Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
>I think the broad support for it in this country was based on the
>fact that the Taliban was providing a home for Al Qaeda.  Sajjad,
>would you mind explaining why you think it was unjustified?  

Yes primarily on the basis that UBL claimed to be behind 9-11, not the
Afghan government at the time. If we are going to argue that a nation
that shelters him, constitutes a rational target for war, then we are
opening up a can of worms. The US gave sanctuary to people like the
Shah of Iran, Marcos of the Philippines who hardly put the sacredness
of life as top of their agenda during their rule. There are also many
in the U.K. who protested vigorously when the U.S. government and body
politic gave not just sanctuary but finance to IRA sympathisers, at the
same time that the IRA was bombing cities in the U.K.

The other point is there wasn't a sufficient debate in the U.S. about
the blowback effect of a less than sanguine 40 year foreign policy
after 9-11. Invading countries for the U.S. will always be easy, but as
we know historically, military strength without legitimacy is always
doomed to failure. 
  

    
>However, much of this conversation here seems to be about
>what an ideal Islamic state would be like, should one ever come to
>pass.Is this what the magazine is about as well? Do you think it's
>important for non-Muslims to know about such things?  Why should we
>be interested?  It seems far removed from practical politics.

We have obviously been trying to answer questions as we go along. I
think the magazine is more than just an articulation of what an ideal
Islamic state should be. It is a more geared towards giving a forum
where robust Islamic political thinking can be articulated and at times
debated against alternate views. 

However I do think it is important for Non Muslims to understand and
know about these things. Firstly 25% of the people on this planet
profess to be Muslims. Secondly the population is getting bigger.
Thirdly Muslims are concentrated in strategic parts of the world.
Fourthly Muslims claim to have an alternative societal viewpoint which
is supranational. Lastly when the Caliphate does emerge, which I think
it will, it is important to understand the philosophy and values that
underpins it, not just accept the usual stereotypes. In the same way
that it is important for people to understand going forward other major
powers such as China and India.
  

    
> <farooq> Islam does not make false promises such as freedom of
>speech which is an illusion, a lie. 

>It's just a way of summing up his position cogently. Farooq's Islam
>apparently is opposed to freedom of thought, speech, and inquiry.
>All the important answers are Already Revealed. Exactly
>Christianity's position in the Middle Ages. Farooq, Western
>Civilization suffered from this before and recovered. When will
>Eastern civilization emerge from darkness?


Faroo's point is obviously attracted a lot of response. So I'd like to
make a number of short points.

1 I'm not sure absolute freedom of speech exists anywhere. Whether
they are restricted by national security, by taste, bans on incitement
or the need for libel laws. After 9-11 the plethora of anti-terrorism
legislation clearly puts national security ahead of fundamental
freedoms. 

2 If we accept (1),then we accept the need for limits. If we don't
then we accept that speech never has harmful consequences, a separate
debate and one I don't mind entering.

3 Each society Islamic or Western in theory will decide these limits
depending on its historical experience and its fundamental values.

4 For example as far as I know, we do not show pictures of dead Iraqis
or U.S./U.K. soldiers on television. My own view is that this denies a
mass population of being educated about the horrors of war, however I
can understand the argument that the families and others will be
traumatised by such pictures. However it clearly is a suppression of
expression. If we showed these pictures as Gerry rightly puts it, the
sky woudn't necessarily fall in. Yet there is no public debate on
calling for such pictures to be shown.

5 Rather then have a false debate on the point of absolute freedom of
speech vs the total suppression of speech. We should actually have a
more sensible one which tries to establish what are our key societal
objectives. Accountable government is certainly one,the need to be able
to question is another but what about the right to life, reputation,
property, societal harmony and national security, where do these fit
in. All these need to be factored into such a discussion as many of
these objectives inevitably clash with one another. My freedom for
example of keeping my earned money needs to be balanced with the need
for the State to protect us or redistribute to someone who is poor.
This is the rationale for compulsory taxation. 

