Your OP may be well-researched in terms of checking out Dr. Shaikh’s plight and Pakistan’s blasphemy laws, but I have some questions for you. Your statement is suspiciously close to the “kill all the ragheads” and “they are born terrorists” language I’ve seen in the Pit recently.
Firstly, why do you think Pakistan a bastion of liberalism in a sea of fundamentalism? Who told you to decide which countries were The Great Islamist Bogeymen? The fact that they have blasphemy laws on the books would indicate that they, like Iran and Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia and Libya and a host of other countries, are an Islamic State. Pakistan was CREATED as an Islamic state, a Muslim homeland, at the time of independence of India from England. It has gone back and forth between a more secular government and Islamist government over the years, with a series of coups, but basically there is no separation of church and state.
The tension between democracy* and theocracy (with some monarchy thrown in) is widespread across the Muslim world, because while the Koran and Shariah set down the rules for living, no one can agree on exactly what form of government is the logical result. It’s similar to other “totalitarian” governments, like the communism practiced in China or the U.S.S.R. - there is an idealistic attempt to form a perfect society of believers, where not only your actions but the fervor of your belief can be called into question by the state, and used and abused for all kinds of political reasons. In both cases there is a doctrine or a book that you have to follow, but the state, not you, has the power to decide how well you are following it.
One of the most interesting things happens when Islamic fundamentalists are voted into power by the people - theocracy through democracy**. This has happened over and over again in Algeria and in Egypt (at the local government level). In many predominantly Muslim countries, the Islamist groups are the ones getting things done - running schools, making sure the trash gets picked up, speaking out against corrupt leaders and injustices. Of course, these are countries with no history of peaceful transfers of political power from one group or party to another - the Islamists who win in Algeria are locked up as soon as they win - many of them win municipal elections from jail. And certainly no fundamentalist-leaning government is going to allow a return to secular values once they get their hands on the pie, as they have in Pakistan & Iran. You are talking about absolutists, fervrent believers who think the separation of church and state is a sacrelige. And they rule in places where often the majority has consented that the state has the power to look out for citizen’s spiritual and moral well-being.
Fuck, I’m rambling. andros, get in here. I need you.
MEBuckner, I guess I’m asking you, what is it that you are trying to say? That theocracies suck? Well, they creep me out too, especially since I just got done re-reading The Handmaid’s Tale. It’s my belief that religion and politics cannot mix without vastly diminishing the freedoms of the citizenry. I also live in a country where individual freedom is valued above all else.
Are you trying to express your outrage at Dr. Shaikh’s situation? That’s cool - get in touch with Amnesty International and write a letter on his behalf.
Your suggestion about the number of “real Muslims” and the attack on the religion as a whole frankly nauseates me. Subsitute Christian or Jewish fundamentalists for Muslims in both your post and mine and see how it looks. It’s NOT religion that’s the problem, it’s the combination of religion and politics.
If you want to actually learn instead of railing against a billion people, I can recommend an excellent book: Islam in Transition: Muslim Perspectives, edited by John J. Donahue and John L. Esposito. It’s written by Muslim leaders, clerics, and scholars - short articles and commentary about the collision between Muslim traditions and values and Western ideas of constitutional democracy. I think very few Americans actually experience Muslims describing and debating problems in their own words.
But STOP the “Fuck all members of this religion” garbage. Now.
*Democracy can mean the secular sort, practiced in Turkey or the “we have elections, even though the same incredibly corrupt person wins every time” sort practiced in countries like Egypt.
**Yes, I know that Hitler was voted into power too. Blow me.