Islam, Authoritarianism and Intolerance

Why Nations Fail/

thedailybeast.com

Yesterday’s news might be seen as a confirmation of Samuel Huntington’s Clash of Civilizations idea, pitting Islam against the West.

First was the headline news that Islamist militants, angered by a trailer posted on YouTube depicting Prophet Muhammed as a sexual predator, homosexual and child molester, attacked the US Consulate in Benghazi, set the Consulate ablaze, and killed ambassador Christopher J. Stevens and three members of his staff. There were violent protests elsewhere, including in Egypt.

Second was the perhaps equally disturbing news from Pakistan of an 11-year-old illiterate Christian girl (described as “slow” by the news reports) now freed from jail but still running from the mob, threatening to kill and burn her and her family, because of “blasphemy” (she’s accused of burning pages from an Islamic textbook).

Add to this the general poverty and authoritarianism of the Middle East and North Africa and other Islamic countries (especially if you leave out oil wealth), the case seems open and shut.

There are many versions of why Islam is at the root of authoritarianism, backwardness and poverty in these countries. Perhaps the most famous one argues that Islam, by failing to recognize the separation of religion and state, naturally leads to authoritarianism. In a now famous book, What Went Wrong, historian Bernard Lewis popularized a version of this idea. He wrote, for example:

The idea that any group of persons, any kind of activities, any part of human life is in any sense outside the scope of religious law and jurisdiction is alien to the Muslim thought (page 100).

He went on to compare Islam to Christianity in this regard:

From the beginning, Christians were taught, both by precept and practice, to distinguish between God and Caesar and between the different duties owed to each of the two. Muslims received no such instruction. (Page 103).

Though popular, this view doesn’t seem entirely well grounded in history or scripture.

First, as we argued in Why Nations Fail, there is another obvious explanation for extractive economic and political institutions in the Middle East and North Africa: the legacy of Ottoman rule and institutions.

Second, the close relationship between politics and religion is not confined to Islam. Rulers have used religion to cement their power or support their attempts to conquer new lands throughout the ages. For example, though colonialism was not a religious endeavor, religious rhetoric and the project of converting heathens to Christianity did play a role in motivating the Spanish and the English alike and provided a pretty good “cover story”.

Third, it is true that secularism, in any of its forms, has been all but absent in Muslim lands, but this is at least as much because politics has co-opted religion rather than the other way around.

Fourth, there is really nothing in the Koran or even the Hadith about constitutions or how the government should be organized and operated.

But the question remains: it’s unlikely to be a coincidence, nor easily explained by the Ottoman legacy, that most Muslim countries are not democratic and almost totally lack civil society, and most branches of political Islam are intolerant and often violent.  More >>

Kaohsiung mayor to return home after Cuba denies entry

The China Post/

Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chu

The mayor cut short her 11-day visit — originally slated for Feb. 15-26 — in the wake of the Cuban entry denial, said Zeno Lai, director of the Kaohsiung Information Bureau, adding that she is scheduled to arrive in Kaohsiung the following day.
Lai attributed Chen's denied entry to the fact that news of her itinerary was leaked to the press in advance.
Chen and a group of Kaohsiung city government officials flew to Cuba Feb. 20 to look at organic agriculture in the Caribbean country. All of the delegation members were allowed entry except for Chen.
Local media reported yesterday that the Kaohsiung mayor was stopped by Cuban Customs, which did not give a reason for denying her entry.
Also that day, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed that officials from the Republic of China Embassy in the Dominican Republic and Taiwan's representative office in Mexico helped Chen's delegation transit from Cuba to Los Angeles.
Chen, a bigwig of the opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and one of the party's founders, was chosen as acting DPP chairwoman Wednesday, temporarily succeeding Tsai Ing-wen, who will step down Feb. 29.
Chen will hold the reins of the DPP until a new leader and local chapter chiefs are elected May 27.
It was not immediately clear whether Chen — who was elected Kaohsiung mayor in 2006, becoming the country's first female mayor of a special municipality, and who was re-elected in 2010 — will seek to become the party's formal leader.
Born in Yilan County in eastern Taiwan in 1950, Chen began devoting herself to Taiwan's democracy movement in the 1970s when the country was a one-party state. She spent six years in jail during Taiwan's martial law period (which lasted until 1987) for participating in a pro-democracy demonstration in Kaohsiung in 1979. More >>

Chapuceria vs Yoani

El sitio cambiosencuba en Youtube ha posteado en tres partes editadas un video sobre el reciente ¨debate¨ en la sala Fresa y Chocolate del Icaic del tema Cuba e Internet, al cual le prohibieron la entrada a un grupo de personas a pesar de que la entrada era libre.

Esta actividad alcanzo relevancia particularmente por la intervencion de Yoani que logra entrar ¨gracias¨ a una peluca, aunque todos perfectamente sabian quien era.

El video en cuestion titulado ¨La mercenaria Yoani Sánchez al desnudo¨, prueba cualquier cosa excepto lo que proclama en su titulo. Entre ellas intelectuales cubanos de agenda y boligrafo con una argumentacion y fluidez propia de cualquier campeon de boxeo cubano.

Considerando que el tema Yoani tiene alguna prioridad en la Dgi, deberian sustituir inmediatamente a los oficiales que hacen tan flaco y chapucero favor a la causa.

Paulito FG y la telechancleta miamense

Paulito FG arribo a Miami para una serie de presentaciones previa a su gira por diversas ciudades de los Estados Unidos anunciada para el proximo ano.
Basto que el salsero cubano saliera del US custom para que comenzara el show previamente preparado probablemente por ambas partes. Lamentable, ridiculo; bochornoso espectaculo para elevar ratings y cultivar el odio y la intolerancia. Las escenas que se muestran a continuacion hablan por si solas, y cada uno puede expresar la opinion que considere pues para eso es que deseamos una Cuba libre; incluso cuando un Paulio acorralado expresa que cree en Fidel.