I’ve been thinking about segregation, because I’ve been thinking about the Muslim Brotherhood and sexual segregation. The MB of course mandates sexual segregation where it can, and would mandate it throughout Egypt if it got the power to do so. Many non-MB Egyptians think sexual segregation is right and good.
Marwa, a nursery school teacher who did not provide her last name, stood with some 200 women of all ages who chanted for the downfall of the regime. She wore a veil covering her hair.
‘I cover my body and support gender segregation during the protests, not as an Islamist statement, but because it is not right for men and women to have physical contact,’ she said.
What I’ve been thinking about segregation is the obvious: it’s inherently anti-egalitarian. Where there is segregation there is always superiority and inferiority. Separate but equal was a brazen lie. People who want to impose segregation of any kind are people who want to impose hierarchy.
Thinking about that led me to thinking about a different subject, which is NOMA, or the putative compatibility of religion and science. That too is a secretly hierarchical arrangement. The Non-Overlapping part of NOMA is an announcement that religion contaminates science as opposed to being genuinely compatible with it.
NOMA makes religion and science separate. It segregates the two from each other; that’s the point. If they were genuinely compatible, compatible substantively, they wouldn’t have to be separate. Overlapping would be fine. NOMA then goes on to do a lot of silly flattering of religion, but the real point is the separation.
This is how it works with de facto compatibility. “There are believers who do perfectly good science,” is the motto on that banner. Yes, and they do it by compartmentalizing, which being interpreted means, segregation. They do it by keeping the two rigidly separate. The need to keep them separate points up the fact that they’re not really compatible at all.
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58 responses to “Separation”
[…] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Skeptic South Africa and Wayne de Villiers, Ophelia Benson. Ophelia Benson said: Separation http://dlvr.it/H2Wgs […]
Source/citation?
“What I’ve been thinking about segregation is the obvious: it’s inherently anti-egalitarian. Where there is segregation there is always superiority and inferiority. Separate but equal was a brazen lie. People who want to impose segregation of any kind are people who want to impose hierarchy.”
You’re wrong. Separate but equal isn’t wrong because “there is always superiority and inferiority”. It’s wrong in and of itself. Separating people by their race or sex is wrong. People are people, and separating them is one because of some stupid bullshit traditions is unacceptable. I don’t care if there is superiority and inferiority. It’s wrong regardless.
” it’s inherently anti-egalitarian. Where there is segregation there is always superiority and inferiority. Separate but equal was a brazen lie. People who want to impose segregation of any kind are people who want to impose hierarchy.”
Does this apply to toilets ? And hospital wards ? I guess it must.
Are you kidding us? Really? Really?
No, no, no. They’re compatible because they’re kept separate. Just like men and women have separate missions in God’s work, one of which is leadership. Science seeks to understand nature, religion explains everything else; to claim otherwise is scientism.
All good friends of science appreciate how important it is to assert the compatibility of science and religion. That’s where youse gnus cause so much trouble. You refuse to pretend, and it’s just so upsetting.
Ophelia: Spot on. A good way to look at NOMA.
Anon:
No, it’s you that’s wrong. Sex-specific toilets and change rooms are there by popular demand. If you like, try it out. Go into an opposite-sex puiblic dunny carrying a sign that says ‘sex-segregation is wrong in and of itself’.
See how you go.
Anon is funny. Segregation isn’t wrong for reasons, it’s just wrong. Oh, I see.
Nobody’s brought up segregation in sports yet? Title IX?
I second Simon’s call for a source for your assertion that the MB would enforce gender segregation. I’m not questioning it’s veracity, but in arguments with the “the Muslim Brotherhood is moderate” brigade, it’s useful to be able to quote MB sources.
The MB of course mandates sexual segregation where it can, and would mandate it throughout Egypt if it got the power to do so.
Enforcing segregation requires infringement of individual freedom, spreads ignorance and distrust of the other, and lacks any good argument in its favor. Three reasons not to segregate even without the often de facto superiority/inferiority division.
