| ||||||||||||||
|
Local News & Opinion
05.02 11 Baltimore City Students Win Awards in Md. History Day Competition Ref.: Civic Events Ref.: Arts & Education Events Ref.: Public Service Notices Travel
Books, Films, Arts & Education
Letters
Ref. : Letters to the editor Health Care & Environment
05.15 Horrific Injuries Linked to BP Dispersant Corexit 05.15 'Last Call at the Oasis': Why Time Is Running Out to Save Our Drinking Water 05.14 German Government to Oppose Fracking 05.11 Petition calls on Brazilian president to veto 'catastrophic' forest code 05.11 Bans on School Junk Food Pay Off in California 05.11 When half a million Americans died and nobody noticed 05.10 Game Over for the Climate 05.10 Pollution: the great leveller 05.10 New study: Amish prove raw milk promotes health in children 05.10 Big Agriculture's Big Secrets: 9 Things You Need to Know About the Food You Eat 05.09 Gloria Feldt: The War on Women [video] 05.02 Common Pesticide “Disturbs” the Brains of Children 05.02 Humans Still Evolving as Our Brains Shrink 05.01 Big Changes in Ocean Salinity Intensifying Water Cycle Ref. High health-care costs: It’s all in the pricing - graphic Ref. Dollars for Doctors - How Industry Money Reaches Physicians Ref. 2010 Comparative Price Report Medical and Hospital Fees by Country - Graphics Ref. Health at a Glance 2011 - OECD Indicators Ref. : Why is Healthcare Absurdly Expensive in USA (Part 2) [Graphics] (Part 1 is here) Video Health Care Systems in Less Corrupt Countries “News” Media
05.01 News Corporation has sought to undermine elected governments Daily The Daily Howler Justice Matters
05.16 Is the filibuster unconstitutional? 05.15 MONEY UNLIMITED 05.11 How the Corporate Right Hijacked America's Courts to Enrich the Top 1 Percent 05.03 Supreme Court Favorability Reaches New Low 05.01 Eliot Spitzer’s challenge to DOJ as it investigates Wall Street: ‘Bring some cases’ - video 05.01 Laissez-faire with strip-searches: America's two-faced liberalism US Politics, Policy & Culture
05.16 5 Ways Conservatives are Destroying the Institution of Marriage 05.16 Congress: The TSA Is Wasting Hundreds Of Millions In Taxpayer Dollars 05.16 The Economic Case for Same-Sex Marriage 05.16 If Information Is Power, What Is Lack Of Information? [video] 05.15 IMAGE: It doesn't have to be true, just credible... 05.15 WEDDING BELLS 05.15 Memo to Mitt: Time to Fess Up on Bullying 05.14 “The truth will set you free. But first, it will piss you off.” 05.14 Hedges: How Our Demented Capitalist System Made America Insane 05.11 Why Atheists Have Become a Kick-Ass Movement You Want on Your Side 05.11 Fixable Error, New Insight, and Social Security 05.10 Ballot Access 05.10 Christian Conservatives vs. Sex: The Long War Over Reproductive Freedom 05.03 Out of the Margins, Into the Fray 05.03 Occupy May Day: Voices from the LA protests [video] 05.02 Jon Stewart Assails GOP for Their Hypocrisy on Obama Campaign Bringing Up Bin Laden [video] 05.02 Hamptons Home Prices Rise as Buyers Prefer Luxury Deals 05.02 The Administration Is Scared of Its Own Regulatory Shadow High Crimes?