7 Unless you are an anarchist, the need for laws will always curtail
freedom. As Martin Luther King said 'Judicial decrees may not change
the heart, but they can restrain the heartless'
  

    
>Clearly wrong on its face.  There is nothing rational about
>"revelation."

A couple of points

1 My belief in God is not based on blind faith or what's in the Quran.
My belief in an external creator is based on my observation of the
reality around us, the principles of cause and effect and my lack of
confidence that despite probabilities of millions to one the first
living cell originated from some kind of cosmic soup. This is not to
say that people will not disagree on such matters, but the need for
Muslims to have a rational based belief is a must. Blind faith is no
basis for fundamental beliefs

2 Re my belief in the Quran being divine in origin, contrary to
popular belief this is not because the Quran says it is from God. The
belief come from a rational review of who could have sourced the Quran,
its contents, its linguistic prose and the Prophet's life. Only after
such a detailed review can someone conclude authorship in my mind.

3 Therefore claiming a rational basis for one's beliefs as opposed to
having a rational rule for every Islamic text is consistent in my mind.
The latter does not nullify the former.
  

    
<There are also many in the U.K. who protested vigorously when the
U.S. government and body politic gave not just sanctuary but finance to
IRA sympathisers, at the same time that the IRA was bombing cities in
the U.K.>

Uh, do you have a cite for that or any factual basis for that
assertion?
  

    
>Your fear about the consequences of free and open debate is a de
facto admission that your ideas are weaker than those of others<

With regards to the missionary invasion of the Muslim world it had
poilitical goals - backing by foreign powers to undermine the state and
create divisions within it. This is not debate it is political
subterfuge. Engaging in debate is one thing creating political turmoil
is quite another.
  

    
>Knowledge and beliefs are two separate things.

Yes, but I wish you had read my post more carefully and paid attention
to the word, "rarely." And your reply ignores the real point that if
you elevate the text of the Quran to a supreme position, you inevitably
create an elite class that interprets it and implements it, and thus
defeat any notion that the proposed Caliphate can create some sort of
truely classless society.
  

    
>How is freedom of speech an illusion?  It's happening all around you<

Its true that there is a greater freedom of speech in the west but
that is expected because this is what the west believes in. Therefore
we expect freedom of speech because it is a tenet of the secular way of
life, which is why we judge your system according to your own thoughts
and ideals. And not just according to our own thoughts and ideals. So
if you believe in freedom of speech and implement freedom of speech
then that should happen because that's what you believe in. If you
don't implement freedom of speech then your ideal is false, your whole
way of life is undermined and means nothing. You claim freedom of
speech we don't. We claim debate and discussion - intellectual inquiry.

Freedom of speech is spoken about but has a limited reality to it.
Communists in America were persecuted for what they believed as were
anti-segregationists. So the claim of freedom of speech is false and it
is a judgement according to your own principles. A judgement from the
Islamic viewpoint would be that freedom of speech is irrational,
impractical and contradicts Islamic law. Islam is against pornograhy so
don't judge an Islamic society solely on the basis of freedom of
speech rather judge whether we have implemented a ban against
pornography. If we haven't then you can say that the Islamic system is
full of contradictions just as I say the secular system is full of
contradictions. On the one hand the west speaks of freedom, justice and
human rights, and then imprisons people in Guantanomo bay without fair
trial or basic human rights. These contradictions are repeated time
and again.

If you want to make a judgement about the validity of a ban on
pornography then lets debate it. Lets debate whether freedom of speech
is a correct thought or not or whether Islam is a correct thought.

Therefore you should judge Islam according to Islam and not just
according to your viewpoint on life. It is irrational for one to say I 
believe in freedom of speech but you don't, and therefore I'm not
going to give you freedom of speech. Its like a Muslim saying you don't
believe that oil should be public property and therefore your not
going to get any benefit from it. The Islamic system was successful
because it looked after people regardless of whether they believed in
Islam or not, which is why people embraced Islam in there millions.
Whereas when the west occupy our lands we reject your way of life we
have experienced the fruits of your ideals, just ask the people in Abu
Ghraib. 