Given the cited poll of Egyptians at large, it’s not clear that, relatively speaking, the MB isn’t moderate, or at least doesn’t represent the attitudes of a large portion of the Egyptian population. The problem isn’t really the MB, but the biases of Egyptian society in general, and it isn’t clear that even if the MB are kept out of Egyptian politics, a truly democratic Egypt wouldn’t endorse such segregation. It’s depressing, but I’m not sure that there are any easy, short-term solutions for such entrenched misogyny.
Ever wondered why there’s no analogue of the Anti-Apartheid Campaign fighting regimes like that of Saudi Arabia? Seems like a reasonable question. I presume the answer would include the word ‘oil’ though.
All this just highlights that democracy by itself is of a very little value. It enables unpopular governments to be thrown out peacefully, which is useful, but it’s no guarantee of a society based on freedom, reason, sexual equality, and liberal ideas in general.
“NOMA makes religion and science separate. It segregates the two from each other; that’s the point. If they were genuinely compatible, compatible substantively, they wouldn’t have to be separate. Overlapping would be fine. NOMA then goes on to do a lot of silly flattering of religion, but the real point is the separation.”
You can make a very good and clear NOMA-style argument for English and Mathematics. They clearly have non-overlapping magesteria. They study completely different things. You are not going to get a mathematical examination of a novel that will be of much if any worth to English studies, and an English examination of a mathematical treatise is unlikely to give anything that would seem like insight to mathematicians. Thus, by your definition, they are not compatible, and not compatible substantively. Thus, they separate and segregate, and thus that is bad. Why is that bad?
There’s no reason at all why we have to have separate male and female toilets other than because of social pressures. Very few Westerners have separate toilets in their houses. The privacy of users is protected by a lockable door in most toilets. And the segregation *does* lead to privileging, as anyone who has seen the relative length of queues to get into female toilets compared to male toilets at popular events will attest.
I second Miles (#12). As long as women and men don’t associate together in all aspects of human life suspicion and ignorance will continue. We’ll never learn to regard each other as anything more than objects or (at the most) strangers. In fact, we’ll never grow up.
Oh please.
I agree Russell. We tend to use the word “democracy” as short-hand, that includes generally liberal values. But of course the kind of society you get through the will of the people may be anything but liberal. I think this point is missed in the euphoria of the overthrow of a dictator. I hope the optimists are right.
Tulse. It’s part of the problem of defining “moderate”. Moderate compared to what?
As for sources, straight from the horse’s mouth: http://www.ikhwanweb.com/article.php?id=4914
While the Muslim Brotherhood would allow women to take up some positions of authority, there are caveats such as…
“We do not call for immodesty and free mixing of the sexes. For the woman is bound by the Shari’a to abide by the Islamic dress code whether she goes out to take part in elections or to attend the sessions of the council in which she is a member or for any other purpose. It is a duty to set aside election centres for women, which are already in effect in most Islamic countries. Women should be allocated special places in the representative councils so that there will be no fear of crowding or intermingling.”
“Travelling abroad by a female member, without company of a mahram, is similarly cited in opposition but it can be countered by realising that it is not necessary for her to travel without the company of a mahram. She need not be in a situation without secure company nor in any situation which is not within the boundaries of the Shari’ah.” A mahram is a relative who cannot be married and with whom sexual intercourse would be fobidden (e.g. father, brother, father-in-law, etc.).
“The only public office which it is agreed upon that a woman cannot occupy is the presidency or head of state.”
But that doesn’t guarantee that women will be allowed to hold other positions. “As for judiciary office, the jurisprudents have differed over women’s holding of it. Some, like Al-Tabari and Ibn-Hazm, said this is permissible without any restrictions. The majority of jurispudents, however, have forbidden it completely. But there have been those who allowed it for certain types of legal matters and forbade it in others (like the Imam Abu Hanifa). As long as the matter is the subject of interpretation and consideration, it is possible to choose from these opinions in accordance with the fundamentals of the Shari’a and to achieve the interests of Muslims at large as governed by the Shari’a controls and also in accordance to the conditions and circumstances of society.” In other words, the Muslim Brotherhood is not against women judges per se, but they see no problem with allowing local prejudices to keep women out of judicial positions.
