Many people suggest that as democracy spreads around the world, we will see the emergence of liberal societies. The popular media and the White House this assertion when suggesting that you as democracy spreads throughout the Muslim world, the peaceful and liberal governments will be rather than warring and oppressive tyrants.
To be honest, I have all I believed until recently. But as they say, hindsight is 20/20, and therefore a confluence of recent events has allowed me to see why this is not the case. In addition, he would like to take the opportunity to make the distinction between democracy and liberalism.
Event 1) two semesters ago, took an excellent course entitled the East today, whose approach was Islam. I've learned that "the door of ijtihad was closed" (Ibrahim B. Syed, Ph.d., President, Islamic Research Foundation International, Inc.) occasional around the 14th century. Ijtihad is, in the words of Dr. Syed, clear "individual intellectual effort" used to "articulation and interpretation of Sharia (Islamic law)". As scholarship in the worlds Muslim predominantly meant the study of the Shariah, closing ijtihad basically means an end to critical thinking.
(Caricatures of Muhammad event 2) published in a Danish newspaper raise controversy in the months of Muslim world after its initial publication. I realized that the Middle East Muslims rioted, while Western protested. Note the nuance between they rioted in trashed and burned things and he protested peacefully as in expressed their discontent.
Event 3) elections in Iraq, the Palestinian Authority and Egypt have shown powerful support to Islamists. Religious groups have won majorities in the first two, while the majority of the candidates of the Muslim Brotherhood were elected in Egypt (is not enough to form a Government, so not run candidates throughout the world).
At these events, I drew the following conclusions.
Firstly and most importantly, the Muslims in the Middle East has no liberal values; their values are primarily religious. Whereas liberalism advocates the separation of Church and State (Mosque and State as it were), Muslims in the Middle East are looking to draw up laws and constitutions based on Sharia. As Paul Martin said, vote for people based on their values. In the West we are so ingrained in the liberal tradition, we inherently associate liberalism with democracy. However, democracy means voting for people that reflect your values, and if the values are not liberal, not to have a liberal democracy.
Secondly, liberalism to which Muslims are exposed here, mainly in the form of freedom of expression and freedom of the press (i.e. a door open to interpretation), has rubbed. In a Hamas school, losing a debate (do issue: who is wore: pigs, rats or Americans?) could mean losing the head, literally (assuming that they have debates). In the West, losing a debate means learn from their mistakes and improve their critical thinking. This exposure to liberal values explains why the reaction to cartoons in North America was writing letters instead of flag burning.
Adolph Hitler was democratically elected. If we want to promote liberalism in the Muslim world, promoting literacy (as suggested by Dr. Syed), freedom of expression and exposure to different philosophies is probably the best way to do it. Democracy is not synonymous with liberalism.
L Center writes about Canadian politics, economics and Foreign Affairs in Centrerion Canadian politics.