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Politics : Idea Of The Day -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: IQBAL LATIF who wrote (45322)	12/20/2003 8:00:49 AM
From: IQBAL LATIF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 50167

The perseverance of Islamic Civilization Zack Latif Virtually all Muslim countries are struggling with the phenomenon of reverse mass Pan-Islamism (and Pan-Arabic) sentiment: Amman, Jordan -- the slogan appears on walls, bus shelters and billboards throughout the country. "Jordan First," it reads in Arabic, over a photo of outstretched hands lifting the national flag. It's a message from the country's ruler, King Abdullah II, that Jordan's national interest -- not those of Iraqis or Palestinians -- must guide government policy. If King Abdullah had been effective in communicating the massacres of ancient Arabs (the genocide of Kurds do not elicit the same sympathy amongst Arabs since the former are Iranian in nature) by Saddam I’m sure that support would shore up for the war against Iraq. Nevertheless such outcry does not translate into an effective opposition, as is the case in most Muslim nations. The analysis of the Islamic Crescent is never accurate since the Occidental media perennially remains unaware of the true engine of change in Muslim nations. The popular swathe of appeal for Iraq within the Muslim world does not imply that there is a brewing revolution of the youth cohorts planning to depose their autocratic leaders. I hate to contradict the starry-eyed predictions of Thomas Friedman (whose commentary is characterized by its lack of substantive or informative content), who seems to believe that there will be a fundamental ramification to the region in the decades to come. There will be no abrupt change as I have argued previously since the Islamic civilisation, for all its hindrances, is an adapting and constantly evolving civilisation. I find it amusing to read webloggers who assume that the Islamic crescent is a ring of failed states (indeed even funnier are those who advocate the forced modernisation of the Islamic Crescent). In fact one remains hopefully that there will be no significant upheaval within the Islamic Crescent since autocracy, in a convoluted way, is the one redeeming aspect of the Islamic Crescent. There is no need to consider the popular sentiment thus demagogues do not arise and religious fanaticism is inhibited, in dire contrast to India and Israel where the far right (it is virtually impossible to find the a party like BJP -with such a notorious history, shady associations and parochial views- in charge of an Islamic nation) firmly entrenched in power. The very nature of the Islamic nations is inherently predisposed to a strongman leadership and that is a cultural tendency imbedded within the Muslim world. This is not a necessarily a bad thing far from in fact since it allows visionary leaders to recast their nations in their own modernistic mould. How else could have Ataturk successfully secularized and modernized Turkey to such an extent that the population now considers itself European rather than Eastern. It is not within the Muslim tradition to cultivate a Western democracy nevertheless I remain thankful that there remains with the crescent the continual ability to subtly imbibe those concepts that are conducive to future growth. The Islamic Crescent is certainly not a failure and I find it to have made immense progress (Pakistan being the foremost example, for where else could a Muslim elite so eloquently and effectively pursue their dreams of a nation state without resorting to violence) in spite of the severe handicaps endured (and perpetrated) by Muslim polities & ethnicities throughout the world.