And as a neat little coda: “We completely reject the way that western society has almost completely stripped women of their morality and chastity. These ideals are built upon a philosophy which is in contradiction to the Shari’ah and its morals and values.” So there you have it. Women wanting Western-style liberties are “in contradiction” to the morals espoused by the Muslim Brotherhood.
And yes, by the standards of other Islamist parties, this does make them moderate.
One more thing about sources: while it’s OK to ask someone for sources, especially if the source seems dubious, but does nobody ever think to check things out for themselves? It really doesn’t take long to find the MB’s policies on women using Google.
On democracy: I’ve always liked the saying “Democracy must be more than two wolves and a sheep deciding what to have for dinner.” Democracy is a process, and like all processes it can be abused and twisted. The essential thing is to make sure the wolves are not allowed to seize control, and that requires social and cultural effort as much as political effort.
Verbose Stoic @ #16:
Mathematics and English (or substitute any other language) are not NOMA, because they do overlap, in a number of ways.
A great deal of mathematics is written in a combination of English sentences, and mathematical expressions and equations. Mathematics is a language in its own right, and all expressions and equations are translatable into (considerably longer) English or other language statements. ‘2 x2 = 4’ means ‘two lots of two totals four’. Siimilarly physics overlaps with biology and other scientific disciplines.
Lewis Carroll wrote a mathematical novel called ‘Alice in Wonderland.’
It ain’t; because they don’t.
But religion has nothing to offer science, and science is introduced into religious discourse for effect, not enlightenment. Witness BioLogos.
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I was in a tour group once at the new reconstructed Globe theatre in London. We were standing in the pit when a lady observed that there did not seem to be any toilets in the building. The tour guide said that was right. She asked then how Shakespearean audience members were supposed to relieve themselves when they needed to. His reply was “on the spot”.
None the less, as far as I am aware humans and many other animal species seek privacy for their eliminatory activities. That is, if they can find it.
Islam takes sex segregation to an extreme. For example male and female ski slopes at the Iranian ski resorts.
From a psychological point of view, the compartmentalization of religion may be explained by the Freudian/Transactional Analysis model child/adult/parent. The religious part would be the super-ego or parent and the rational part would be the ego or adult.
The goal of TA was to develop the adult and prevent contamination of the parent or child. So the idea of segregation is also going on inside the psyche. Also the idea of domination, where the adult or rational part dominates the subconscious child/parent, is important for both the self and society.
There is also the more egalitarian attitude, where child/adult/parent coexist in harmony in the psyche, which meant developing the good parent and the good child along with the good adult.
And this can explain why religion is so destructive. Because it is the criticizing bad parent, effectively contaminating the function of the adult. It is the adult or rational part of the brain that does the criticizing and the evaluating.
The only way to rid this contamination of the parent, is through a bit of therapy and social change. The TV series Supernanny, for example, shows how ‘bad parenting’ can produce ‘bad behaviour’ in children which requires that parents modify their bad parenting skills inherited from their parents, for more rational alternatives that work.
Religion and irrational beliefs are bad parenting. It is the super-ego or parent part of the brain copying the bad parenting from the previous parents criticizing or establishing taboos onto others, and contaminating the normal function of the rational part of the brain and also inhibiting the more nurturing ‘good’ parent.
This is why ‘authority’ figures are so influential on people, especially if those authorities are male patriarchs who criticize and establish irrational taboos. No surprise those same patriarchs criticize and establish taboos on women, and the good nurturing parent.
Simon and Carmichael, I wouldn’t have thought it necessary to cite authority for the misogynistic authoritarianism of the MB, but if you want something to read, try this: http://www.aawsat.com/english/news.asp?section=2&id=2941. In MB language, a woman without the hijab is naked. Nuff said. If you really think it needs further support, read some Hassan al-Banna — or read about him. Paul Berman’s Flight of the Intellectuals has considerable detail on al Banna’s programme, which includes, for example, the “art of death”.
Sorry Chris (Lawson). I missed your comments of the first read through. As you say, there’s not much reason for asking for evidence regarding the MB’s attitude towards women.
