Human rights and civil liberties, none of these are mere abstractions. The difference they make to the lives of individuals is so vast. Only compare the life of the ordinary man and woman in a western country today with the lives of many of their fellows in developing countries, especially those where religion remains a dominating influence over people's lives.
Religious inspired and backed-up revolts and uprisings, have all their own dynamics, which gradually makes them turn against the values which facilitated their own rise. They therefore change from being a weapon against repression into a weapon of repression, and everything they had set out to destroy re-emerge in new and worse forms.
Sectarianism and tribalism,racism and the praise of war and violence are the results of all Arab revolts and uprisings, which attempt to revive the kind of dictatorships and absolutism once exercised by dictatorships and monarchies. Regimes where the word "democracy" meant a term of horror, and the people were regarded as anarchic and dangerous. WE by now tragically know the results all too well.
TO place reliance on reason, and champion the autonomy and rights of the individual, and oppose absolute monarchies and absolutist regimes, organised religion and the reign of autocratic regimes and groups are unable to give or do justice. Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self imposed immaturity, immaturity in the Arab case is the inability to use one's understanding to his or her problems without guidance from another, whether it be a religious dogma or foreign powers. And their inability to use their understanding without guidance from another is the state of affairs throughout the whole region. THE freedom to use reason publicly in all matters is practically nonexistent and not tolerated.
PEOPLE of the Arab world can not frame a just constitution or even think about a just political order , until they first figure out who they truly are and consequently the best way to live. Islamic or secular, democratic or theocracy, Shii'sm or Sunnism, to the left or right, liberalism or religious conservatism or even an amalgam of all this, the people of those countries do not know which they want nor are they in any agreement among each other about the way to craft an acceptable living model.
ON all sides we only hear: DO NOT ARGUE !!! OBEY, do not argue; believe, pay and don't think. WE live the culture of the "do not argue."
MY special thanks to all for your time and patience, salamat.
Religious inspired and backed-up revolts and uprisings, have all their own dynamics, which gradually makes them turn against the values which facilitated their own rise. They therefore change from being a weapon against repression into a weapon of repression, and everything they had set out to destroy re-emerge in new and worse forms.
Sectarianism and tribalism,racism and the praise of war and violence are the results of all Arab revolts and uprisings, which attempt to revive the kind of dictatorships and absolutism once exercised by dictatorships and monarchies. Regimes where the word "democracy" meant a term of horror, and the people were regarded as anarchic and dangerous. WE by now tragically know the results all too well.
TO place reliance on reason, and champion the autonomy and rights of the individual, and oppose absolute monarchies and absolutist regimes, organised religion and the reign of autocratic regimes and groups are unable to give or do justice. Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self imposed immaturity, immaturity in the Arab case is the inability to use one's understanding to his or her problems without guidance from another, whether it be a religious dogma or foreign powers. And their inability to use their understanding without guidance from another is the state of affairs throughout the whole region. THE freedom to use reason publicly in all matters is practically nonexistent and not tolerated.
PEOPLE of the Arab world can not frame a just constitution or even think about a just political order , until they first figure out who they truly are and consequently the best way to live. Islamic or secular, democratic or theocracy, Shii'sm or Sunnism, to the left or right, liberalism or religious conservatism or even an amalgam of all this, the people of those countries do not know which they want nor are they in any agreement among each other about the way to craft an acceptable living model.
ON all sides we only hear: DO NOT ARGUE !!! OBEY, do not argue; believe, pay and don't think. WE live the culture of the "do not argue."
MY special thanks to all for your time and patience, salamat.
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