From: David Buchanan (DBuchanan@ClassicalRadio.org)
Date: Mon Dec 08 2003 - 00:23:04 GMT
Paul and all:
Paul wrote:
.........................................The social level controls the
biological level. Right now in Iraq, the strongest social pattern doing
that job is the allied forces and they cannot stick around forever.
Therefore, stable social patterns (ones which don't destroy existing
Islamic cultural patterns) need to be put in place before any ideas of
intellectual freedom can take hold. You can't paste democracy directly
onto biological patterns. The Iraqis need to decide which social
patterns they should build on.
dmb says:
Right. The war removed a regime and anything like an effective police force
along with it. Bombs can't destroy religion or other cultural values, but
they're pretty good at smashing the institutional structures that are
required to hold those things together. I suppose even Western nations would
go to hell pretty quickly if the cops and armies were disarmed.
Paul continued:
Related to this is a recent survey of 3,000 Iraqis which expressed the
following thoughts:
"Asked to choose the form of government Iraq needed now, 90% of those
interviewed - in their own homes - said an Iraqi democracy, and
overwhelmingly rejected the idea that democracy was only for Westerners
and would not work in Iraq.
But more than two-thirds also wanted a strong leader; slightly fewer
(61%) agreed that the government should be made up mainly of religious
leaders; and there was little support for the American-British
occupation authority continuing to play a role.
In contrast with all other Iraqi institutions, religious leaders command
the trust of the people - though when asked to suggest the best thing
that could happen in the next year, fewer than 1% said an Islamic
government."
dmb replies:
That's a bit surprizing, especially the 90% who say they want democracy. But
when we add that to the 61% who say they want religious leaders and the fact
that religious leaders command the only real trust I think we can conclude
that the 90% don't have genuine democracy in mind. To be more specific, by
"genuine democracy" I mean what is often called "liberal democracy" and by
that I mean the form we enjoy. Holding elections is certainly a good first
step and its hard to imagine how they could begin any other way, but there
is quite a long distance between that and things like due process,
protections of the minority against the majority, equality before the law,
separation of church (mosque) and state, and the other rights we enjoy.
Also, as I understand it, the wish for religious leaders in government and
the trust in religious institutions is not unique here. Apparently this is a
pattern repeated in other times and places. Whenever a tryrannical
government rules long enough to eliminate all other oppostion parties and
such, the religious leaders are about all that is left to work with and so
they usually end up taking control of things when that tyranny goes belly
up.
Nice chatting with you.
dmb
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