By the way, there seems to be a widespread misapprehension that democracy, per se, is a good thing, as though just by voting we had assured ourselves of a reasonable form of governance. This is nonsense. It is quite possible, as Nazi Germany shows, to elect authoritarian governments. Liberal democracy is not rule by majorities. It is premised on the rule of law in which all are supposed equal before the law. Liberal democracies are thus constitutional democracies — whether written constitutions, as in the US, or, less dependable, unwritten and traditional, as in the UK — in which all are protected by law. The likelihood of the “revolution” in Egypt leading to some form of liberal democracy is very small. There simply is no legal tradition which would bring it about. Even were the MB not involved, there is simply no basis upon which a liberal democracy in Egypt could be based. And until Islam goes through an enlightenment period during which it takes a backseat to constitutional change, the basis will never be there. People in the Arab world may want freedom, but they won’t get it, I suspect, until Islam becomes optional, and that’s not going to happen soon, because jihad is still at the heart of Islam, and restoration of faithfulness will always take a violent course.
I found TA a very attractive idea once upon a time: it’s a good story, but like so many of these psychoanalytical ideas, it’s a story. I prefer to stick with the idea that Shari’a is just a way of bullying people, and in particular of men bullying women. A way of reinforcing an age-old set of prejudices founded on uncomprehending animal lust and fear of the incomprehensible. No doubt it too seemed like a good story once upon a time, before we began to use our minds and learn about things. Religion is at war with the human mind, isn’t it? Or it’s the mind at war with itself. Or it’s fear at war with actually looking at things. Is there a bogy under the bed? How do we find out? Or are we too scared to look? Will the sky fall down if it isn’t there after all? Will lust and depravity rule us all if women and men work together? Will we men become weak and pitiful creatures if we actually started listening to women, talking with them, sharing with them? Are men so depraved that women must fence themselves off for their own protection? Problems, problems.
Thirty years ago, I spent a few weeks visiting and advising -with several colleagues- the medical schools in Saudi Arabia. Fascinating experience! The faculty over there were, in large measure, western-trained, capable, and frustrated. Even then, the classes were at least 50% female. The Saudis freely admitted that the best students were the women, -the men, they said, had a su’uk mentality- and it was difficult to provide the women with sufficient attention. All classes had to be given twice, once to each sex; this included all labs. Special lectures were given in a huge hall, rigidly divided down the middle, and questions from the women were answered last, if at all. Many of the staff admitted (in private) the flaming stupidity of all this, but there was nothing they could do. And trying to get their female grads proper ongoing training was almost impossible, unless the woman could cart a husband, brother, or other male relative along with her. Common sense and expediency totally overridden by dogma!
@Eric comment 26,
This is exactly true. Liberalism and bill of rights are more or less the same thing. Perhaps the protests (protestantism) in Europe was a necessary precursor for destabilizing the corruption of the monarchy and catholic church at the time, leading to reforms. Civilizations seem to establish their hierarchy, which leads to corruption and inequality, and then to uprisings and reforms. As Polybius wrote in his The Histories:
Thanks for this link, Egbert. I found, by the way, that the asterisk in the url gets lost if one just clicks on the link.
Thanks for the links.
To be honest, I’m kind of put off by many of the comments here. For one thing, there is no indication as of yet that the Muslim Brotherhood will gain undue influence in the new Egyptian government (nor of course that they would be in a leadership position). By most credible accounts, this seems to have been a mass peaceful revolution led by young people, trade unions, and professionals with primarily secular demands like rule of law, social justice, free and fair elections, constitutional reform, etc. Widespread participation of Coptic Christians is I’m also sure something that most commentators here would welcome.
Yes, we want to ensure that what follows Mubarak is not a step backwards, but lets at least recognize the uprising for what it is and give credit to where it is due. Likewise, lets not also gloss over the brutal nature of the Mubarak dictatorship and our own US/EU government support. Let us not also forget that the toppling of Mubarak happened peacefully and non-violently. By contrast, the US government resorted to propaganda, ground troops, and merciless bombing to topple Saddam Hussein-with the country still not recovered. We can call ourselves “enlightened” all we like, but actions sometimes speak louder than words.
