Article

2011-11-12 Africa North

A New Libyan Political Party Taking Shape On Lines of 'Moderate' Islamic Democracy

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Posted by Fred 2011-11-12 00:00|| || Front Page|| [9 views ] Top

#1 Moderate Islamic is like "a little bit pregnant".

Posted by g(r)omgoru 2011-11-12 03:40|| 2011-11-12 03:40|| Front Page Top

#2 In all fairness, different parts of the Ummah have different ideas about life and things. When Abu Hāmed Mohammad ibn Mohammad al-Ghazzālī (10581111), created his anti-intellectual, fundamentalist movement, effectively ending Muslim cultural evolution, it took a long time for it to radiate outwards from Persia.

Northern Africa was one of the last places it moved into, from East to West, which is why the last gasp of Islamic intellectualism was found in Tunisia-west, up into Spain. And just when it was being extinguished, the Christians laid hands on it, and revitalized the Christian world.

But this is why, even today, northern African Muslims, Egyptians, Libyans (Arabs and Berbers), Algerians, Tunisians and Moroccans, think of themselves as more sophisticated than other Arabs.

(Turks as well, but because they were the seat of the empire, at the crossroads of Europe and Asia.)

In any event, my suspicions are that the Libyans will be a lot more like Tunisia than Somalia. Their literacy and educational rate are sky high, something Qadaffi deserves credit for. And an educated people are far less inclined to embrace fundamentalism.

Posted by Anonymoose 2011-11-12 12:26|| 2011-11-12 12:26|| Front Page Top

#3 And an educated people are far less inclined to embrace fundamentalism.

I was totally with you Moose - nodding my head and so forth - right up until the end. In a word:

Iran.

Posted by Secret Master 2011-11-12 12:59|| 2011-11-12 12:59|| Front Page Top

#4 Anonymoose: And an educated people are far less inclined to embrace fundamentalism.

Two words: Noam. Chomsky. If he isn't a fanatic believer in a Revealed Truth...

On a group level? When a faction controls the education/news system refuses to allow any other group a dissenting voice then education is only indoctrination. Palestine, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, etc.

Posted by magpie 2011-11-12 16:16|| 2011-11-12 16:16|| Front Page Top

#5 Secret Master: Iran had some problems Libya does not. Its upper classes were Zoroastrians, and its educated people were all city folk. The rest of the country was filled with non-Persian, lower educated peoples. Even Tehran is split in two, with the educated people on one side and the blue collar on the other. And the blue collar types are strong Mullah supporters.

Iran literacy: 77% School Life Expectancy: 13 years (high school).

Libya literacy: 83% School Life Expectancy: 17 years (college).

But in all fairness, in Libya, education was a big thing with Qaddafi. Right next door in Algeria, comparable with Libya in some ways, but more typically Arab, they are far more comparable with Iran as far as education goes.

And seriously, Noam Chomsky isn't particularly brilliant. He's a defective bulldada machine. His greatest accomplishment was to ruin the educational prospects of millions of black Americans with his "whole language" scheme. He has done more to "keep the black man down" than even Jefferson Davis.

Posted by Anonymoose 2011-11-12 18:36|| 2011-11-12 18:36|| Front Page Top

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