How dare you have a person in your midst now that you can legally call “former president?” Have you absolutely no shame? What happened to your Holy Muslim Values which insist that you should acquiesce to God’s chosen leader on earth? Did you not hear that oft repeated Aya “Obey Allah, and obey the Messenger, and those charged with authority among you? Whasswrongwijooo? Have you descended into Kufr now? AstaGHFirullah!
What is this world coming to? All thank to Allah SWT that we, true Arabs still live by the Quran, especially the respect and deference we afford to His representatives on Earth, the kings, shaikhs and malalwah for we value and yearn for Heaven and shall not stray off this ancient path of kowtowing to Allah’s words regardless of how they get retooledinterpreted.
For Godness’ sake, who is going to come to the rescue of Former President Musharraf now that he was dropped like a hot potato by those infernal Americans once they saw that the people of Pakistan simply didn’t want him? Us Arabs of course! The pad is ready for him in any of our open countries for the rest of his life to live the life of luxury, living honourably amongst us to value the words of God and abide by them.
Long live our rulers, the true and only ones charged with authority among us. Allah’s chosen. May they live comfortably for ever!
Comments
The right to have everyone follow a ruler is not an absolute right. If the ruler does something wrong then it is a duty for the people to correct him through their representatives. Also another lesson is that parliament needs to rally around common goals for things to be achieved. Politics is about give and take not about sticking to hardline views all the time.
Hey it’s me, the ugly American again. It has been most interesting the last few years seeing the term “democracy” being tossed around by those whom have no idea what it means or how it works. It does not mean rule by mob violence, and it only works in civilized countries. What is a civilized country? Well I can tell you what is not; nations where “candidates” rountinely kill off the opponent is not a civilized country, killing family members for supposed insults to the family name are not civilized countries, forcing children or imported “guest” workers to bust ass for slave wages does not make for a civilized country, spending billions on weapons while more than half your citizens have never used a porcelain crapper or used indoors plumbing and whose children rountinely suffer from preventable illnesess does make for a civilized country, places where the favorite cowardly form of attack is to blow up worshippers in their places of worship does not make for a civilized country….I could go on and on but then why…..
Now then our friend Musharaff, yes, he was the US ally. Why? Because in an uncivilized country that also has nukes, you keep a close watch, its called the survival instinct, plain and simple.
What will happen next? After a few months, or years, of blowing the hell out of each other in the name of the peoples “democratic” processes, the current Chief of Staff of the army will stage a coup, put in place another Musharaff style government, and the US will have another strong ally in Pakistan.
Please, stop abusing that wonderful idea of democracy by bastardizing it with the association to nations that don’t have a clue..
It is in the nature of humans that they desire to be led. If you look in the Koran and Old Testament you will see that in the beginning God didn’t consider Kings as necessary, it was only when the chosen people wanted a King that he relented and let them have Saul and later on the caliphs.
This was acceptance of the human need for an authority figure to give secular purpose to life.
The same emotion is captured here in Bahrain and our dutiful populace respond in the time honoured manner of flag waving and picture posting.
Whilst the rest of the world moves on our quaint customs here have their uses and it is far preferrable to other forms of democracy that exist in Africa, south asia and if I may be so bold – the USA.
USA life appears to be devoid of culture and any real meaning apart from ” see it grab it or sue it” and if you look closely you will see USA also has its slaves and exploitations.
I would think that to see true democracy you have to look to Northern Europe to Sandanavia where monarchy and social justice live side by side.
Northern Europe is a good example because long ago, with the long hard winters experienced in that part of the world, without hard work cooperation and planning etc all the lazy trouble makers and rabble rousers simply starved to death and the remaining gene pool was strengthened.
It is a sad fact that the further north you go the more stable society becomes. Maybe that is why our maker sent all his messengers to these latitudes, we were the ones who needed it !!!
Anyhow good luck to Pakistan they are going to need it!!
Author
I’ll take that, thanks very much. Social justice is the missing ingredient in all of our Arab and most Muslim countries.
Give me social justice and keep the monarchy in any guise they like, as long as they too could be held to account and limit the public coffer outlay only to a very distinct and chosen few.
