I recently came across the article: American plan to prevent the return of the Caliphate from another Muslim blog. The entry summarizes a report from the RAND corporation entitled Civil Democratic Islam: Partners, Resources and Strategies which explicitly lays out a divide-and-conquer strategy for transforming Muslim societies... a strategy which plays so-called fundamentalists, traditionalists, modernists and secularists against one another.
4 comments:
Fascinating. I think a new Caliphate is a pipe-dream anyway though, regardless of what external foes are against it. Everybody knows who they'd want for the job, and none of us agree. I personally do not think Islam needs a global ruler and the people I've most commonly heard put forward as the suggested leadership, the Saudis, I trust less than I trust the Bush administration. I also do not trust the Shia ideal of an Ulemocracy.
Who would you consider if it were put to you?
--Dave, http://parallelsidewalk.wordpress.com
I feel like I need to read and think about the topic alot more before pontificating (so to speak) too much about it. One idea I've read which seems valuable is that the caliphate is more a matter of setting up a comprehensive Islamic system than about picking the right individual.
I also wonder if it would be possible for various Muslim countries to just form a version of NATO or the EU.
I definitely wouldn't want something like that to have a hereditary leadership. But perhaps some Asian countries might more likely to take the lead. (Indonesia? PAkistan?)
An interesting piece. I think the divide being promoted is actually between 'fundamentalists' and all others listed. There is wariness of 'traditionalists' but they seem to think of them as a lesser of evils. They have definitely put secularists and modernists in the same boat.
I would agree that that's the perspective the report seems to be coming from. Actually, to be honest, I think I would try to have a nuanced opinion about the plan, especially after looking at it more carefully. I mean, if traditionalists and modernists could get together and shape a society that sounds pretty promising.
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