2025-10-20

The Feeble Struggle of Islamic Moderates Against Radicalists

Updated section 2 on the influence of traditionalist and radical influencers on Muslim communities throughout the world, discussing 15 example countries where centrist policies cannot be enacted, for fear of radicalist responses. https://www.humanreligions.info/islam_moderates.html

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2 comments:

Vexen Crabtree said...

In many Islamic countries, Muslims want milder religious laws and elsewhere, the educated elites who run Muslim countries are often more liberal than the people that they manage; Fareed Zakaria gives examples of this in Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar, Bahrain, Jordan and Morocco: 'On virtually every political issue, the monarchs are more liberal than the societies over which they reign'. But almost everywhere, radicals, fundamentalists and extremists command an overriding power, constraining moderates both above them in government, and around them in the wider population.

Vexen Crabtree said...

Radicals can command a power of challenge that makes it impossible for governments to ease towards centrism. Palestinian Prime Minister Arafat in 2001 could not accept the Camp David accord because it would be the trigger that Hamas needed to mobilize support and take over the government. President Mubarak's typical response to pressure from Western leaders against human rights abuses in his country, is that to try and open up will mean that Islamic fundamentalists "will take over Egypt". Even the powerful Saudi monarchy says it is constrained by powerful radicalist movements. Well-organized extremist minorities manage to 'achieve a political influence greatly disproportionate to their numbers in society'.