Well, maybe the experiment should now be replicated in those Northern climes in order to screw up their chances too. At least that would ensure that the whole world is at par! <just kidding – and running and ducking>
It’s too early to arrive at a conclusion on Pakistan in relation to democracy. The army has tasted the blood and history may just repeat itself. The democratic structure of pakistan is not powerful enough (yet) to withstand such a force.
Sorry. You and many other Americans don’t know what the word ‘civilized’ means. Here you go. By this definition, Bahrain is certainly civilized. Yes, I am American, and yes, I lived in Bahrain. Its a different lifestyle thats for sure but it is still civilized based upon anthropological definitions.
A civilization is a society or culture group normally defined as a complex society characterized by the practice of agriculture and settlement in cities. Compared with other cultures, members of a civilization are organized into a diverse division of labour and an intricate social hierarchy.
Never heard you say the same nasty things about your own King or Emir, whatever he is called. Do I hear someone say double standards?
Social Justice could mean anything theses days. There are whole political groups that clamor for ‘social justice’ based around the model of groups like Hamas or similar.
True ‘social justice’ is dependent on a strong civil society, respect for (not fear of the) law, political representation, and a true separation of church and state.
Can this happen in Muslim nations?
The first step is obvious: remove the Mosque from having political power, and then everything else can be built.
Sorry to say this, but only the Arab states are sufficiently oppressive of their populations, to give the guy any reasonable life expectancy.
He has known, since September 12 2001, that this was the best he could hope for. He did well to survive to collect his pension.
The problem isn’t what he does next. The problem is what Pakistan is going to do next, now that the last guy who isn’t actually crazy is leaving.
Hi anthrogeek
You are right about your deffinition of the word civilization but i believe Mike meant the word civilized
which comes from the verb to civilize ( to bring culture and education to a primitive people or to improve a persons manners , Oxford dictionary) I don´t mean to split hairs but we need to decide what we understand civilized behavior to be… This is the crux of what a healthy society should be . The problem is that societies evolve their own deffinitions of civilized behaviour from the dominant culture they are immersed . If a society is immersed in the dominant culture of fundamental islam than cutting someone´s hand off or stoning an adulterer to death is not considered uncivilized…Or if a society is immersed in a culture of secularism which avoids religious influence than aborting millions of unwanted babies yearly would not be considered uncivilized. This is the problem . We all have a different idea of what civilized is.
I have personally decided to model myself and what I THINK is civilized behavior and this is the person and character of Jesus the christ ,piih, because he is the best example of peace ,love and justice that ever walked this planet. If people followed his example the world would be filled with peace love and justice too. But as long as we find other less worthy role models to emulate then hate , discension , distrust and injustice will always exist anywhere you go.
This is the sad fact of realty…..but it does not mean I´m a pessimist not at all.. I have great optimism because I hold onto the promise written in the holy scriptures that
” Never again will they hunger
never again will they thirst
The sun will not beat upon them
Nor any scorching heat .
For the lamb at the center of the throne,
will be their shepherd.
He will lead them to springs of living
water. and God will wipe away every tear from
their eyes.. rev 7:16
This means that one day in the future He will establish a truly civilized society with justice for all.
Victoria,
The person used the word civilized as an adjective, not as the verb definition you discussed. Your right that every culture has their correct version of ethical and moral behavior. As an anthropologist it is not my place to be ethnocentric and to say that my way is the only way.
On another note, I am not really sure why you felt compelled to express your faith in your comments. They really did not fit with the topic.
anthrogeek10
Yes ! he used the word as an adjective but it is derived from the verb to civilize meaning ” to bring culture and education to a primitive community or to improve a person´s behaviour and manners ” (oxford dictionary def´) I regret that you have forced me to split hairs but the point of this exercise is to explain what defines a truly civilized society.. We can all debate and quarrel on what we believe civilized to be but as an anthropologist you must know that ones core beliefs will influence how they decide what civilized means . This is the hue in which they view the world around them . For this reason I expressed my belief in the Christ centred approach as being ,in my oppinon, a model of civilized behaviour. I think this is very relevant to the subject that you and Mike actually brought up .