Islam did not say to the people we are not going to give you Islamic
justice because you don't believe in it. That would be a non-sensical
argument and proof that the ideology is unfit to lead people. 
  

    
>The same folks who brought us
"the" Enlightenment were chalk full of folks who believed openly, if
not evangelically, in a host of bigotries, superstitions<

I agree with your general points. My point was simply that once
scientific and rational thought took hold people began to question the
validity of Christianity which led to questioning the authority of the
Church. There were of course other dynamics at play with political
power struggles between Kings and pope, theological divisions, the
emergence of protestanism and wars with Catholics. 
  

    
> The other point is there wasn't a sufficient debate in the U.S. about
> the blowback effect of a less than sanguine 40 year foreign policy
> after 9-11.

Good point, but in a speech in November, 2003, Pres. G. W. Bush said,
"Fifty years of American foreign policy were wrong. We were wrong to
prop up dictatorships in the Middle East in our own interests. Now
we're paying the price for that."
  

    
Something else that occurs to me is that you guys are comparing the
Quran and Quranic law to the constitution as a means of organizing a
society. But the comparison doesn't work. A constitution outlines a
means of making and enforcing laws, it doesn't dictate what the laws
should be. So, for example, under a constitution a society could
prohibit or allow alcohol use. The constitution doesn't specify what
the law should be. The Caliphate, if I understand correctly, would
determine what specific laws should be based on Quranic texts. It makes
for a very different dynamic and one, again, that creates a privileged
class of interpreters and leads to the problems inherent in the
concentration of power, something a democratic constitution is much
better at dealing with.
  

    
<176>:
> If we are going to argue that a nation that shelters him,
> constitutes a rational target for war, then we are opening
> up a can of worms. The US gave sanctuary to people like the
> Shah of Iran, Marcos of the Philippines who hardly put the
> sacredness of life as top of their agenda during their rule.

Yes, Sajjad, it's sadly true that the USA does have a history of
friendships with brutal dictators, and I am certainly not proud of
that.  On the contrary, I'm ashamed of it.  And I know that many other
Americans feel the same way.

However, I think there's a dinstinction to be made between giving
shelter to a dethroned despot and providing safe haven for a despot to
actively conduct *operations* aimed at death and destruction in another
country.  Would you not agree?

If the Taliban really wanted to remain in power, I would think it
could easily have done so simply by shutting down Al Qaeda's operations
and arresting and handing over it's leadership.  It was given the
opportunity to do so, as I recall.  Don't you think that the Taliban's
refusal to do so was tantamount to a declaration of war against the
USA?

> There are also many in the U.K. who protested vigorously 
> when the U.S. government and body politic gave not just 
> sanctuary but finance to IRA sympathisers, at the
> same time that the IRA was bombing cities in the U.K.

I, too, would appreciate some cite for that, as I believe it's untrue.
 The closest thing that comes to mind along those lines is when
Clinton received Gerry Adams at the White House, and began working with
the different factions, including Sinn Fein, in order to try and
facilitate a peace process.  And that occurred during a time when the
IRA was abiding by its unilateral ceasefire.
  

    
>speech in November, 2003, Pres. G. W. Bush said<

Reference for this?
  

    
http://edition.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/11/10/timep.speech.tm/index.html
refers to the speech without giving the entire text. I quoted from
memory.
  

    
>I, too, would appreciate some cite for that, as I believe it's
>untrue.The closest thing that comes to mind along those lines is >when
Clinton received Gerry Adams at the White House

Having re-read the post I want to make a retraction, I want to make it
clear that there is no public evidence to say that the US govt was
funding IRA sympathisers. However it and the body politic were allowing
organisations like NORAID to collect money which many people believe
in the UK was going directly to the IRA. There was also a perception of
apathy towards extraditing suspected IRA members to the U.K. Please
see reference

 http://www.lewrockwell.com/spectator/spec321.html

Apologies for the incorrect assertion
  

    
>Unless you are an anarchist, the need for laws will always curtail
freedom. As Martin Luther King said 'Judicial decrees may not change
the heart, but they can restrain the heartless'<

Being an anarchist has nothing to do with that.  Anarchists are
opposed to the institution of governMENT (a separated body of people
who just rule or "govern" as their entrenched societal role), not
goverNANCE (the de facto establishment of guidlines, rules, and even
laws for handling the practical tasks of living with each other).