Economics, Crony Capitalism
05.16 “What Scares Me Isn’t $2 Billion Loss JP Morgan Made, What Scares Me is the Record $19 Billion in Profits” [video] 05.16 Republican Party suckles at the breast of Big Business 05.16 Weisbrot and Krugman are Wrong: Greece cannot pull off an Argentina 05.15 Greek deadlock heightens fears of full European economic crisis 05.14 Why We Regulate 05.11 Indentured Servitude for Seniors: Social Security Garnished for Student Debts 05.11 Breaking Up Four Big Banks 05.11 Wall Street’s immunity 05.11 How Wall Street Killed Financial Reform 05.10 Real Estate 4 Ransom -- locking up the Great American Dream 05.10 Quelle Surprise! Fed Defends Incompetent Bank Management Against Investors 05.10 Europe’s Problems Multiply 05.09 Ryan Shrugs: Overlooked GOP Budget Provision Would Fuel Offshoring With New Tax Incentives 05.09 Top 1% Fills Gov. Scott Walker’s Recall War Chest With $25 Million 05.09 ALEC Affiliated Corporations 05.09 Teachers’ Board Becomes Fifteenth Group To Drop ALEC 05.09 ALEC’s Top Five Anti-Environment ‘Model’ Laws 05.09 Special Rights for ALEC: Three States Exempt Stealth Corporate Lobbying Group From Lobbying Rules 05.09 A web of privilege supports this so-called meritocracy 05.03 How Wall Street Drives Up Gas Prices -- Ripping Us Off and Killing Jobs 05.03 Paul Krugman on How to Fix the Economy - and Why It's Easier Than You Think 05.02 There is an alternative to austerity 05.01 Under Catholic pressure Paul Ryan backs away from Rand, Objectivism 05.01 Tax Me, for F@%&’s Sake! 05.01 Tea Party Congressmen Accept Cash From Bailed-Out Bankers 05.01 Paul Krugman and Ron Paul discuss economics – as it happened 05.01 No alternative to austerity International
05.15 IDF closes Palestinian school to make way for West Bank training zone 05.14 Noam Chomsky on: 05.14 INFOGRAPHIC: Gas Spending Around The World 05.14 Graphic: Products of Slavery 05.14 Israel warned of volatile situation as Palestinian hunger strikers near death 05.14 How Right-Wing Extremists and Islamists Are the Same 05.14 Guatemala's land grab and massacre 05.11 U.S. Military Taught Officers: Use ‘Hiroshima’ Tactics for ‘Total War’ on Islam 05.11 Thousands of British police join anti-austerity protest 05.10 China Investment Corp. Stops Buying Europe Government Debt on Crisis Concern 05.09 Inside Syria's crackdown: 'I found my boys burning in the street' 05.03 “We Did Not Choose This War” and Other Hypocrisies 05.03 Jobless Rate Reaches New High in Euro Zone 05.02 Collapsing Afghanistan & Pakistan Refuse to Cooperate with Obama Photo Op 05.02 Free the torture report 05.01 What Did You Do In The War, Daddy? 05.01 Quebec students ignite the popular imagination 05.01 Occupy Wall Street Plans Global Protests in Resurgence We are a non-profit Internet-only newspaper publication founded in 1973. Your donation is essential to our survival.
You can also mail a check to: Baltimore News Network, Inc. P.O. Box 42581 Baltimore, MD 21284-2581 |
COMMENTARY:The Challenges of Maximalist DemocracyIt appears, that the Bush administration, despite its fierce rhetoric against Muslim extremists, is willing to accommodate political Islam.
In its crusade to democratize the Muslim world, the Bush administration faces the challenges of maximalist democracy—an all-inclusive conception of democracy that generates free and full electoral competition among parties with diverse political platforms. Maximalist democracy loathes diminishing universal suffrage, banning political parties, or restricting political platforms. In the Muslim world, maximalist democracy requires that both Islamic and secular parties be allowed to organize and compete in general elections, and form government upon winning.At present, a few Muslim nations practice maximalist democracy. Despite military coups, Pakistan and Bangladesh have hung on to maximalist democracy. They allow parties of diverse ideological stripes—Islamic, secular, and communist—to freely compete with each other in the general elections. Iraq’s constitution drafted under American occupation has adopted maximalist democracy as well. The constitution permits religious and secular parties to freely participate in the political process. Iraq’s maximalist democracy, however, is the inevitable outcome of complex forces that occupation and insurgency have unleashed. After deliberately sensitizing the Sunni and Shia separateness, the US had no option but to allow religious parties to compete for power. The Iraqi example, therefore, furnishes little proof that the US is committed to maximalist democracy. It appears, though, that the Bush administration, despite its fierce rhetoric against Muslim extremists, is willing to accommodate political Islam. In Afghanistan, the US made no effort to ban religious candidates from running in parliamentary elections. The Taliban were disqualified for their alleged support of terrorism and not for their religious orientation. The Bush administration has not opposed even Hamas, a militant Islamic party designated as a terrorist organization under US laws, in contesting parliamentary elections in Gaza and West Bank. Bush policymakers may have concluded that allowing Islamic parties to participate in electoral competition might in fact moderate political Islam—a goal that the US is determined to pursue. Notwithstanding these concessions to political Islam, the US does not promote maximalist democracy as a matter of principle. Consider the US attitude toward Turkey and Iran, two Muslim nations that repudiate maximalist democracy from opposite viewpoints. The Turkish constitution embodies