# Islamic democracy vs Secular dictatorship, which would you choose? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 18, 2016, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/islamic-democracy-vs-secular-dictatorship-which-would-you-choose/760186 "2016-07-18T03:33:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2016, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/islamic-democracy-vs-secular-dictatorship-which-would-you-choose/760186/101 "2016-07-22T02:48:12Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > If the human rights, civil rights, political rights, etc are the same in both situations I prefer the secular dictatorship. > > However, a secular dictatorship in an Islamic nation could result in all the anger over the regime being directed into religion, which means the secular dictatorship could be overthrown and replaced by a religious dictatorship (like Iran). If you think the Shah was “secular” then you either don’t understand the word, or you’re not very familiar with his regime. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2016, 7:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/islamic-democracy-vs-secular-dictatorship-which-would-you-choose/760186/102 "2016-07-22T07:53:50Z")
> [@Ibn\_Warraq](#): > > If you think the Shah was “secular” then you either don’t understand the word, or you’re not very familiar with his regime. I volunteer you to edit his wiki page. ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2016, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/islamic-democracy-vs-secular-dictatorship-which-would-you-choose/760186/103 "2016-07-22T23:29:13Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > If the human rights, civil rights, political rights, etc are the same in both situations I prefer the secular dictatorship. I think by definition the political rights in the democracy would have to be different than those in the dictatorship. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2016, 3:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/islamic-democracy-vs-secular-dictatorship-which-would-you-choose/760186/104 "2016-07-23T03:10:45Z")
> [@Peremensoe](#): > > I think by definition the political rights in the democracy would have to be different than those in the dictatorship. Well, for a sufficiently benign dictatorship, one doesn’t have rights as such - but the government simply won’t bother to intervene no matter what you say, won’t care what you believe or who you have sex with, etc. As opposed, I guess, to a democracy that could hold a perfectly democratic referendum on whether or not to declare all nonbelievers in the state religion to be infidels and heretics. ---
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2016, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/islamic-democracy-vs-secular-dictatorship-which-would-you-choose/760186/105 "2016-07-23T03:33:33Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > I volunteer you to edit his wiki page. Wikipedia is hardly a reliable source and I don’t need to look at wikipedia to learn about the Shah. My father was taught in school that the Shah was chosen by God to be the leader of Iran. He also required all Iranians to carry identity papers identifying them by religion and while he wasn’t quite as nasty towards the Bahai Just because he wasn’t an Islamic radical doesn’t mean he was “secular” and westerners who insist on calling him that show severe ignorance of Iran that helps no one. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2016, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/islamic-democracy-vs-secular-dictatorship-which-would-you-choose/760186/106 "2016-07-23T03:43:02Z")
> [@Ibn\_Warraq](#): > > Wikipedia is hardly a reliable source and I don’t need to look at wikipedia to learn about the Shah. > > My father was taught in school that the Shah was chosen by God to be the leader of Iran. > > He also required all Iranians to carry identity papers identifying them by religion and while he wasn’t quite as nasty towards the Bahai > > Just because he wasn’t an Islamic radical doesn’t mean he was “secular” and westerners who insist on calling him that show severe ignorance of Iran that helps no one. Who is insisting? Anyway, I don’t have a problem considering him secular relative to what replaced him. That’s not an endorsement, of course. ---
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2016, 4:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/islamic-democracy-vs-secular-dictatorship-which-would-you-choose/760186/107 "2016-07-23T04:44:03Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Who is insisting? **Anyway, I don’t have a problem considering him secular relative to what replaced him.** That’s not an endorsement, of course. By that measure then the Pope is secular. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2016, 4:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/islamic-democracy-vs-secular-dictatorship-which-would-you-choose/760186/108 "2016-07-23T04:50:56Z")
> [@Ibn\_Warraq](#): > > By that measure then the Pope is secular. This sentence does not connect to mine in any obvious way. Who replaced the Pope? Who or what are you comparing the Pope to? If I had to take a guess at what your point is - are you saying the Pope is secular compared to some of the more extreme forms of Protestantism? If not, then I don’t know what you’re talking about. ---
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2016, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/islamic-democracy-vs-secular-dictatorship-which-would-you-choose/760186/109 "2016-07-23T22:44:18Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > This sentence does not connect to mine in any obvious way. Who replaced the Pope? Who or what are you comparing the Pope to? > > If I had to take a guess at what your point is - are you saying the Pope is secular compared to some of the more extreme forms of Protestantism? If not, then I don’t know what you’re talking about. Sigh, my point was that Wes completely misused the term “secular”. It doesn’t mean “non-fundamentalist” and the Shah was by no means secular or even objectively better than the people who followed him. Both were awful but on the other hand neither was as loathesome as Hussein who was as “secular” as the Shah. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2016, 4:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/islamic-democracy-vs-secular-dictatorship-which-would-you-choose/760186/110 "2016-07-24T04:20:19Z")
I don’t get why you mentioned the Pope, but fine. Certainly there were secret arrests and executions under the Shah and Saddam Hussein, but I gathered these were directed against people who were seen as enemies of the state (by whatever arbitrary standard) rather than enemies of God. Of course, once the leader starts to perceive himself as being ordained by God and deserving of having his image put up everywhere like a religious icon, the lines get a tad blurred… ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2016, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/islamic-democracy-vs-secular-dictatorship-which-would-you-choose/760186/111 "2016-07-24T16:27:24Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > This sentence does not connect to mine in any obvious way. Who replaced the Pope? Who or what are you comparing the Pope to? In most of the former Papal States, the Italian government. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/islamic-democracy-vs-secular-dictatorship-which-would-you-choose/760186.md?page=5)