Strengthening Constitutional Self-Government

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Foreign Affairs

Christian Persecution and Arab Democracies

Lela Gilbert notes that "a series of abuses against Christians has swept across the Muslim world," including "a murder in Pakistan, attacks on churches in Ethiopia, an attempted assassination of the Ecumenical Patriarch in Turkey, and repeated pogroms against the Copts in Egypt. Now, rights groups are reporting new developments in Iran's anti-Christian crackdown, which has swept up nearly 300 Christian believers since June 2010." She also notes a detailed briefing document from January 2011 by Elam Ministries announcing a "severe intensification of arrests and imprisonment of Christians in Iran" and a report this week by Christian Solidarity Worldwide that five Iranian Christians had been sentenced to one year's imprisonment for "Crimes against the Islamic Order."

On a related matter, John Bradley takes a stand against Bush's "Freedom Agenda" and warns in the London Spectator of an "Arabian nightmare" if we "assume that democracy is an enemy of Islamism."

When the gift of democracy is unwrapped in the Arab world, Islamists frequently spring out of the box. The jihadis may be despised by most Muslims, but often in Arab countries only about 20 to 40 per cent of the population vote. It is by no means impossible for the Islamists to secure a majority from the minority, because their supporters are the most fanatical. Whatever the theory of democratisation in the Arab world, the history is clear. Where democracy, however tentatively, has already been introduced, it is the Islamists who have come to power.

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Maybe, but is this a reason not to provide some sort of aid to Lybia?

A principled intro of sorts that bipases a discussion of the trillion dollar economic interest that Italy has in Lybia, or the amount of funds and investments that Lybia has in already stressed Italian, Spanish banks, compounded by the hit all the european/swiss/american insurers took on the Japanese Quake, added to the combined stress of the Euro, Dollar and Yen?

I am not saying you have to pull a Kudlow and cite rising food prices for the middle east crisis. I am not even saying there isn't a lot to be still learned about islam and islamicism.

Still why not an answer on the subject?

1) Democracy in the Arab world tends towards Islamicism, because this Islamicism is Idealistic, in the Kantian sense of a manifestation of a principle willed as a Universal, where as what it replaced was a crass form of realism ment to enrich only the oligarchs at the top. In other words life under the new regime has to differentiate itself somehow, by more than just votes so it breaks as strongly as it can from the old forms. Democracy as a revolution is invigorating for a time, but the democracy is a means to an end(happiness) outlets to happiness can be plugged into material factors(capitalism?), or shared concepts(theocracy), and Islam provides the infrastructure for shared concepts, where the infrastructure for wealth creation is lacking.

So while this is a KBR talking point, it is probably true that without infrastructure and education, you can't maintain a democracy that provides opportunity and the audacity of Hope in this world.

I don't see John Bradley as taking a stand against Bush's Freedom agenda. (I don't mean to throw you off by using Obama's catch phrases.)

"Democracy in the Arab world tends towards Islamicism" because Islam is in the majority. Democracy is the dictatorship of the majority. Praise God we don't have a democracy; we have a Constitutional Republic based on Christian principles, whose '“...Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other..." (and 'religious', at that time, meant 'Protestant Christian', and a particularly theologically conservative one, to boot).

Of course, given that we've pretty much given up on the Constitution on a wholesale scale, we're headed towards the dictatorship of the majority, too.

An Arab from Gaza and a self-confessed member of Hamas once asked me, “How can we have peace?” I though it was a strange question coming from a terrorist. When I asked him if he was ready to recognize Israel's right to exist, he answered, “There is no such country as 'Israel'; there is only Palestine, my country.” That's why negotiating peace with Hamas or any other Arab faction is a fool's errand. In this man’s mind, Israel’s right to exist is not an issue because there is no Israel; there is just a large, well-armed group of space-occupying Jewish squatters, who deserve death. Furthermore, every U.S. president keeps saying the same mantra, “They [Palestinian Authority] must recognize Israel’s right to exist.” Correction; they must first recognize that Israel exists. Actually, somebody forgot to tell all of the politicians that we Jews don’t need their permission to exist as a nation; G-d gave that to us at Mount Sinai. Http://soulfulthought.blogspot.com

One admits that today's life seems to be not very cheap, however some people need money for various stuff and not every one earns enough cash. So to receive good loans or student loan should be a right solution.

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