|
Sunday, February 06, 2005Sistani turns "insurgents" on heads!Iraq Shiite leaders demand Islam be the source of law (found at the mighty LGF) Apparently the demand is that Islam be the source of all legislation and the Koran the reference point for all laws. It's Sistani issuing the demand. The President said that newly free countries would have to find their own ways of doing things, compatible with their cultures and civil institutions. It looks like that will be the case in Iraq. Not surprising. The news is, of course, grounds for nervousness. But Sistani is a sharp player. And he has hinted in this direction all along. This is not a ripping off of the mask to reveal the theocrat beneath. Sistani has been a quasi-theocrat from the beginning and looks likely to remain one. And why not? It's where his power comes from. However, Sistani has not called for anyone - including himself - to be named Caliph. Has not called for abandonment of the democracy project in favor of a struggle to see which mullahs emerge on top. He has said that Islam and the Koran should be the basis for an Islamic democracy. We hear similar rumblings about Judeo-Christian values and the Bible over here, and though they usually get rejected on the surface, at a deeper level they hold. That is, after thousands of years, our literature, culture and philosophy are so permeated by the Judeo-Christian ethos that everything from Shakespeare to the Beatles is plugged in to it at one level or another. The Koran, like any religious text, is sufficiently convoluted and internally contradictory that there's a fair measure of decent ideas in there. In a healthy culture, the passages that seem to work get remembered; the ones that don't get glossed over. Just like only a handful of idiots still want to stone unruly children, even among those who think the teaching of evolution an abomination because God made the world in six days. Likewise, the hope for Iraq is that halfway decent people will look in all earnestness at a central text in their culture as a reference point to figure out who they are and what they believe in before drafting laws. This is, after all, exactly what our founding fathers did - even the atheists and agnostics among them knew the Bible and valued its lessons for the most part. Contrariwise, the French tried to build a new mankind, rejecting a core element of their history and culture and promising to start completely fresh. That didn't turn out so well. I bite my nails at the thought of a religious figure calling for the Koran to be the basis of law in Iraq, because, well, Iran is supposed to be an Islamic republic and I'd hate to see Iraq go the same way. On the other hand, our own founding documents indicate that the purpose of government, and specifically of our constitutional republic, is not to give voice to the will of the people, per se, but to create a sound mechanism for the protection of God-given rights. If the purpose of Iraq's democracy turns out to be to find a fairer, more just and more effective model for an Islamic society to keep its bearings, that ain't all bad. If, on the other hand, leading Iraqi voices were calling for a purely secular state, it would scare the bejeezus out of me. I've studied the French Revolutions. Plural. The French effort to eschew man as he was and try to make something for which the raw materials did not exist was a disaster. Telling long suppressed Shia that their glorious liberation meant they would no longer be troubled for being Shiite, but only for being Muslim, wouldn't fly. The Real Scoop In many ways, we are in an ideal place. Three weeks ago, Iraqi voters were to be murdered as Infidels. Now the leading religious voice in Iraq has identified the new, democratically-elected government as an instrument of Islam. Talk about a thumb in the eye for the Zawahiri (sp?) contingent. So long as the result of events is that the people decide how to implement an Islamic republic and who is going to do the implementing, I think we're okay. The more control they realize they have, the more the people will find and support candidates who help them become the kind of Muslims they want to be, not the kind the intimidators would like them to be. We are, disturbingly enough, on exactly the course the President has been setting. The Iraqi people were told that voting was un-Islamic. They voted. Not because they rejected Islam, but because they rejected that message. That was the very first act in the creation of an Islamic republic where the people decide what an Islamic republic is all about, not self-appointed authorities. In time, I believe, Bush's notion of universal aspirations kicks in. Islam, we're told, is a religion of submission. Right now, a prime feature of that is submission to earthly spokesman for Islam. Big deal. Christ called on us to submit to earthly authority too ("Render unto Ceasar..."). In time, we gave it up. Sistani carries weight. And why not? Religious figures are supposed to be transcendantal, and that attracts followers. But the followers are there by choice, not by force, and can leave the same way. Contrast this with the era when kings ruled Europe by divine right with the blessing of the pope. Iraq is in the modern era, if only in that when we call Sistani a kingmaker it's only figurative. Already, Iraqis have enough freedom of conscience to vote for who is going to make their Islamic republic. They can follow and ignore the religious figures of their choosing. The emergence of multiple authorities almost always leads to a breakdown of authority: Once there are enough authorities, people first shop around for a mullah to their tastes, then appoint one if none is to be found. Then another when that one fails to lead the way some want to be lead. This explains the existence of small towns with one gas station and six Baptist churches. It also explains how an Islamic republic can be the foundation for very good things. Islam is, of course, the religion of submission. Submission to God. When Mohammed lived, that meant submission to God's representative on earth. But they only made it through two or three caliphates before Islam split into Sunni and Shia branches, with murder allegations at the center of the split. There has not been a single, universally acknowledged leader of Islam for around 1300 years. Still, thanks to force of arms, culture and, finally, colonial kingmaking, a lot of large regions have had supreme religious authorities. As this breaks down, though, Islam becomes what it ought to be in the first place: submission to God alone. Mediated through individual conscience. And then you get yourself a place not unlike the good old U.S. of A. A place where a lot of people are firm believers, but in so many different things that the result is not, pace Frank Rich, a theocracy, but a government secular enough that all those people with all those different beliefs can coexist under it. In short (too late), Sistani's calls contain a bit of good news and a bit of bad news. The bad news is he may be setting things up for some short- to mid-term hassles, some potentially bloody. The good news, though, is that if it involves the popularly elected government, the stage is already set for the emergence of an individualized Islam that will lead to a religious people with secular governance. Exactly what the Middle East needs. 
posted by gbarto at 1:34 PM |
Archives
|
Day By Day© by Chris Muir.Old TurkeyBlog here.
