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More stirring progress of Islamic democracy
The Taliban official who ordered the destruction of the giant Buddhist statues in Afghanistan in early 2001, an event that shocked the world, has just been elected to the Afghani legislature. The man, whose name is Mawlawi Mohammed Islam Mohammadi, was the governor of Bamiyan province. Gosh, I had assumed that at least former high Taliban people would be excluded from the new government, as part of a de-Talibanization process. But, on second thought, this is democracy, right? Meanwhile, Bernard Lewis, the doyen of Islamic studies and a leading inspirer of the Bush administration’s democratization policy, told an interviewer that democratization is going extremely well, “beyond anyone’s wildest dreams,” then he noted in passing that the Muslim Brotherhood, the fount of jihadist terrorism in the modern world, might take power in Egypt. But, after all, this is democracy, right?
And, of course, as the result of the “remarkable,” “miraculous,” “fantastic” Iraqi elections, the Shi’ite and other religious parties will be governing Iraq. Former Iranian president Rafsanjani has said that this represents a great victory for Shi’ite Iran—a victory made possible by America’s gift of democracy to the Iraqi people. Oops, sorry, I got that wrong. As President Bush has told us so often, democracy is not America’s gift to the world, it is God’s gift. America, led by Bush, is merely God’s messiah. Email entry |