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Little Hope of Making Democrats of Iraqis…

October 8th, 2007
By WILLIAM KERN

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Will it be possible to convert Iraq’s religious parties to democracy? This op-ed written by an Iraqi attorney warns of the unlikelihood of such an eventuality.

“No religious party on earth believes in democracy … How could such people believe in democracy, which recognizes the validity of other peoples’ opinions?”

By Salam al-Yasiry, a writer and attorney

Translated By James Jacobson and Nicolas Dagher

October 1, 2007

Iraq - Kitabat - Original Article (Arabic)

No religious party on earth believes in democracy. Whatever connotation of the term one uses, people in religious parties believe that those of their creed are akin to a team, and that they are the best kind of people. How could such people believe in democracy, which recognizes the validity of other peoples’ opinions?

Religious party factions believe that while it would mean crossing a holy red line to discuss their own sect’s outlook and clarity of thought, it’s fine to attack and disparage other religious parties from the same community. They may even condone the abolition of Islamic sects that wander too far from their own message. But we need not deal here with the often irrational quarrels about religious interpretation and historical events.

Before discussing modern Islamic parties in Iraq and their relationship to democracy, we need to clarify something important: that the discussion is unrelated to believing or rejecting Allah. Rather it is a political debate about how Islam should influence the exercise of politics in Iraq, and this is a debate that will probably continue for quite some time.

The question that must be asked now is: What do Iraq’s Islamic parties want? The answer is: the same thing that the Dawa Party , the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council , the Islamic Virtue Party , the Sadrists , Hezbullah , al-Qaeda and the Wahabis want, which is an Islamic government. What differs between Shiites and Sunnis are the legislative, historical and social underpinnings of such a government.

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This entry was posted on Monday, October 8th, 2007 at 5:56 pm and is filed under Bush Administration, Political Philosophy, Mideast, Political Islam, Islamists, Radical Islam, Democracy, Sunnis, Shi'ites, Islam, Muslims, Middle East. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

 
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