Wednesday Post

Cheikh Anta Babou explained that religions are expressed in multi-various ways. There are institutional expressions, popular spirituality, religion as protest, religion as violent, it can not fairly be reduced to any one component expression. Thus, a Christian and a Muslim may have much more in common than a Muslim, and another Muslim, or a Christian and another Christian. Often, to say a person is a Christian, or a Muslim does not reveal much about their religious expression. Outsider terms such as moderate, or fundamentalist are often also not very revealing. Moderate, as opposed to what? Fundamental, as opposed to what? The crux of the issue in South Sudan, in a post-colonial period is, now what? He also interestingly pointed out that most violence in Islamic history has been Muslim on Muslim violence, despite the prohibitions by institutional Islam against the practice.

Historically informed persons have been commenting on the Arab Spring which may provoke stimulating thought.

In "Egypt: How Obama Blew It," by Niall Ferguson, in Newsweek, the Egyptian revolution and the coming Caliphate was analyzed.

An army in control is not a democratic, liberal, revolution. Moreover, Obama was taken completely by surprise. The only organized organization is the Muslim Brotherhood advocating sharia law and the restoration of the Caliphate. Any appearance of a liberal, peaceful, democratic revolution is extremely unlikely. The Egyptian revolution is most similar to the Iranian Islamic Revolution in 1979. Almost all revolutions are characterized by internal chaos and foreign aggression.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gmr1uUZae6Q

In a 2011 interview Niall Ferguson spoke with The Telegraph about what he believes the world may look like in ten years.

His two key points to consider for the Middle East include:

• Tiny possibility we get western-style democracies in the Middle East
• More alarming to think about a "restored caliphate"

Victor Davis Hanson and Peter Berkowitz analyze the causes of Middle Eastern events (including the role of social networking), rise of the Caliphate, and discuss possible outcomes for the Middle East states enmeshed in popular unrest. They evaluate the implications for Israel and conclude with an assessment of Obama's handling of these events and how the United States should respond to the ongoing unrest.

The Arab Spring may be analyzed more correctly, according to Hanson and Berkowitz, as bereft of Western-style liberal democratic ideas in favor of Islamist characteristics. First-hand evidence on the ground confirms this impression. Abu George, a Christian resident of Aleppo's Aziza district stated: "We saw what happened to the Christians in Iraq. What is going on in Aleppo is not a popular revolution for democracy and freedom. The fighters of the so-called Free Syrian Army are radical Sunnis who want to establish an Islamic state." The prominent Middle Eastern historian Bernard Lewis has pointed out that in Egypt for example the language of Western-style democracy has only recently been translated, there are no Arabic equivalents for these words, and Islamist Middle Eastern countries have produced "zero" democracies in a thousand years. It seems unlikely that the Arab Spring will result in a Western-style democracy. The ordinary person on the street in Egypt will more likely result in a regime that is anti-Semitic, anti-American, and an Islamist motivated regime. The Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt is analogous to the Jacobins during the French Revolution.

The extent of the Abbasids Dynastic Caliphate, 750 - 1258 A.D.

Khilafah Conference Map

Iran has called for a Unified Muslim World Coalition, or a Caliphate. The term caliphate "dominion of a caliph ('successor,')," (from the Arabic خلافة or khilāfa, Turkish: Halife ) refers to the first system of government established in Islam, and represented the political unity of the Muslim Ummah (nation).

Caliphate

10th-12th Centuries, Shia Caliphate

According to Berkowitz and Hanson, American policy should re-assert the decades old, bi-partisan, Truman Doctrine affirmed through the Bush administration which was to promote a freedom agenda. Obama has abandoned the bi-partisan, historic American principled approach to Middle Eastern policy. Obama's transformation in U.S. policy will most likely promote the two examples of theocratic regimes in the Middle East: Iran and Saudi Arabia.

Perhaps not surprisingly, the Saudis invited Iran for the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation meeting, 5 August 2012.

Rise of the Caliphate

The Caliphate is unlikely to be workable in practice but the death and destruction that will accompany the aspirations of those who favor a Caliphate will be catastrophic.

Cf. http://www.aina.org/news/20120802194350.htm

Cf. Victor Hanson and Peter Berkowitz -- Revolution in the Arab World

Dr. G. Mick Smith