Quote:
|
Originally Posted by gg1e21
Why can't you? Turkey is a Muslim country yet has Western-style Democracy.
|
For quite a few reasons - and Turkey happens to be a very extreme example as it is the only country that has been able to sustain a democracy with an Islamic culture for more than a few years.
The reasons are based on their history - they have always been self sufficient - not based on some natural resource such as oil or other commodity - but built from within - so they are also the one country that didnt have a democracy instilled on it by another country or by an invader.
Another reason is that during the Ottaman period - they were able to grow their own economy - again not based on outsiders. This nurtured the democratic roles and fed independant thinking which is a hard thing to do - a prime example in the Islamic world as they are (so far) the only one to be able to do it.
There have been three attempts over the last century to drive away the democracy from within and they have all failed - the military has been driven back each time.
The last and probably most important is that Turkey has always been closer to being "westernized" in its dealings - mostly due to the Ottomans - and their culture shows it - where most Islamic society is based on "duty" the Turkish have transcended that and incorporated "rights" which are not very Islamic in nature.
For all of this their democracy is still a very frail entity just as most are for newer (last 300 years) countries that have gone that direction.
The problem in Iraq is that you have three very distinct sects of Islamic thought that conflict with each other - the British tried to unite them using chemical warfare attacks on one of the sects back in the 1920s - and ended up looking like every other "invader/occupier" that has attempted to run Iraq over the last few thousand years