Tariq Ramadan and Political Islam

To begin, I am a secular person. I am not ashamed of such a statement though recently I have learned that it makes me some what of an elitist. I am not ashamed of being an elitist either. I can't choose what class I am born into, but I can choose how I want to live my life and what impact I want to have on my community.

This brings me to the question of Islam. Tariq Ramadan (his picture is on the left) is an Islamic Scholar at Oxford University. He is of Egyption origin and in his book Islam and the Arab Awakening he postulates that what the Arab region needs now is to encourage real revolution by adopting Islamic ethics into new Islamically shaped governments. His example or reference is Turkey, which has a political system that is very much so influenced by Islamic politics. He however would rather Turkey take more from Islamic economic policies than the liberal ones they use.

My initial reaction when reading this was how do Christians, Druze, Allawites, Jews, non or partial believers, and even loose Muslim followers all live underneath the heading of Islamic law and Islamic practices.

Ramadan argues Islam is lucid and all encompassing. It opens the doors for dialogue and inclusion. And yes though Islam when practiced with his interpretation and heart would/could/or possibly may be a feasible policy for state practices, I just don't see the Arab region being mature enough in its faith to implement such policies, if they are ever implementable.

I see faith as a jack in the box, it is surprising, powerful and bouncy, but its also a little scary. Devotion is deep, to surrender to anything is a giving of oneself that is whole and to do it blindly (for that is what faith is to some extent) than you are easily swayable in the name of that devotion.

This is the power hizballah and fanatical sunni factions have. This is how they sway there people. Through devotion and its unnerving sacrifice, Gods name can get a person to do anything.

Not to exclude the fact that the bouncy nature of any text, the fact that language is not finite and sways also is a serious concern. Fanaticals are given a means of interpreting the worst of things from the sweetest of words with the bounciness of language.

It's precisely because I see religion as a jack in the box that I fear its involvement in politics. Faith can be shared in the culture and in the society, it does not need to be silenced, but politics is a sphere where religion clouds more than it clears.

To give Ramadan a thumbs up though, I do believe that a shared societal debate about Islamic values and "ethics" can be very useful for helping in the formation of government, but the debate needn't be focused on only Islamic ethics. Shared values are as diverse and bouncy as language.