Quote:
Originally Posted by Cowperson
Just a drive-by I couldn't resist . . . .
The notion that Iraq was a secular state, by the definition we might apply to that word, is exceedingly overbaked.
I posted this earlier in the year . . . .
Well, secular in our part of the world is certainly a different thing than secular in the Muslim world. You can google any number of Saddam speeches and find they all look like this one, a guy clearly pandering to the religious crowd. Read the whole thing . . . it wasn't an uncommon raving for him during his reign. In fact, most of his speeches look like this one (two pages):
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,877046,00.html
Google "Saddam, speeches, Allah, God" and you'll get pages of the stuff.
Its also very similar to what you see from President Mushareff of Pakistan, another guy that people on our side of the pond see as some kind of secularist.
Also, if you can find a speech from Saddam where he talks in a secular manner about women's rights, freedom of religion, etc, then please post it.
Deeds are different than words of course and it might be said that Saddam's Iraq was certainly more secular when compared to other Muslim countries in the region . . . . but probably no where near what we would term secular.
The last thing he wanted was Islamists taking hold – see his multiple wars with Iran.
I think its pretty clear that secularists and Islamists alike in that part of the world have ideas about the running of their own country that could be completely opposite of their ideas of how to keep their neighbours weak and fractured.
Iraq invaded Iran, not the other way around.
Cowperson |
Might want to take a look at his actual policies, as opposed to speeches. Even a dictator gives speeches that pander to his audience base, which, despite his secular ambitions, was still distinctly Islamic. And as much as possible, he tried to work in references to pre-Islamic Mesopotamian figures, such as Nebuchadnezzar, creating a sense of Iraqi national identity that he hoped would eventually be stronger than religious allegiences. No doubt he turned increasingly to Islamic rhetoric in the years following the first gulf war as a way of trying to keep his power base.
Early in his reign, he abolished many of the Sharia courts, and his constitution did provide significant rights and freedoms to women, including an aggressive literacy campaign for all youths. Maternity, custody, and workplace rights for women were all well beyond any Islamic neighbours. At the same time, the Ba'ath did dismantle several women's rights groups in the country. Typical of the Ba'ath party, it's always been more about maintaining power and removing possible objectors, rather than about any particular ideology. Which is why he was so against al qaeda: as a popularist islamic movement, they were a legitimate threat to Hussein's power, and probably forced him to resort more frequently to fundamentalist dogma (post gulf-war) in his speeches and policies as a way of mitigating that threat.