- - - -

>However, I think there's a dinstinction to be made between giving
shelter to a dethroned despot and providing safe haven for a despot to
actively conduct *operations* aimed at death and destruction in
another
country. <

Quite true, but since the U.S. does plenty of both it's a moot point. 
In addition to harboring Marcos of the Phillippines, etc. the U.S. has
been host to far more powerful home-grown champions of mass-scale
lethal violence, i.e. Andrew Jackson, FDR, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush
(again), and so on...no shortage of examples.  If one prefers to cite
specific generals and military officials as more appropriate guilty
parties, then fine, but the same would apply all over the world...just
as Saddam Hussein or Pol Pot didn't personally carry out most (if any)
of the murders of their respective regimes, so too with U.S. "leaders."

I think we should make a concerted effort to try to isolate those
societal features and challenges which would be truly specific to and
contingent upon the operation of a foundation in Islamic law versus
those which are major challenges with or without it.  For example,
concern for the status and de facto rights of non-Muslims is a fair and
specific example of this, but the more general worries over
power-grabs by any fundamentalist and elitist faction is something that
all systems (including secular ones) have to confront as well.

The U.S. constitution, for example, was crafted by a tiny handful of
elite-within-elite individuals who proactively sought to exclude the
vast majority of the populace from influencing policy in any
substantive way...and all this on the backs of mass slavery, genocide,
and dispossession.  People in the U.S. have managed to secure some
democratically minded tweaks to this fundamentally anti-democratic
system *in spite of*, not because of, the Constitution.
  

    
>Yes, but I wish you had read my post more carefully and paid
>attentionto the word, "rarely." And your reply ignores the real >point
that if you elevate the text of the Quran to a supreme >position, you
inevitably create an elite class that interprets it >and implements it,
and thus defeat any notion that the proposed >Caliphate can create
some sort of truely classless society.

But in any society a text or a constitution will be 'elevated'. Does
the presence of the US constitution not create a small number of
constitutional experts or a small number who are competent to legislate
(ala Congress) or judge (the Supreme Court. As I have said the
presence of an Islamic constitution (whose primary sources are the
Quran and the Sunnah) need not necessarily create a narrow elite, it is
open to anyone who fulfills the necessary criteria. The most
disastrous thing that can happen is for a narrow clergy to maintain an
exclusive control. In fact the Caliphate itself will be encouraging the
increase in the numbers who can do this, so as to enhance the presence
of vibrant debate and strengthen the quality of ijtihad.
  

    
>However, I think there's a dinstinction to be made between giving
>shelter to a dethroned despot and providing safe haven for a despot
>to actively conduct *operations* aimed at death and destruction in
>another country.  Would you not agree?

Yes Gerry, I agree there's a distinction but my main point is that the
people of Afghanistan had no influence on UBL and yet they were the
ones invaded and bombed. Secondly the US has supported groups who have
carried out violent attacks abroad e.g. the Contras in Nicaragua. Under
the Afghan principle, should the Nicaraguans have launched a military
attack against he U.S. 
  

    
>Good point, but in a speech in November, 2003, Pres. G. W. Bush
>said,"Fifty years of American foreign policy were wrong. We were
>wrong to prop up dictatorships in the Middle East in our own
>interests. Now we're paying the price for that."

Excellent, I look forward then to the immediate withdrawal of U.S.
support for the Saudi, Egyptian and Uzbekistan regimes something that
doesn't seem to have occurred in the last fifteen months since Bush
gave the speech.

The true test of U.S. values will be whether they tolerate an elected
leader who is anti U.S. or seek to undermine him. At present Karzai and
the Iraqis who are likely to win on Jan 30th do not fit this category.
  

    
Likewise, would a true test of Islamic values be whether and how
Islamic leadership tolerates world leaders who are "anti-Islam"?
  