I do often worry that we westerners so take our freedoms for granted that we are careless about undermining them with our silly notions of multiculturalism and moral relativism. How is it possible for us to continually remind ourselves just what it has cost to gain the freedom to think for ourselves and send our children to school? It’s never just ancient history. If the battle isn’t ongoing, we’ve lost.
Simon, I still don’t get the point you want to make. You want us to cheer on all the young people making revolution. Fine, I can do that. But revolutions, while they may express popular sentiment, don’t necessarily take into consideration the relations of power that will emerge once the revolutions are over. The French Revolution should be evidence enough for that. And what comes out of Egypts revolution may bear no relationship whatever to the hopeful democrats that protested in Tahrir Square. These are two different realities, and may well produce two entirely different outcomes. But why should comments such as that give you so much discomfort?
The stork still delivers there? Because here in America, it’s takes contact… Or a syringe…
Simon, I think you’re over-reacting just a bit. I’m certainly not saying the Egyptian revolution was a bad thing. I am saying the MB is a bad thing. I was motivated to say that partly by an interview I heard a few days ago with a journalist who is all excited about the “youth wing” of the MB.
I think he’s crazy. He did admit, when pressed, that yes the MB does believe in sexual segregation and that its area in Tahrir Square enforced exactly that, and that its ultimate goal is sharia for everyone. But he didn’t seem to think any of that made any difference.
I think the MB is a danger, that’s all. I’m not saying I know it will take over. I’m hoping it won’t. But I think people shouldn’t think it’s benevolent and manageable and ok. That’s what happened in Iran, and it didn’t come out well.
Thanks for clarifying Olivia. Be that as it may, I’ve yet to see any indication of the MB taking over as even a likely scenario. This is a good thing of course.
Re: comparisons with Iran in 1979, here’s a post by Juan Cole on why Egypt in 2011 is less likely to go that route: http://www.juancole.com/2011/02/why-egypt-2011-is-not-iran-1979.html
After thinking this analogy over, I think there may be two different senses of “compatible” at work in both cases — the separate domain of religion, and the separate domain of women. One sense of ‘compatible’ is used to smooth over a discrepancy and claim that, because they are different things they need to be treated a different way. They must not be placed under the same rules. This is how we fit them together — by keeping them in their proper place. No competition.
The other sense of ‘compatibility’ is to insist that the different things are not different enough to be treated in different ways. They should be placed under the same rules — and allowed to compete.
Sharia is law which supposedly protects women, who have a different essential nature from men. NOMA is a rule of thumb which supposedly protects religion, which has a different essential nature from science. In truth, though, the divisions are arbitrary, and based on a desire to protect the sacred. Neither women nor religion is a special, delicate flower in need of special treatment: in the one case you have a standard human being; in the other case you have truth claims being made based on evidence.
This is where the similarity seems to break down, though. In a fair fight, women can compete just fine with men and the situation is even: in a fair fight, however, religion will get its ass kicked by science. Nothing even about it. Perhaps this is why the people who support sharia generally do NOT support NOMA, and the people who support NOMA generally do not support sharia. “Protecting women” actually takes power away from women: protecting religion gives religion more power than it deserves.
Hm. I don’t know. It’s an interesting analogy. I’ll have to think about it some more, though.
I’m sure the analogy is full of holes. Basically I just took off from the thought that when people are talking up segregation as a good thing, smell a rat.
Both religion and science need to be protected from each other, but for opposing reasons.
Gordon Willis – Ophelia wrote “segregation of any kind” – which to me means segrergation of any kind – that’s why I asked. ‘Twas a serious, though unanswered question.
Re the MB in Egypt, Razib Khan at Gene Expression has a neat <a href=”http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/gnxp/2011/02/culture-differences-matter-even-within-islam/#more-9937″>map of Muslim attitudes</a> in different countries – data from the Pew surveys. Food for thought re Egypt.
“The overall point I’m trying to make here is that it is very misleading for commentators to make an analogy between Turkish Islamists and the Muslim Brotherhood. The two may both be Islamists, but that is just a term, whose utility and connotations are strongly locally contingent. Barack Obama and Pat Robertson are both Christians, but that means very different things. Additionally, I would suggest that to be secular in Egypt may correlate with greater illiberalism toward deviance from the putative religious orthodoxy than to be an Islamist in Turkey!”
