The writer Martin Amis has advised that he feels ‘morally superior’ to Muslim states, which are not as ‘evolved’ as the west. The obvious accusations of racism have followed, but this does not help.
I happen to both agree and disagree with him, but the first point, here, is the right to free speech. This seems to be under threat from some Muslims AND modern western liberal ideals. Hhmm. More evolved, eh.
There are many problems with some Muslim states.
The first of these is the oneness between religion and politics. It can often be an explosive combination, and the road to totalitarianism. We, in the west, experienced it for a thousand years during Christendom.
It began to improve with the arrival of the Renaissance, fuelled, I might add, by reintroduction to Europe of Classical texts which had been in the safe keeping of Muslims. It was so kind of them.
Yet we expect of them, today, what took us over a millennium to achieve.
The second point is affluence. We, in the west, are under the delusion that we are affluent. This could change any time because it is all based on the ‘confidence’ of the market. Should that change, then our ‘evolved’ state would possibly go.
Life appears orderly in the west because we presently have the services and comfort to allow such order. If these things were suddenly taken away, we would then see just how ‘evolved’ western society really is.
To have what we want and not struggle is a totally different thing to being moral.
© Anthony North, October 2007
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October 20, 2007 at 11:53 am |
“It began to improve with the arrival of the Renaissance”
We’ve actually been better off almost from the start since after Christianity hit it big, the Roman Empire in the west fell, and thousands of competing despots were never entirely wedded to Christianity. For Islam the caliphate rose pretty quickly, and there were much fewer kingdoms allowing a complete marriage of religion and state.
Beyond that, aside from Leviticus, which no one actually applies you would be hard pressed to find an explicit model for government. But the Koran and Islam’s other holy books give very detailed plans for government, courts, administering justice.
October 20, 2007 at 12:43 pm |
Hi Totaltransformation,
I don’t think Christianity was ever interested in government, as such, but people’s souls. Controlling these was where the power laid, leaving local rulers to adminster WITHIN this, and the Ten Commandments. Feudalism did the rest.
Islam, coming much later, had a better grasp of the need for social controls – i.e. government. But this does not mean that a kind of ‘renaissance’ in Islamic thought would not work towards a separation of government and religion.
Apart from this, government does not necessarily imply fundamentalist politics. Things can be eased, such as Sharia. Jihad has various explanations. Less extreme versions exist within Islamic thought.
The route to this would most likely be affluence AND redistribution of wealth.