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BBC article on Islam and Democracy: well worth a read
Should a nation be defined by language and territory, by ruling party or by faith, asks Roger Scruton.
To understand what is happening in the Middle East today we must look back to the end of World War I. The Austro-Hungarian Empire had been destroyed, and from the ruins emerged a collection of nation states.
These nation states - including Austria, Hungary, Romania and Czechoslovakia - were not arbitrary creations. Their boundaries reflected long-standing divisions of language, religion, culture and ethnicity. And although the whole arrangement collapsed within two decades, this was in part because of the rise of Nazism and communism, both ideologies of conquest.
Today we take the nation states of central Europe for granted. They are settled political entities, each with a government elected by the citizens who live on its soil.
When the Austro-Hungarian Empire collapsed, so too did the Ottoman Empire, whose territories embraced the whole of the Middle East and North Africa....
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-23810527
I think this article or commentary really puts the spotlight on the failings of democracy to latch onto the Middle East in a way that isn't intolerant, isn't derogatory, isn't sidelining any facts, and is doing it in a way that I think anyone from any perspective is able to share in an idea of what is really going on in the Middle East and why we need to understand it's past to hope for a better future.
It's not a happy read as such (the warts and all of the Middle East are there for all to see - and it's not just about the West's involvement - world superpowers all over have been involved) and the prospects of a happy future might be bleak but not impossibly out of reach.
What do you make of the article?
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These questions are asked in relation to Middle Eastern Nations, some created after the end of the Ottoman Empire.
Comparison is made with European Nations (Austria, Hungary etc.) whose boundaries, created after the first world war, reflect "long standing divisions of language, religion, culture, and ethnicity".
That sounds like common sense. Yet we are being asked by Roger Scruton and '2 + 2' to regard this as something no one has thought of before
Why, you might ask, hasn't Roger Scruton or '2 + 2' applied this philosophy of Nationhood to Britain, France, Germany, Netherlands and all the other western nations who in recent years have been obliged to accommodate "divisions of language, religion, culture, and ethnicity"?
Or doesn't that count when we are discussing seemingly intractable problems in the Middle East.
Who is to say that countries like Britain, France, Germany and the Netherlands will not be faced with similar intractable problems in the future due to "divisions of language, religion, culture, and ethnicity"?
The article is for me, a refreshing take on a subject weighed down by strong emotions surrounding religion and culture and more. It feels rare to me but I wouldn't say it's the first time this sort of point has been mooted. Just that it doesn't hit the mainstream that often - or at least in my experience.
It seems to me individuals having issues with "divisions of language, religion, culture, and ethnicity" are more of a problem than countries are, given immigration is (as far as I've seen) a policy that is active in Europe - as such it appears that at the level of government, countries do desire immigration - it's how to manage (or whether it should be 'managed' at all) the divisions that might arise due to individuals who resent having to deal with "divisions of language, religion, culture, and ethnicity".
Crap.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13ucvDpm31o
And yes, that's Boris. He wrote the whole thing.
Agreed. A degree of homogeneity is necessary for democracy to work in any way effectively. Increase the divisions and you increase the incidence of perceived slights and injustices in any democratic process. Perhaps part of the problem is how 'democracy' is viewed in the Middle East and in the UK. In the ME the democratic will is taken as a right to rule but in the UK it is viewed more as a permission to govern.
Islam is basically Christianity centuries ago. Is it a failure of democracy to latch onto Islam or the reverse?
You can argue that secularism is the natural next state of the evolution civilisation. Islam has yet to catch up.
Do they all tho, or are many told conditioned via religion to accept a certain view of the world. After all when God has given you all the answer, why ask questions.
Well said. It is profoundly depressing that those committed to eradicating any notion of England being a (culturally) Christian country or homeland of the English people (a stepping stone to its absorption into the EU empire) have no compelling alternative vision.
A small island shorn of its heritage and history, in which the State is promoted over the traditional family, Islam rapidly encroaches, wanton homosexuality and lauding of such is encouraged, and, in terms of demographics, only United Nations levels of diversity are deemed to be anything other than "hideously white", doesn't exactly fill one with enthusiasm.
Sweet Christ, what a madly paranoid ramble.
My thoughts exactly!
Let's put your concerns to the test. What would you do to resolve the loss of heritage and history as you perceive it? Do you consider the National Trust, and all the parks and buildings it looks after to be a major component of our heritage and history? I don't see Hampton Court being redeveloped into a mosque any time soon.
You also seem to take aim at homosexuality in the same post. Your views don't (on the face of it), seem very forward thinking in their own right, but given you appear to value some other set of ideals, could you explain them?
A country which passes laws based on the views of clerics is most certainly not a democracy.
Scruton, like many writers do, emphatically misses the point. Ataturk was only able to create a Turkish-speaking nation state by massacring and expelling the Armenians and the Greeks.
^ This
Poland is stable now because of ethnic German cleansing from Polish lands after WW2. Same goes for most of the states of former Yugoslavia - ethnic and religous cleansing has unified the remining states. Cyprus is divided on ethnic and religous lines.
Going further back the reformation resulted in Countries being defined by their national identity of which religion was a part. The split of the Netherlands into Belgium and Holland is an example.
The Middle East is trying to adapt from a supranational identity based on religion to one based on national boundaries (and religion). It's no worse than Yugoslavia and the ending will probably be the same.