ROME, February 3, 2011 – Much of the Egyptian population that in recent days has rebelled against the thirty-year regime of Hosni Mubarak says that it prefers democracy to any other form of government.
At the same time, however, and in an overwhelming majority, they want those who commit adultery to be stoned, thieves to have their hands cut off, and those who abandon the Muslim religion to be put to death.
How does democracy protect it's citizens when they are obviously mad - it doesn't.
And although it is in the minority, support for suicide terrorists is growing. In Egypt, 20 percent justify this, while in 2009 15 percent did.
Returning to the death penalty for those who abandon Islam, called for by 84 percent of Egyptians, it must be pointed out that those who want it are men and women, old and young, educated and uneducated, without distinction.
In Jordan, the level of support for sentencing apostates to death rises all the way to 86 percent. It is only in Lebanon and Turkey that support is low, at 6 and 5 percent respectively.
Interesting comparison between Jordan and Egypt on the one hand in regards to a high support for the death penalty to those who leave Islam, and Lebanon and Turkey on the other where the support is very low, but not negligible.
Islam, when given free reign, tends to be pulled towards the extremes. Therefore, I think, the democratic demands of the citizens in Egypt will create a more fundamentalist Islamic state. There is no alternative, no matter how much the hopeful among us think that democracy solves every problem.
Related link: "Democratic" Egypt Sends Apostates to Their Death ~ Chiesa
Those who think Egypt is moving towards some kind of enlightened democratic, peaceful state are naive or idiots.
ReplyDeleteWhen they're proved wrong, wait for the litany of excuses and justifications for the new thugs....
KG,
ReplyDeleteIt's a pity, really, because there are those in Egypt and in the Islamic world who want to move Islam away from barbarism, as my previous post on this shows. It's just that when you have those who are prepared to kill to ensure that things go their way, and especially when those people are a majority, then there is no chance.
Those who think supporting dictatorships in the Middle East is a bad idea just haven't been watching enough Fox News...
ReplyDeleteI had a quick read of your link and thought the author was trying so hard to disparage Beck he himself ended up sounding a little unhinged.
ReplyDeletehis theory seemed to be "Glenn Beck is mad because he is drawing attention to many different cases of Muslims, in many different countries using violence as an integral part of their political agitation. But he's an idiot because there is no common thread to the reasons for each conflagration, aside from the tenuous link that they involve Muslims."
So can I presume that now he has proven Beck an idiot for noticing a factor the author sees as irrelevant, that we can expect the statistical evidence that radical Islam is spreading, is growing, is continuing to be a major source of violence to suddenly diminish?
Beck is trying to articulate an idea that is becoming increasingly harder to sneer at, even if his analogies are off, or his comments overly generalised, or the details imprecise. And even providing a bit of material for authors like the above to sneer at, Beck is probably closer to pulling back the layers of the onion and getting to the crux of the matter than the supposedly more intelligent and measured journalist who is an expert on any one particular layer of the onion.
Strangely enough, many of the people protesting in Egypt, and earlier in Tunisia, are indeed Muslims. Beck is apparently capable of figuring this out. However, they're examples of Muslim violence to the same extent that the American or British revolutions were examples of Christian violence. When we're looking at people trying to overthrow tyranny, the predominant religion of the participants isn't the main story. Or at least, to people who aren't completely deranged it isn't.
ReplyDeleteI thought the point of the post was to look at the subtext, rather than "the main story".
ReplyDeleteDemocracy is all fine and good, but if 80% of the people vote to bring in whipping rape victims to death, or applaud when a public figure is shot for speaking out against the unjust blasphemy laws, it will finally bring home the point that democracy and radical Islam are not compatible.
And let me hasten to add that all of the liberals now declaring how important Democracy is, seemed to be very much against restoring Democracy to Iraq or meddling in the affairs of various other dictators.
ReplyDeleteThe nature of any regime it backs in the Arab world is secondary to control. Subjects are ignored until they break their chains declares Noam Chomsky.
I disagree with that statement. They they are largely ignored by the West, but subjects are not ignored. They are warred upon, persecuted, restricted and indeed, controlled - because it is all about control.
Which is why a lot of the counter commentary is not so much arguing against the Egyptian people fighting to throw off the yoke of Mubarak, but wondering what the shape of anything new might be. "Democracy" is the catch cry, but not necessarily the outcome.
...seemed to be very much against restoring Democracy to Iraq...
ReplyDeleteTo me, they seemed to be against invading and occupying Iraq, rather than against self-determination for the Iraqi people. There isn't really any inconsistency - anyone wants to invade and occupy Egypt, no doubt liberals will be against that too.
I don't get why conservatives are so sour on this. If it turns out the Egyptian people aren't very nice, they won't be the first unpleasant characters to exist. No doubt they didn't like us much when we were running the place, for that matter. It isn't really our business whether they'll make a particularly good job of running their country or not - but one thing we can be certain of is that bribing a dictator to oppress them because it suits the US national interest is a Bad Thing.
To me, they seemed against self-determination and democracy in Iraq because it might vindicate the intervention, which they were also clearly against, but I guess that is a different discussion.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sour on the Egyptians revolting, and I'm not defending any actions which keep dictators in power even for so-called "stability". Personally, I'm sick of dictators being left alone and countries undergoing rebellion being ignored because its supposed to be an internal matter. We got involved far too late in Rwanda, Bosnia, Sierra Leone, DRC and other such places, and will probably be too late to the party again. Intervention brings death, but more often than not, zero intervention brings greater death, but less media coverage.
Islams form of democracy is the one where the angry and more powerful section of the mob does what it wants to, because it can.
ReplyDeleteNever figured out why counting heads was more important than looking what is in them.
ReplyDeleteIt is why the US has a constitution, it prevents the tyranny of the majority taking away rights of the minority.
By owning them as slaves, for instance? Good job they had a constitution to prevent that happening.
ReplyDeleteFact remains: helping a ruthless dictator remain in power so that self-determination of a people can be prevented isn't really something people who are supposedly enthusiasts for "freedom" and "liberty" should be backing.