February 10, 2006
TIPPING POINTER:
Khatami: Islamic World Ready for Change (VIJAY JOSHI, 2/10/06, ASSOCIATED PRESS)
The Islamic world is fed up with violence and extremism in the name of religion and is ready for an era of progressive, democratic Muslim governments, former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami said Friday.Khatami said current conflicts between the West and Islam have created a situation that "can only see ever-escalating violence, whether in the form of war and occupation and repression, or in the form of terror and destruction."
"After about two centuries of dispute between tradition and modernity in the world of Islam (there is) a high level of mental preparation for the acceptance of a major transformation in the mind and lives of Muslims," Khatami said in a speech at an international conference on Islam and the West. [...]
He said a transformation in the Muslim world could pave the way for setting up "democratic governments that pursue national interests and create the grounds for achieving greater science and technology."
He said he envisioned "a new world that wants to understand and utilize religion in a way that it is not incompatible with freedom and progress."
Posted by Orrin Judd at February 10, 2006 9:18 PM
Guy's been talking to Benedict.
Posted by: Lou Gots at February 10, 2006 9:48 PMI would like to think that he is speaking truthfully. We'll see, I suppose, when he gets home and how he is treated.
Posted by: Mikey at February 10, 2006 10:47 PMHe was first elected in 1997. That was 9 years ago.
Mikey - does he have a round-trip ticket?
Posted by: ratbert at February 10, 2006 11:43 PMEnglish or Persian?
Posted by: Sandy P at February 11, 2006 2:21 AMIslam and the 'open society' may not be compatible. Islam has an inferiority complex which demands that the Judeo-Christian traditions and institutions of the west be marginalized wherever Islam holds power.It has a cultish quality which can only be supported through, for example, the suppression of Judeo-Christian religious texts since the Koran is highly derivative of those pre-existing texts while misrepresenting what they actually say. The only Muslims I have met who have actually read the Bible have told me, with a straight face, that the Jewish/Christian Bible is a forgery that was written after the Q'ran or that Christians worship three gods and that Mary, the mother of Jesus, is one of those gods. The Islamic misconception of Christian teaching and history is an amazing thing and results in the rhetoric and preaching style which reminds one of the glassy-eyed cultists roaming 1970's American airports and college student lounges. Islam has always insisted on holding the power of the state and therein lies the problem. The world may have become too small a place for such a belief system and the Wahabis, for example, seem to understand this perfectly well.
Posted by: Tom C., Stamford,Ct. at February 11, 2006 7:38 AMTom:
You stumbled into it there. In the past it had no such problem, but has adopted ideologies (which have nothing to do with Islam) that peaked in the West in the '70s. We got over it. They will.
Posted by: oj at February 11, 2006 7:49 AMoj-
And what are those ideologies other than a strict reading of their religious texts and the history and practice of Islamic conquest and suppression? Does Wahabism, a two hundred year old sect, play a role? Is it reasonable? How about the NOI? Where did that shoe bomber fellow come from or the one-eyed Imam? The Taliban? Cultish enough for you?
Posted by: Tom C., Stamford,Ct. at February 11, 2006 8:04 AMTom:
Wahhabism was imposed by the state as a means of control at a time when statism was the rising ideology of Western rationalists.
Qutbism and Khomeinism are pure Western rational deviations.
Posted by: oj at February 11, 2006 8:22 AMoj-
There was no state at the time of Wahab(sp?). It is merely a version of Islam perfect for illiterate, desert nomads who were once isolated, ignorant and desperately poor. They are no longer isolated or poor.
Posted by: Tom C., Stamford,Ct. at February 11, 2006 8:34 AMTom:
Yes, and Wahab had no followers until the Sa'uds adopted his ideology as a means of control and imposed it on their state. They then used the state apparatus and oil money to spread it. It's an artificial accretion, not classic Islam.
Posted by: oj at February 11, 2006 8:37 AMBad cop (Ahmadinejad) wasn't helping, so the good cop (Khatami) is getting some publicity.
Posted by: pj at February 11, 2006 9:28 AMOnly the top cop matters.
Posted by: oj at February 11, 2006 9:33 AM