Homeopathic Remedy in Islam courts disaster

Submitted by David Sabghir (United States), Jun 23, 2005 at 10:09

Elections should culminate the democratic process, not start it. They ought to celebrate civil society successfully achieved. Once such a civil society exists (as it does in Iran but not in Algeria), voters are unlikely to vote Islamists into power.


Problem being that once in power, even with the existence of a so-called "civil society" the Islamist stranglehold may only be thrown off by very undemocratic processes. However the forced democratization of a society is no solution to a country whose history is as undemocratic as Iraq's has been in the past 100 years.

For a good review of that history, I suggest seeing the movie, "The Last Jews of Baghdad", co-directed by a professor at Penn, Carole Basri.

But if one follows the logic of democratic elections, one must be satisfied with the peoples' choice as long as they do have a choice, but then must allow the logic of their choice as anathema as it may be to our sensibilities to bring its own consequences, except as in the case of the homeopathic remedy, if the system is so out of kilter, than a remedy cannot work without major interdiction. This seems to be what more or less happened in Afganistan.

David S.

---

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".