Tuesday, April 8, 2008
Elias: Islam in Iran & Turkey
This reading from the Elias book made me realize that every country has its own conflicts just like us. They described polictics as a "dirty business", at the beginning Iran was in turmoil and people felt as though they weren't being treated fairly which lead to anti-government demonstrations, one of the reasons this happened was because of their ruler not handling situations correctly. This example is also present today, some presidents don't rule the same way as the previous ones and therefore can cause problems. In each country it seems as though there is one person that comes to rule and messes everything up, and then the following ruler has to fix the mistakes and regain the trust from the people. I felt this reading was basically just explaining how there was one ruler that caused problems and many people disliked them and then the next ruler most of the problems and then regained liking from everyone. Which is very true to what happens in our country today.
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Some Muslims probably didn't like to have political leaders because they knew that politicians in general are corrupt and they often do not care for all of the needs of the people. As another alternative, they could just have spiritual leaders or rulers so that this type of corruption does not happen. The Imams in Shi'i Islam, for example, were considered the leaders of their community yet they stayed away from politics.
In countries where almost everyone celebrates the same religion it would seem unfit to have any type of political government because it so highly contradicts to religious beliefs. In the United States it is good to have government separated from religion because there are so many different beliefs that if the rulings were based on religious beliefs, chaos would break out. In countries that all have the same faith, having spiritual leaders might be a good idea because they are more peaceful and could have their rules based more on beliefs rather than politics.
This is an interesting passage from the Elias book becuase it talks about the idea that politics is a dirty business in Iran. It is interesting that there is so much debate going on about what is the right way to govern. I think because there is a religious influence in Iran (Islamic influence) there is always going to be an argument about what the right thing to do is. Because there is a Quran and hadith and laws etc there will always be different interpretations depending who is in power. From my experience in Turkey one thing I learned about is that it is very hard for the Turkish people to trust their government because there has been so much corruption in the past. And although Turkey is nominally secular they are definately defined more by their culture of Islam. I feel like those same problems are happening in Turkey as well, the struggle between different interpretations and religious influence.
I found it interesting that in 1906, Iran added a clause to their constitution giving religious leaders the power to veto any law passed by the government. This is very different from the United States where realigous leaders have no power in lawmaking. I also feel Ayatollah Khomeini's idea to join Islamic views with Marxist and socialist ideas was a mistake. Since Iranians are so devoted to their religion, I could not see them agreeing to socialist law without rebellion. I do not see any government being as popular with the public in Iran as the one we have established in America. I think the Iranians religious views prevent them from having a government that the public approves of.
Every country has good and bad rulers. Every country has some flaw or corruption in their government. When a country is weak or in a state of decline, all the blame falls on the leader. This may very well be the case in this situation because of the general dislike of the ruler. When the people are in a bad state, they need a change to bring them out of it. Now that change doesn't always bring them out of it, but that initial hope that it might, gives the people something to look forward to.
I do not think that having religious instead of political leaders is a good idea. I cannot think of a single instance where a religious government has turned out well in any recent time. I think in states where everyone in the country is a member of one religion this might work okay. However, I don't know of any countries which are 100% any religion
I feel as though countries with religious leaders, are not ran as good as one with political leaders. Simply because religious leaders have a completely different mindset for the way they judge certain situations. I can not re-call a country that has been successful running their system this way.
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