Islam och LIBERAL DEMOKRATI

Robin Wright
Av alla utmaningar som demokratin stod inför på 1990-talet, en av de största lögnerna i den islamiska världen. Endast en handfull av de mer än fyra dussin övervägande muslimska länderna har gjort betydande framsteg mot att etablera demokratiska system. Bland denna handfull–inklusive Albanien, Bangladesh, Jordanien, Kirgizistan, libanon, Mali, pakistan, och Turkiet–ingen har ännu uppnått full, stabil, eller trygg demokrati. Och det största enskilda regionala blocket som står emot den globala trenden mot politisk pluralism omfattar de muslimska länderna i Mellanöstern och Nordafrika.
Ändå är motståndet mot politiska förändringar i samband med det islamiska blocket inte nödvändigtvis en funktion av den muslimska tron. Verkligen, bevisen tyder på det omvända. Rulers in some of the most antidemocratic regimes in the Islamic worldsuch as Brunei, indonesien, irak, Oman, Qatar, syrien, and Turkmenistanare secular autocrats who refuse to share power with their brethren.
Overall, the obstacles to political pluralism in Islamic countries are not unlike the problems earlier faced in other parts of the world: secular ideologies such as Ba’athism in Iraq and Syria, Pancasila in Indonesia, or lingering communism in some former Soviet Central Asian states brook no real opposition. Ironically, many of these ideologies were adapted from the West; Ba’athism, for instance, was inspired by the European socialism of the 1930s and 1940s. Rigid government controls over everything from communications in Saudi Arabia and Brunei to foreign visitors in Uzbekistan and Indonesia also isolate their people from democratic ideas and debate on popular empowerment. In the largest and poorest Muslim countries, moreover, problems common to [End Page 64] developing states, from illiteracy and disease to poverty, make simple survival a priority and render democratic politics a seeming luxury. Finally, like their non-Muslim neighbors in Asia and Africa, most Muslim societies have no local history of democracy on which to draw. As democracy has blossomed in Western states over the past three centuries, Muslim societies have usually lived under colonial rulers, kings, or tribal and clan leaders.
Med andra ord, neither Islam nor its culture is the major obstacle to political modernity, även om odemokratiska härskare ibland använder islam som ursäkt. 1 I Saudiarabien, for instance, Saud House styrde sig på Wahhabism, ett puritaniskt varumärke av sunni-islam, först för att förena stammarna på den arabiska halvön och sedan för att rättfärdiga dynastiskt styre. Liksom andra monoteistiska religioner, Islam erbjuder omfattande och ibland motstridiga instruktioner. I Saudiarabien, Islams principer har selektivt utformats för att upprätthålla en auktoritär monarki.

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  1. Usually I do not post on blogs, but I would like to say that this article really forced me to do so! Thanks, really nice article.

  2. Mohamed says:

    Thank you for the interesting articleHowever, I find myself unable to swallow the idea of branding democracy as liberalYes the two concepts are related as they originate from a common theoretical background, nonetheless, theory of liberal toleration is closely related to Christian faith (kingdom of Christ and kindgom of man) which is not the case in islamic theology or political thinking… Därmed, if we accept the idea of democracy, this does not mean that we should accept the liberal theory as a consequence.

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