Laban Tall :
You may have a point but using separate toilet facilities for men and women to illustrate it was strange, that isn’t segregation or anything like it. A better example might have been the separating of boys and girls at school, this has been supported by feminists on the grounds that it helps girls to achieve, which it may but it doesn’t look that different to me from some of the arguments used by Muslims to justify segregation of the sexes. One of the reasons perhaps why some feminists seem to have gone soft on Islamic abuse of women.
Well, Laban, I took “segregation of any kind” in context, I believe. I understood Ophelia to be talking of egalitarianism, and that to insist on segregation according to relevant distinctions (e.g. race, sex, age, politics, belief) is inimical to equality. As to merely practical arrangements like toilets etc., I dare say that free and equal people, when they exist, will be well qualified to sort out their personal requirements to their own satisfaction. Our immediate problem is that social equality doesn’t exist. Toilets can be sorted out later.
Chris Lawson, #17 ?
I’m sorry, but I don’t believe Laban when it says it was serious. That was a stupid-obviously stupid-question, and it suggests an ulterior motive (provocation, trolling, take your pick). It doesn’t deserve the good faith responses it’s getting.
Hi Eric,
I agree with you completely except for one thing: Hitler is not a great example of a democracy electing a tyrant. Hitler never won the vote in Germany. He won enough seats, combined with his inflammatory rhetoric and army of street thugs, to bully the government into appointing him Chancellor, and then used that to leverage himself into absolute authority.
It would be like the BNP winning 20% of the seats in Parliament and threatening violence all around (and supplying it!) unless they get the Attorney General’s Office and once receiving that office, using it to prosecute political enemies until they had a majority in the house (and a cowering opposition).
This isn’t a blind defence of democracy — Hitler still had to get a lot of votes to achieve the power necessary to bully his way further up the chain. But the best result the Nazis ever achieved in a free election was 18% of the vote (this was still enough to make them the second largest party, though).
Josh, I prefer to assume that people are in good faith, at least until I know better. On the other hand, this is I think the second time that I have felt that my tone of gentle irony is wasted. Or perhaps just a failure (sob). Maybe it’s a culture thing (sniff).
Fair enough, Gordon, of course. But I just can’t credit someone who so obviously doesn’t want to converse in good faith. Your mileage may vary.
Of course it’s just a term, but that doesn’t make it meaningless. It has a very specific meaning.
But Christian isn’t the same thing as Christianist. Islamist does not mean Muslim, it means Muslim who wants Islamic theocracy.
Basic stuff.
Thank you for the “of course”, Josh. I really value it. As for Laban Tall, let him (her) speak for him (her) self, if they choose…?
(Sorry about grammar: don’t like “it”, even for suspected trolls).
Yes, Simon, it may well be that the MB will not take over. The deeper point is that even a scheme with democratic elections, and without anything like the MB taking over, will not necessarily produce good government, individual freedoms, etc. Democratic elections by themselves only take you so far. Without widespread commitment within the electorate to liberal ideas, they don’t actually take you very far at all. Even in the Western nations, there’s still a very long way to go … and you only have to wind back the clock 50 years to see incredibly illiberal legal regimes in Western democracies, leading to the 1960s social revolution, which we’re still trying to work through, and which is still meeting with a lot of political resistance (much of it successful).
I’m hoping that the overthrow of Mubarak will prove to be a good thing on balance. I’m moderately confident that it will be. But I’m totally confident that Egyptian society won’t resemble, say, French society any time soon. The only question is whether it will make much progress in that direction at all in the absence of anything like the same traditions.
Russell makes some good points. I don’t dispute the concept that democratic institutions/rule of law are not interchangeable with the advancement of liberal social values. These are two separate trajectories which often reinforce each other and other times progress/regress independently.
