(National Post-Canada) Bernard Lewis - To blame the Saddam Hussein-type governments on Islamic and Arabic traditions is totally false. Those traditions led to the development of societies that, while not democratic in the sense of having elected bodies, produced limited governments. That is, governments limited by the holy law, limited in a practical sense by the existence of powerful groups in society, like the rural gentry and the military and religious establishments. These acted as constraints on the power of the government. The idea of absolute rule is totally alien to Islamic practice until, sad to say, modernization made it possible. What the process of modernization did was to strengthen the sovereign power, and place at the disposal of the sovereign power the whole modern apparatus of control and repression.
2003-04-04 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive