Islamists, Republicans and Their Striking Similarities
In hearing the ascendant Republican leaders speak, it occurs to me that they bear striking resemblance to Islamist groups throughout the Muslim world. Even if the culture warriors on the left would like me to, I do not make any claims of comparable expectations of moral purity, with which Islamists, on a relative scale, are far more obsessed. Senator DeMint found himself in trouble by suggesting that female schoolteachers who sleep with their boyfriends should be removed from their jobs, it being obvious to him that gay schoolteachers are completely beyond the pale. (Though note the gender bias--not "heterosexual teachers who sleep with their opposite sex partners", but girl teachers who lose their virginal purity to boys.) I would imagine Islamists being considerably further to the right than this as to women in schools who are known to be sexually active. Though I am unclear as to how this could affect education. School teachers who brag of their sexual feats with their partners to their students ought to be fired. Those who do not leave their students none the wiser. But what do I know, you'd have to ask De Mint, or maybe Christine O'Donnell, who has time to answer now, how any of this could matter.
No, the issue is not some alleged version of Ayatollah De Mint but rather, the remarkable similarity as between Republican calls for a balanced budget and Islamist calls for shari'a. That is, Republicans, and their base, frequently call for a balanced budget, in fact it is something of an obsession at this point, but they don't really want a balanced budget. I don't mean they are lying bastards, though again the culture warriors I am sure would want me to say that. I am sure they think they are sincere, but they are not. Because anyone can see what you have to do in order to balance the budget--suspend all tax cuts and cut spending severely. Nobody is actually proposing anything close. The Ryan plan the Republicans refer to balances the budget assuming the expiration of the Bush tax cuts in full. Since that won't happen, you would need more savage spending cuts, and nobody would stand for that, and so this notion of doing anything by way of deficit reduction is in many ways silly.
Similarly, their public is animated by the idea of a balanced budget and runaway spending, but does not actually want the cuts that would necessitate a balanced budget to the beloved middle class entitlement programs. So it's an idea that works brilliantly in opposition, because you don't have to implement it, but not in practice, when you do. But then every once in a while the dog ends up catching the car, and so you have to say something to your constituency in order to demonstrate your seriousness of purpose even as you do precisely nothing to achieve the very thing you've demanded for so long. Various options are available, as we shall see.
Islamists are similar in their calls for shari'a. That is, they say they want shari'a, and I don't doubt they think they are being sincere, but really, actually, they don't. Nobody does. Nobody wants rules on contract or tort law derived from medieval fiqh, even Islamic finance ignores most of those to survive. Some might be interested in draconian Islamic punishments, but in most societies (Iraq certainly, Egypt as well I would maintain) the same public that professes adoration for shari'a is repulsed by most of this. And so when you sit in opposition and demand shari'a, boy does it sound good. God's Will, God's Law, the realization of God's Justice on earth, and so forth. I'll accept anti-corruption as part of that, and maybe some notion of limitations on tyranny. Actually, more accurately for this post I won't dispute that piece rather than accept it. Point is, all sorts of good things wrapped up in God and His Glorious Apostle.
The problem is, however, that we've come a long way since 1980. Since then, Islamists have taken over states in Iraq, the Sudan, Iran, Gaza, Pakistan (or they had a friend in power in Zia anyway), Afghanistan, and so the question then becomes how to square the dream that people only think they want with the reality that they do actually want when the Islamists take over. And the tactics are similar; to wit:
1. Blame the opposition. Reagan can cut taxes and darn it he would have cut spending too if it wasn't for those pesky Democrats. Similarly Pakistan can attest its shari'a court banned interest, and if the establishment won't listen, well what in the heck can we do about it? Note this works when the opposition is strong, it does not work as well in Iran, or in Bush era Republicanism, where the inability to do a thing about budgets cannot sensibly be blamed on opposition which hardly offers much resistance. Iran plays that revolution card hard, but the notion that counterrevolutionaries are a threat to the regime is hardly credible anymore. That said, Islamic finance has survived as long as it has on this theory alone--yes we are just a formalistic alternative to conventional finance, and no we don't do anything by way of social justice or religious support as we seek, but we're still embryonic and have to compete with the big bad behemoth of conventional finance and so we must compromise. When we are large enough to stand on our own, then things will change. Decades have elapsed, and we're still waiting.
2. Change the rules. You carry on about deficits, until you take control, and then you indicate actually they don't matter. In Islamist contexts, you demand greater adherence to shari'a, you fill the streets with demonstrators when the government proposes a law to require a husband to pay greater support to his wife if he chooses to divorce her without cause because not part of the fiqh and then when you take control, you indicate actually that shari'a isn't literal adherence to fiqh, that's just silly, in fact it means all state law is okay unless it violates some core characteristic tenets. As to what tenet is violated by support of ex-wife I don't know, but in any case you've backed off. It can work for a time, though at some point people are going to wonder what you are all about. If deficits don't matter, what does? If fiqh isn't the touchstone, what is? Separation of powers? Anti-corruption? That's it? You don't need Islamists for that, religion I suppose could help an anti-corruption campaign, provide a strong moral basis for it, but the institutional reform is going to be very secular, as in divorced from anything you find in sacred texts.
3. Focus on the symbolic. In the Republican context, that's earmarks, or the National Endowment for the Arts, or maybe a subsidy for National Public Radio (dirty little secret of mine that violates liberal orthodoxy--why is it that rich liberal elites get their radio funded anyway, I ask as a rich liberal elite?) Eliminate every single one of these though, you still have a severe deficit problem. For Islamists, the equivalent are head scarves, alcohol bans and crackdowns on gay bars. And like earmarks, women who want to walk around without scarves, people who like to drink, and others who are gay don't ever go away, so you can keep on them for a while and claim to move off when this is all done. The problem is, to quote an oped from the inimitable Ibrahim Issa in his former paper Distour, did God Deliver the Message to His Apostle (i.e. did He rent the veil to the Infinite for 23 glorious years) solely to ensure the shielding of the hair of women?
All of these, however, only stave off the inevitable, which is broad public disillusionment and disenchantment, and the resulting delegitimatization of the regime which came to power on a theory, and proved itself incapable of carrying through on it, because frankly nobody really wanted their ideas to begin with, in any sort of concretized form. But the abstraction--God's Justice on Earth, balancing a government's accounts like you balance your family's--sounds so appealing, so desirable, so tempting that a few years after having thrown the bastards out, you can't help but wonder, if maybe they deserve one more shot. Maybe this time, it'll be different. Maybe this time, the dream is real. Should we let them try again? Who knows, it might work, right? They could have changed. Wouldn't it be pretty to think so.
HAH
No, the issue is not some alleged version of Ayatollah De Mint but rather, the remarkable similarity as between Republican calls for a balanced budget and Islamist calls for shari'a. That is, Republicans, and their base, frequently call for a balanced budget, in fact it is something of an obsession at this point, but they don't really want a balanced budget. I don't mean they are lying bastards, though again the culture warriors I am sure would want me to say that. I am sure they think they are sincere, but they are not. Because anyone can see what you have to do in order to balance the budget--suspend all tax cuts and cut spending severely. Nobody is actually proposing anything close. The Ryan plan the Republicans refer to balances the budget assuming the expiration of the Bush tax cuts in full. Since that won't happen, you would need more savage spending cuts, and nobody would stand for that, and so this notion of doing anything by way of deficit reduction is in many ways silly.
Similarly, their public is animated by the idea of a balanced budget and runaway spending, but does not actually want the cuts that would necessitate a balanced budget to the beloved middle class entitlement programs. So it's an idea that works brilliantly in opposition, because you don't have to implement it, but not in practice, when you do. But then every once in a while the dog ends up catching the car, and so you have to say something to your constituency in order to demonstrate your seriousness of purpose even as you do precisely nothing to achieve the very thing you've demanded for so long. Various options are available, as we shall see.
Islamists are similar in their calls for shari'a. That is, they say they want shari'a, and I don't doubt they think they are being sincere, but really, actually, they don't. Nobody does. Nobody wants rules on contract or tort law derived from medieval fiqh, even Islamic finance ignores most of those to survive. Some might be interested in draconian Islamic punishments, but in most societies (Iraq certainly, Egypt as well I would maintain) the same public that professes adoration for shari'a is repulsed by most of this. And so when you sit in opposition and demand shari'a, boy does it sound good. God's Will, God's Law, the realization of God's Justice on earth, and so forth. I'll accept anti-corruption as part of that, and maybe some notion of limitations on tyranny. Actually, more accurately for this post I won't dispute that piece rather than accept it. Point is, all sorts of good things wrapped up in God and His Glorious Apostle.
The problem is, however, that we've come a long way since 1980. Since then, Islamists have taken over states in Iraq, the Sudan, Iran, Gaza, Pakistan (or they had a friend in power in Zia anyway), Afghanistan, and so the question then becomes how to square the dream that people only think they want with the reality that they do actually want when the Islamists take over. And the tactics are similar; to wit:
1. Blame the opposition. Reagan can cut taxes and darn it he would have cut spending too if it wasn't for those pesky Democrats. Similarly Pakistan can attest its shari'a court banned interest, and if the establishment won't listen, well what in the heck can we do about it? Note this works when the opposition is strong, it does not work as well in Iran, or in Bush era Republicanism, where the inability to do a thing about budgets cannot sensibly be blamed on opposition which hardly offers much resistance. Iran plays that revolution card hard, but the notion that counterrevolutionaries are a threat to the regime is hardly credible anymore. That said, Islamic finance has survived as long as it has on this theory alone--yes we are just a formalistic alternative to conventional finance, and no we don't do anything by way of social justice or religious support as we seek, but we're still embryonic and have to compete with the big bad behemoth of conventional finance and so we must compromise. When we are large enough to stand on our own, then things will change. Decades have elapsed, and we're still waiting.
2. Change the rules. You carry on about deficits, until you take control, and then you indicate actually they don't matter. In Islamist contexts, you demand greater adherence to shari'a, you fill the streets with demonstrators when the government proposes a law to require a husband to pay greater support to his wife if he chooses to divorce her without cause because not part of the fiqh and then when you take control, you indicate actually that shari'a isn't literal adherence to fiqh, that's just silly, in fact it means all state law is okay unless it violates some core characteristic tenets. As to what tenet is violated by support of ex-wife I don't know, but in any case you've backed off. It can work for a time, though at some point people are going to wonder what you are all about. If deficits don't matter, what does? If fiqh isn't the touchstone, what is? Separation of powers? Anti-corruption? That's it? You don't need Islamists for that, religion I suppose could help an anti-corruption campaign, provide a strong moral basis for it, but the institutional reform is going to be very secular, as in divorced from anything you find in sacred texts.
3. Focus on the symbolic. In the Republican context, that's earmarks, or the National Endowment for the Arts, or maybe a subsidy for National Public Radio (dirty little secret of mine that violates liberal orthodoxy--why is it that rich liberal elites get their radio funded anyway, I ask as a rich liberal elite?) Eliminate every single one of these though, you still have a severe deficit problem. For Islamists, the equivalent are head scarves, alcohol bans and crackdowns on gay bars. And like earmarks, women who want to walk around without scarves, people who like to drink, and others who are gay don't ever go away, so you can keep on them for a while and claim to move off when this is all done. The problem is, to quote an oped from the inimitable Ibrahim Issa in his former paper Distour, did God Deliver the Message to His Apostle (i.e. did He rent the veil to the Infinite for 23 glorious years) solely to ensure the shielding of the hair of women?
All of these, however, only stave off the inevitable, which is broad public disillusionment and disenchantment, and the resulting delegitimatization of the regime which came to power on a theory, and proved itself incapable of carrying through on it, because frankly nobody really wanted their ideas to begin with, in any sort of concretized form. But the abstraction--God's Justice on Earth, balancing a government's accounts like you balance your family's--sounds so appealing, so desirable, so tempting that a few years after having thrown the bastards out, you can't help but wonder, if maybe they deserve one more shot. Maybe this time, it'll be different. Maybe this time, the dream is real. Should we let them try again? Who knows, it might work, right? They could have changed. Wouldn't it be pretty to think so.
HAH
"why is it that rich liberal elites get their radio funded anyway, I ask as a rich liberal elite?"
As a modestly prosperous and moderate elite, I must note that federal funding is a pretty small part of the public broadcasting budget (threatening their corporate subsidies would be more hazardous to my local station) and also that I certainly benefited from NPR when I was a poor manual laborer.
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