irrevocable secularism. And the Turkish army is opposed to political Islam. Political parties that propose to change the Republic’s secular characteristics are banned under the constitution. Turkish democracy is open only to secular parties. In recent years, Islamic parties have made some headway, as evidenced by pro-Islamic Erdogan’s rise to power. They must still publicly declare their commitment to constitutional secularism. The US is unlikely to pressure Turkey to change its secular constitution to make room for maximalist democracy, where Islamic parties may contest elections on the basis of their religious, rather than secular, political platforms. Lack of pressure aside, no US administration has criticized Turkey for instituting a secular monopoly. The US is quick to vilify Iran for repudiating maximalist democracy, but no U.S. administration has criticized Turkey for instituting a secular monopoly. Ironically, though, the US is quick to vilify Iran for repudiating maximalist democracy. This is because Iran is a democratic theocracy. Its constitution establishes a fusion state under which all civil, penal, financial, economic, administrative, cultural, military, political, and other laws and regulations must be based on Islamic criteria. This principle applies absolutely to every aspect of law. As such, no political party that challenges the fusion of state and Islam is allowed to participate in the electoral process. The Council of Guardians screens candidates for their commitment to the fusion principle. Maximalist democracy requires that Iran change its constitution and allow secular parties to contest elections. Even though the fusion provisions of Iran's constitution are theoretically amendable, the ruling clerics would not allow maximalist democracy to challenge the Republic's theocratic monopoly. When the Bush administration praises Turkey but condemns Iran, its commitment to maximalist democracy seems arbitrary, even anti-Islamic. In praising Turkey, the Bush administration contends that Turkey has successfully combined Islam and democracy. This admiration of Turkey suggests the U.S. favors secular democracy, which allows the people to freely practice their faith, but refuses to accommodate political Islam. In condemning Iran, US officials leave no doubt that Iran fails to meet the standards of maximalist democracy, even though Iran has successfully held periodic presidential and parliamentary elections. “The regime in Teheran must heed the democratic demands of the Iranian people,” says Bush, “or lose its last claim to legitimacy.” From these conflicting reactions to political monopolies in Turkey and Iran, one might conclude that the U.S. favors secular democracy but opposes political Islam. This conclusion, however, does not explain the US policy in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Palestine, where the US has allowed political Islam to participate in the democratic process. It appears the US prefers that Muslim nations adopt secular liberal democracy. Pragmatism dictates otherwise. The Bush administration seems to have accepted political Islam as a reality. Accordingly, it is prepared to allow Islamic parties to compete with secular forces, particularly in nations where political Islam has slim chances of major victory. This pragmatism, however, does not champion political Islam. When a Muslim nation excludes Islamic parties from the political process, the U.S. is unlikely to vouch for political Islam, although the U.S. may pay lip service to the human rights of the excluded Muslim groups. For example, the U.S. may criticize Egypt and Algeria for mistreating the members of Islamic parties, but it is unlikely to press for maximalist democracy. Diverse nations have every right to construct new conceptions of democracy, which respond to their religious, economic, and social needs. In my book, A Theory of Universal Democracy (2003), I have argued that Fukuyama’s secular liberal democracy cannot be the end of human history, simply because we are not at the end of human intelligence. Diverse nations have every right to construct new conceptions of democracy, which respond to their religious, economic, and social needs. While secular liberal democracy has served many nations well, it cannot be universalized. No view of democracy must force Muslim nations to oust their religious traditions from the parameters of law and state. Muslims have every right to institute a fusion state that combines rather than separates law and Islam. Exercising this right, however, Muslim nations must protect the fundamental liberties of religious minorities. An Islamic system is most acceptable when it embraces maximalist democracy, allowing secular parties to challenge the official ideology—something that Iran does not permit. Even One God, Islam’s ultimate source of instruction, is generously maximalist. God allows Satan to compete fully and freely in God’s universe and challenge His conception of virtue and good life. Muslim nations should institute maximalist democracy for launching a free competition between secular and religious forces. Whether the US will consistently support an all-inclusive democracy is an unsure bet. Ali Khan is a professor of law at Washburn University School of Law in Topeka, Kansas. He may be reached at ali.khan@washburn.edu.
Copyright © 2006 The Baltimore Chronicle.
All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Baltimore Chronicle content is expressly prohibited without their prior written consent. This story was published on February 6, 2006. |
| ||||||||||||