Democracy and Secularism

I was very annoyed when I learned that in a recent Al-Jazeera.net poll, 83% of respondents considered Secularist extremism a bigger danger to democracy than Islamic extremism.

I am not very surprised by the results, because as I watched the AL-Jazeera TV show in which the poll was discussed, I discovered that there is a lot of confusion regarding what Secularism is really about. The confusion was apparent throughout the discussion by both guests, one of which was a "secularist thinker" based in the middle east and the other was a "Muslim fundamentalist" based in London.

The confusion largely arose from mixing the concept of Atheism with Secularism. Because of this mix-up of concepts, the Muslim fundamentalist kept accusing the other guy of being an apostate and kept "giving" him chances to repent and go back to Islam.

While many atheists are Secularist, there are many instances were Secularism does not mean Atheism; "believers can be, indeed have often been, enthusiastic supporters of secularism as a political principle, while remaining firm religious believers."

Let me give one small example, very close here at home, my mother who prays 5 times a day, 7 days a week, 365 days per year does not support anything resembling the Saudi regime and it's version of an Islamic state. She thinks, that it is the wrong version of Isalm and prefers the milder and more secular version we have here in Jordan. This view is not limited to my mother, and is shared by many people who consider themselves religious, while at the same time not supporting a Saudi style Islamic state.

As for my interpretation of the poll results, I think the respondents' idea of "secularist extremism" is based on what they currently have for governments, i.e. mainly "Secular" Dictatorships. And considering the fact that most of the respondents are not happy with the existing Arab regimes, it makes a lot of sense that they would prefer the alternative, which in this case is "Islamic extremism."

An Islamic Dictatorship is as bad as a secular one. The main problem here is not in Secularism. The fact that Dictatorships in the Arab world happen to be Secular is only incidentals. How do we know this? We know this because the "real" democracies in the world are more secular leaning. So we can conclude that the problem is mostly with dictatorship and not with "Secularism;" Secularism is not an enemy of Democracy.

I know it gets good viewership ratings when Al-Jazeera has a show with the title "Isalmic extremism vs. Secular extremism, which one is hurting democracy?" but things are not as simple as that, it is not an either/or kind of thing. One shoe does not fit all; individual Arab states, might have some success with various degrees of hybridization. Having semi-secular and Semi-Islamic implementations.

Western Conspiracy

Every week, my mom annoys me by watching Mohammed Hassanein Haykal on Al-Jazeera. After the show is done, she goes on about the American/ Zionist/ Western conspiracies to keep Arabs in the slums of history, about the documents he provided, the secret meetings he sited, etc.

Now, what gets me annoyed is not the fact that it's not true, it probably is. But I really do not see how this really changes anything. In my view this whole conspiracy thing is similar to hygiene factor in the management theory of motivation.

Let me explain briefly what a hygiene factor is. In motivation theory, there are motivators, and there are hygiene factors. Motivators are things that give positive satisfaction to the individual (for example recognition increases motivation.) Hygiene factors are things "which do not motivate if present, but if absent will result in de-motivation" For example, a lack of good salary usually results in a lack of motivation, but having a good salary will not guarantee motivation.

Now back to the conspiracy, it does not help Arabs to unit if they have a conspiracy against them. But would they really unit if it were not present?

My answer is no, they would not. I know that people who say yes would argue for a common religion, language and culture as good reasons why Arabs can unit.

Let me refute each one of these reasons and other grounds for the call for unity.

*Culture.

In my previous post, I tackled this subject and so will skip it all together.

*Religion.

Yes, most Arabs are Muslims, but they have totally different interpretations of religion. Arabs from Lebanon and Syria would not look kindly at the Saudi model of Islam and vice versa.

Should the "Arab state" be secular or not?

Should it have freedom of religion? If so how can this be applied in Saudi?

Would the Shea Iraqis be happy in an "Arab state" where they go back again to being a minority?

What would happen to religious minorities?

While they do get equal rights in some Arab countries, their rights are almost none existents in others.

• The economy. Here I we have three problems:

1. The unequal distribution of income between oil states and none oil states.

Would there be a federal system like in the US where poor states piggyback rich states.

2. The totally different economic systems. We have a wide range of economic systems spanning socialism to capitalisms and anything in between.

Would the Saudi government allow opening of banks with interest from other Arab countries on Saudi soil?

Would Syria really have any decent thing resembling a real private bank?

Would something like the common "Arabo" currency ever see the day of light?

How can one reconcile the economy of Saudi with that of Syria?

3. The problem of protectionism and cheap labor. As it is, and without the need for a conspiracy, most Arab countries exercise various forms of economic and labor protectionism.

Would Jordan allow an influx of cheap Egyptian labor?

Would there be a minimum wage at the "Arab state" level?

• Political System.

How can one reconcile the different government systems?

Would Syria accept democracy?

Would Egypt accept Islamic law?

Would Saudi accept a proper constitution and a secular democracy?

Would Lebanon want to be part of the same state as Syria?

Who would rule. And how?

Would there be a federal government?

Would Egypt have 25% of "federal" government positions, since it has 25% of the population of the Arab world?

Does the president of the Arab world have to be Egyptian?

What would happen to the various Arab kings and presidents?

What would happen to large ethnic minorities in Algeria, Iraq, Morocco, Sudan? Will they have self rule?

The idea of "Arab Unity" sounds great when examined at face value. But the "devil" is in the details. And upon a somewhat detailed examination, it looks like Arab Unity has many things going against it and is very hard to achieve, even in the absence of a western conspiracy.

Even things like a unity of two Arabs countries seems almost impossible to work out. Using the criteria from above(economic, political, culture, religion) Let us take a quick look:

• Jordan and Syria. No it would not work out
• Syria and Iraq. No it would not work out
• Lebanon and Saudi. No
• Syria and Lebanon. No
• Egypt and Lybia. No
• Egypt and Ghaza. No
• Jordan and Iraq. No

The other point that I would like to make is that Al-Jazzera did "Arabs" no good by airing such a program. It only helps foster a sense of victimhood. It creates the mentality that goes something like this: "We are victims of the west, no wonder our lives are going nowhere, they did this to us and there is evidence now."

Needless to say, we do not need any talk of present or past conspiracies, we need to focus on what we are doing and that is trying to "progress" and move forward. This can only happen by using progressive thinking, not regressive thinking.

Voting Out

I was a bit shocked when I heard about the fist fight between the journalists and members of the house of representatives. If things were up to me I would call for early parliamentary elections to kick out most of these good for nothing representatives.

Yes, that is correct. Just yesterday, in my Anti 4x4 blog post, I wrote: " I am not sure what the representatives in the lower house are busy with, but I have no doubt in my mind that whatever new law they are working on, it will not add much value to the lives of us "average" citizens." Well, today, during an interview with AL-Jazeera, the head of the Journalists association talked about the fact that most people are not happy with the representatives in the lower house.

As a partial solution, maybe we should have parliamentary elections every two years instead of four, that should put some heat on the lower house to perform in accordance with what the people want. This is sort of what they have in the US, and they call it mid term elections.

Unfortunately, this is somewhat hard to achieve since it would probably require a constitutional amendment. And as far as I know constitutional amendments are very hard to come by.

"Partly Free," Yippi

While I was reading some information regarding democracy on the Wikipedia, I came across the Freedom House world map.

The Red colors are not free countries, the greens are free countries, and finally the orange are "partly free"

No Free Arab countries are shown.

Jordan, Lebanon, Yemen, and Morocco are "partly free."

The rest of the Arab countries are not free

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Freedom_House_world_map_2005.png