueprinted to fail. It's been taking over nations from it's very birth and no nation has been able to prevent Islam's onslaught.
Listen, call me a troll or a "secret Muslim," or whatever else you need to in order to avoid the issue at large. But what I'm saying is this.
For 1400 years men and women have not only kept this faith but have waged wars and done everything to spread it in ways we non-Muslims wouldn't dare. It's because the faith has a very basic concept: God commands, you follow.
And until we non-Muslims are willing to marry young, have a lot of kids, and be willing to spend our lives spreading our faith or non-faith the way the Muslim does, we need to accept that the Muslims want it more - which is why I think they'll win this.