On both counts, it could go either way for each trajectory in Egypt at this point. I understand the argument that democratic institutions and civil society in Egypt have been suppressed for a long time, thereby creating a bit of a “rookie effect” in these affairs. This possibility exists. However what might also occur is that living under a corrupt dictatorship for so long might cause the populace to be even more vigilant in creating and safeguarding a better society-in a similar way that say overt fascism and war caused Europeans to be much more aware of nationalist rhetoric than previously (and indeed their American counterparts in my humble view). I don’t want to draw the parallel too much because obviously the European move away from fascism was a complicating and painful business that affected many countries, however I just want to point out that one has to start somewhere with these things.
Yes, it could. Don’t get me wrong – I have immense hopes for Egypt. It would be just incredible to have a modernizing open liberal secular democracy in Egypt. I hope it happens. I just don’t want US journalists to pretend the MB is more benign than it is.
Yes, I could have looked up the source myself myself. Just hoped to save a bit of time if it had already been done. A bit lazy I guess.
Simon. I don’t think there has ever been a time when democratic institutions have not been suppressed in Egypt. I wonder how much Islam is to blame for the existence of autocratic regimes in Arab countries. Allah is a dictator who sets the rules and demands allegiance on pain of eternal torture. If it’s good enough for the ruler of the universe, why not the ruler of the nation? I know that Christianity is similar in this regard. Jesus is “our Lord” after all. But Christians have the option of not believing that the bible is the word of God. This is a much rarer and more difficult option for Muslims.
I’m not saying that Arab democracy is impossible, just that Islam may make democracy itself, as well as liberal values, more difficult to achieve.
Sorry, I forgot to thank Chris and Eric for the links. Thanks.
Razib’s point is that there’s an awful distance between a Turkish Islamist and an Egyptian (or Pakistani) one, if people are answering the polls honestly. Look at that graph again (sorry the link didn’t work but the URL is there)
I wonder if what seems to be a fiercer Islamic identity in Egypt compared to Turkey is due to the long-standing oppressive regime there. If the mosque is the only strong non-Governmental presence, it’ll tend to become the focus for opposition. Catholicism was stronger in Poland when it was the focus of opposition to Soviet Communism.
Carmichael: I’m not ready to make that assessment as I think there are solid indications to the contrary. I think that if we want to understand the existence of autocratic regimes in the Arab/Muslim world, we ought to start with educating ourselves on how these regimes came to be and how they maintain support.
I spent two weeks recently in Turkey and learned a lot about the religious and secular divide. One thing to take into consideration is that Turkey as a state was formed out of the collapse of an empire. In one important sense there was no direct path from religious (or religious approved) rule by the Sultan to a secular democracy. The very real threat of religious rule was countered by the promotion of pro-Turkey nationalism that remains very strong to this day. The inevitable stretch for power by the clerics was dealt with as a political threat to Ataturk’s nationalistic goal. Perhaps Egypt, with its history (both ancient and more recently with Nasser) can inspire the sort nationalism that is a challenge to the clerics.
Democracy is politically neutral. Free from the coercion of tyrants and their armed thugs, the ‘Arab strret’ will choose whom it pleases.
The reult will not please all. However, I do not think that bin Laden and his ilk will be doing much cheering at the moment. Never mind the world; the Arabs are not exactly heading for a universal caliphate either.
David Cameron brings up the rear in the Middle East revolution:
Ah well. Better late than never.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/david-cameron/8340068/David-Cameron-Britain-responsible-for-Middle-East-instability.html
Ian,
I was talking about the field of study of English, not the language. Since all a language does is express concepts, it would be difficult to say that a concept is incompatible with a language (it may not be easy to express, but the language can always be extended to incorporate it).
Also, for Non-overlapping magesteria my assumption is for two fields to have non-overlapping magesteria it must be the case that they a) study different things and b) study them in different ways. Two fields using the same methodology to study different things are just different branches of the same field (see Science) and two fields that study the same thing overlap and so can meaningfully conflict.
In the case of English and Mathematics, it’s clear that they do not use the same methodology and also do not study the same things. That makes them explicitly NOMA. Thus, any comments Ophelia makes about NOMA and the consequences thereof — like separation — must apply to them as well. And yet, they don’t have that problem.’
Note that if you argue that they aren’t actually NOMA both this analysis and Ophelia’s comments in the OP no longer apply.