Religion: Extremes and Opposites

Religion

They are at it again. The extremists in Iraq have added another atrocity to their ever growing list. They have murdered a tennis coach and two of his players...for wearing shorts.

The murders occurred a few days after leaflets were distributed warning the population that men would be violently attacked for such offences as wearing shorts or shaving, stores would be bombed for selling alcohol or, if you are a woman, you will be violently punished if you dare not to wear a veil or attempt to drive a car.


Sharia Law is fast becoming the unwritten (Constitutional) and violently enforced rule in Iraq. What was once a secular, albeit dictatorially oppressed, society is fast becoming one in which a Taliban-like theocracy is very likely to be imposed.

So much for operation Iraqi Freedom . Bush and Blair have followed their pipe(line) dream and led us, and the Iraqi people, into an un-winnable war. The future for the Iraqis is dim and troubled, and is likely to remain so long into the future. Democracy is a fragile form of government that has, at its' heart, the willingness to accept compromise. This will never be so for the extremists, both religious and political.

Newton's third law states that " For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction". This is true in the physical world and it is also true in the socio-political world. World communism engendered militaristic facism, absolute monarchies engendered democractic republicanism, and brutal, absolute theocracies can only engender brutal secular dictatorships...sometimes cleverly disguised as democracies.

Not long ago the prime-minister of Iraq told his newly formed cabinet and the world at large that the government would use "maximum force" to fight the insurgents and the extremist militias, secular and religious, that are formenting civil war. Good luck to him, and the Iraqi people. But I can't help but believe that the people of Iraq will be a long time waiting for a real democratic government. The extremists that are spread throughout the Islamic world are not in the business of compromise, and any government that opposes them will find themselves in for a long and bitter struggle and have to govern from a state of siege.

For these reasons I believe that it will be quite some time before the occupying forces, American and British, will be able to "exit" Iraq with any certainty or hope that the government they leave behind will survive. I also believe that the government they leave behind will be far from an ideal democracy... but it will be better, for the people of Iraq, than the insane and brutal rule of Islamic extremists.