Democracy in Iraq?
This is from an interview with Stanley Hauerwas at Beliefnet.
To try to turn Iraq into a liberal democracy is absolutely crazy. Islam has no understanding of the separation between church and state because they don’t understand Islam to be a church. The very idea that you could have separation between mosque and state from Islam's perspective is the imposition on them of Christian practice. Islam doesn't really have a place for state. They are a universalistic faith like Christianity, but they think there is no country that bounds Islam.
Karen Armstrong also mentions that it is difficult to envision a church and state separation in Islam in her book, The Battle for God. Presuming that Hauerwas and Armstrong are right, what in the world were we thinking? Or were Bush and Company so busy planning the parade where we going to be welcomed as liberators that they didn't have any time to actually learn anything about Islam and Iraq? Sorry, that wasn't very nice of me.
posted by Brian @ 12:07 PM
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