The Dark Ages of Islamic countries

Submitted by Alexandros (United Kingdom), Feb 28, 2013 at 11:08

From a political and Social aspect the current situation in the Arabic world resembles the time of the inquisition in Europe a few centuries ago. If the secularists do not manage to prevail, i am afraid Democracy is again out of the question for the Arabs and the Muslims in general. If people want to have Democracy then it is absolutely necessary to separate the state from the religion.

This does not mean that the people should not believe in their religion or that the state should go against the religion institutions, it means that the religion leaders should care about how to save the people's souls instead of acting like radical, extremists political leaders, it means that the people will be able to accept and respect the different religion other people have, it means that people will be able to understand that science is one thing and religion is another, it means they will be able to understand freedom of speech, it means that they will be able to accept women as equals.

One of the most important reasons that Democracy succeeded in Europe, was the fact that the Catholic Church lost it's power and the ideals of the Athenian Democracy, revived and evolved through the renaissance and the French Revolution, prevailed. People take our democracy as granted and look for revolutions and adventures in other political movements, forgetting that this was the greatest and toughest revolution of all. This is the road that the Democratic Powers in the Islamic world have to take, the difficult one, it is them who have to revolt, not only against Oligarchs, but also against obscurantists.

Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments".