Comments on: Stay on Course in Iraq http://www.billmuehlenberg.com/2006/10/27/stay-on-course-in-iraq/ Bill Muehlenberg's commentary on issues of the day... Fri, 10 Sep 2010 15:31:01 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.1 hourly 1 By: Ken Clezy http://www.billmuehlenberg.com/2006/10/27/stay-on-course-in-iraq/comment-page-1/#comment-1332 Ken Clezy Sat, 04 Nov 2006 01:27:59 +0000 http://www.billmuehlenberg.com/2006/10/27/stay-on-course-in-iraq/#comment-1332 The history of the Indian subcontinent is relevant here. Nehru and Jinnah were world class leaders, with remarkably similar backgrounds. They were highly educated, wily politicians, who wished to lead pluralistic societies in which a citizen's religion was not the business of the state. Nehru was able to deliver, admittedly with difficulty, and despite its faults India is a democracy, and has done far better than the sahibs who sailed into the sunset in 1947 could have imagined. Next-door is another story. Pakistan is an autocracy, swinging between rule by grasping oligarchs who go into exile if they aim to die in their beds, and hard-hatted dictators, of which General Musharraf is the fourth. Surely the difference lies in the natures of Hinduism and Islam. Hinduism is plastic and inclusivist (except for the BJP fringe) whereas Islam - especially folk Islam, where airy academic discussion of Islam's version of separation of church and state is double-distilled nonsense - is hard and exclusivist. I have argued elsewhere that democracy is the communal outworking of freedom in the heart, as revealed in the gospel, and will transplant to the right soil even if cut off from its roots. Nehru got the idea in Britain, and was able to tranplant it to an inclusive culture. Jinnah had the same aim, but failed because Muslims see themselves as slaves of God, not as his liberated sons and daughters. Where personal freedom before God is an alien concept, communal freedom cannot be expected to develop. St Paul saw that freedom in Christ could be understood so perversely and selectively that liberty becomes licence, as it has done so widely in the West, but the unforgiving legalism of Islam takes care of that in the Muslim world. With Turkey and Bangladesh the only Muslim countries with any claim at all to democracy, why do we suppose that Iraq will be the next? Age-old scores based on the Sunni/Shia divide and tribal honour must be settled before Iraq can move on. With vengeance being such a powerful driver of behaviour, there is no visible endpoint to such conflict. We will find that we can't wait that long, and already the spin out of Washington seems to be preparing us for another Vietnam-style exit - declare victory and scarper. Ken Clezy The history of the Indian subcontinent is relevant here. Nehru and Jinnah were world class leaders, with remarkably similar backgrounds. They were highly educated, wily politicians, who wished to lead pluralistic societies in which a citizen’s religion was not the business of the state.

Nehru was able to deliver, admittedly with difficulty, and despite its faults India is a democracy, and has done far better than the sahibs who sailed into the sunset in 1947 could have imagined.

Next-door is another story. Pakistan is an autocracy, swinging between rule by grasping oligarchs who go into exile if they aim to die in their beds, and hard-hatted dictators, of which General Musharraf is the fourth.

Surely the difference lies in the natures of Hinduism and Islam. Hinduism is plastic and inclusivist (except for the BJP fringe) whereas Islam – especially folk Islam, where airy academic discussion of Islam’s version of separation of church and state is double-distilled nonsense – is hard and exclusivist.

I have argued elsewhere that democracy is the communal outworking of freedom in the heart, as revealed in the gospel, and will transplant to the right soil even if cut off from its roots. Nehru got the idea in
Britain, and was able to tranplant it to an inclusive culture.

Jinnah had the same aim, but failed because Muslims see themselves as slaves of God, not as his
liberated sons and daughters. Where personal freedom before God is an alien concept, communal freedom cannot be expected to develop.

St Paul saw that freedom in Christ could be understood so perversely and selectively that liberty becomes licence, as it has done so widely in the West, but the unforgiving legalism of Islam takes care of that in the Muslim world.

With Turkey and Bangladesh the only Muslim countries with any claim at all to democracy, why do we suppose that Iraq will be the next? Age-old scores based on the Sunni/Shia divide and tribal honour must be settled before Iraq can move on. With vengeance being such a powerful driver of behaviour, there is no visible endpoint to such conflict.

We will find that we can’t wait that long, and already the spin out of Washington seems to be preparing us for another Vietnam-style exit – declare victory and scarper.

Ken Clezy

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