National Post Feb 7th FP19 - Daniel Pipes

Pipe Dreams

Daniel Pipes is just plain wrong in aasuming that because the West could develop democracy, Islamic countries can also do so, while maintaining Islamism and Sharia law. Our democracy and prior democracies were based on the importance of individual rights and obligations - if not for everyone, at least for those who were entitiled - usually white males who were members of the state. Islam does not permit such individualism. It depends on group rights - the umma. There is absolutely no history of Islamism working with democracy, although there are some countries where most of the citizens are secular Muslims and democratic. According to Lawrence Solomon (FP19 of Feb 5) about 75% of Egyptians want to impose strict Sharia law, that is Islamism, on the country. This means the oppression of women and religious minorities and subservience to the imams. It means that individualism and self-reliance will not be celebrated and so democracy will be impossible to maintain.