Blasphemy? That'll be 20 years in prison

[ray245]

The only way that Sharia Law has been successfully eliminated from a Muslim country was when a nationalist general in the Ottoman Empire by the name of Mustafa Kemal defeated all the western armies occupying parts of his country and declared a secular republic by force of will, and even that achievement is by no means guaranteed, except by the active intervention of the Turkish Army into politics. Therefore I have to admit that, in retrospect, the opinion that the US should enforce democracy on Muslim countries was particularly sad and ironic; alas, we were so deluded once. They don't want it, and, really, only their epic heroes are capable of ending the Sharia, if they choose. But even then it appears only in a state where, necessarily, the army has the regular and necessary right of intervening to preserve constitutional secularism. Yet the prerequisites for the growth of such a state anywhere else in the Muslim world appear thoroughly lacking.

On the other hand, a stable Afghanistan that has a well educated and well off population will allow them to have the chance to start thinking about their laws and questioning it. The downside is, this will take a pretty long time to accomplish.

[Darth Wong]

On the other hand, a stable Afghanistan that has a well educated and well off population will allow them to have the chance to start thinking about their laws and questioning it. The downside is, this will take a pretty long time to accomplish.

Do you even read the things you respond to? What the fuck does this have to do with anything we're saying? No one is questioning the idea that in a utopian perfect world where we can magically make a country stable and secular and prosperous, it would be a good idea.

[Garibaldi]

The only way that Sharia Law has been successfully eliminated from a Muslim country was when a nationalist general in the Ottoman Empire by the name of Mustafa Kemal defeated all the western armies occupying parts of his country and declared a secular republic by force of will, and even that achievement is by no means guaranteed, except by the active intervention of the Turkish Army into politics. Therefore I have to admit that, in retrospect, the opinion that the US should enforce democracy on Muslim countries was particularly sad and ironic; alas, we were so deluded once. They don't want it, and, really, only their epic heroes are capable of ending the Sharia, if they choose. But even then it appears only in a state where, necessarily, the army has the regular and necessary right of intervening to preserve constitutional secularism. Yet the prerequisites for the growth of such a state anywhere else in the Muslim world appear thoroughly lacking.

This argument is a bit obtuse. There are plenty of Muslim states which are partially secularized, where depending on the region and the social strata Sharia Law is entirely ignored. This also ignores the fact that "Sharia Law" is hardly an immutable, universal set of principles; the form and implementation of Islamic jurisprudence in Jordan is considerably different from that in Iran. I'll grant that formal "constitutional secularism" is a western idea that is unlikely to take root in the Muslim world, but a rough equivalent has and is emerging in many modern Muslim states, and would probably be much further advanced if not for Western interference.

The chief requirement for such a thing to hold is that it arise organically from the state itself as opposed to being imposed from the outside- not that only an authoritarian internal military regime can impose it.