    
>I quoted from memory

Ah yes that speech, I remember now, he also said about the
dictatorships:

"The Saudi government is taking first steps toward reform, including a
plan for gradual introduction of elections. By giving the Saudi people
a greater role in their own society, the Saudi government can
demonstrate true leadership in the region."  

"The great and proud nation of Egypt has shown the way toward peace in
the Middle East, and now should show the way toward democracy in the
Middle East."

“Sixty years of Western nations excusing and accommodating the lack of
freedom in the Middle East did nothing to make us safe because in the
long run stability cannot be purchased at the expense of liberty"

And then of course Iraq. Yes we have come to know of freedom and
democracy in the Muslim world quite well. 
  

    
Democracy and freedom in action:

Iraq: Torture Continues at Hands of New Government
Police Systematically Abusing Detainees
Iraqi security forces are committing systematic torture and other
abuses against people in detention, Human Rights Watch said in a new
report released today. 
January 25, 2005    

http://hrw.org/doc/?t=mideast&c=iraq
  

    
Let's all take a deep breath.
  

    
Farooq, Sajjad, all thinking American recognize the true nature of the
situation:

        1. American is the mightiest empire in the history of mankind.

        2. Like all previous empires, we are drawn to Middle East
        conquest like a magnet, as were Egypt, Persia, Greece, Rome,
        the Arabs, the Mongols, the Turkic peoples, England, and
        France before us.

        3. Like all previous empires we're finding it's easier
        to conquer the Middle East than to rule it!

My belief is that you two gentlemen actually represent an enlightened
segment of opinion within your community, although you cast it in a
traditional garb.

Spiritually you're the grandchildren of the idealistic Pan-Islamists
and Communists of the 1950's. With any luck, your own grandchildren
will lead the movement to rationalist, humanistic Englightment in the
Islamic world at the time when Reason shall arise and drive Error
before her.

Peace be unto you.
  

    
> Yes Gerry, I agree there's a distinction but my 
> main point is that the people of Afghanistan had
> no influence on UBL and yet they were the ones 
> invaded and bombed.

I acknowledge that point, Sajjad, as it is an important one.  And of
course, it's also true of Iraq, where the people had no influence over
Saddam, yet they were the ones who most suffered.  I think it speaks to
the evil of war in general, as well as to the tragic consequences of
bad governance.

> Secondly the US has supported groups who have carried out
> violent attacks abroad e.g. the Contras in Nicaragua. Under
> the Afghan principle, should the Nicaraguans have launched 
> a military attack against he U.S. 

Well, Sajjad, here you do a fine job of illustrating your earlier
point that it's a can of worms.  Indeed it is.  I realize that there
are different ways to argue the comparison.  

For one thing, it helps bring into focus the problem of emotionally
loaded terminology.  Ronald Reagan was lobbying on behalf of Nicaraguan
"freedom fighters," though from the Sandinistas' point of view, those
individuals might well have been regarded as "terrorists."  

But it's also noteworthy that Reagan failed to obtain the support and
approval he sought for his Nicaraguan agenda, and ended up (whether
knowingly or unknowningly - we'll never know with 100% certainty)
having that agenda advanced *illegally* by Oliver North et al.  Given
that the American people - via their representative democracy - did not
approve of what Reagan wanted to do in Nicaragua, is it fair to speak
of his actions (whether direct or indirect) as an expression of US
policy?

Your rhetorical question also brings into focus the problem of "might
makes right."  Nicaragua might have had moral justification to attack
the US militarily.  But in practical terms, that was never really an
option for Nicaragua.  If Nicaragua's military might had been roughly
on par with that of the US, it's likely that Reagan and/or his henchmen
would have behaved very differently.  

We saw what happened when Iraq invaded Kuwait.  Compare and contrast
that to what happened when the USSR invaded Afghanistan.  The USA did
not declare war on the USSR, nor did it attack or invade the USSR. 
Afghanistan became the chess board of the Superpowers, and the USA, in
its famously rich myopic tradition, threw its support behind Osama Bin
Laden.  The rest is, as they say, history.