No religious structures on public land

This was very long overdue and something that every secular Liberal Democracy has to take on board. Keep religion firmly in the private area. You want to worship your god, your pasta, your goddesses or your wood, then you do it in your own time, in your place. I quote:

Stating that state government cannot let “personal faith” eat up public space for fear of provoking religious sentiments, the Supreme Court ruled on Monday that no new constructions of “temples, mosques, churches and gurdwaras will be allowed on public parks, public streets and public spaces.”
“The court is going to be very strict on this ban, even if it gives rise to a law and order problem. We are making it abundantly clear that any fresh construction is banned,” ruled the Bench led by Justices Dalveer Bhandari and A K Patnaik.
“Non-compliance with the order, whatever be the problem within a state, you (state government concerned) will be in great difficulty,” the Bench cautioned a battery of standing counsel representing various state governments.
The Bench also passed a sweeping order that no courts in the country will entertain any complaints against the apex court’s ban, thus closing all avenues for protests by religious groups or private individuals. “Regarding the gravity of the matter, we direct that no order which is inconsistent with our order of ban be passed,” the court ruled.
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“Chief Secretaries must ensure total compliance of our orders, any breach will be viewed seriously by this court,” warned the Bench. The fate of the existing unauthorised structures will be decided on a “case to case basis” by the state governments.
Today’s order follows an earlier ruling passed on September 29, when the apex court had banned construction of unauthorised religious places of worships on public land. The Bench passed the order after finding that the states had hardly taken any action to implement the ban.
The Bench has asked Chief Secretaries to either file affidavits within six weeks swearing that the ban has been implemented in every district of their state, or be present in court with an explanation.

More on who speaks for Islam

Remember my previous post when I expressed my sorrow that British Muslims and their organisations spend more time in slamming each other? And when they do get together, they spend their time on silly stuff like this. And again it happened. A new organisation has been set up,  British Muslims for Secular Democracy, something that is very creditable indeed, but fairly typically and one could have predicted it, up pops somebody or even here to say that they are not part of Islam or that they do not represent British Muslims. The amusing thing is, who are these guys to say that? whoops, I am not supposed to ask that, am I? Truly tragic. How on earth do the personalities matter? Look at the argument, the communication. Again, fairly typical, and tragically something that is very common.

Technorati Tags: Secularism,United Kingdom,Muslims,Islam

Secular Schools cannot be setup in the UK - WHY?

Read and weep, I have no words to describe this bizarre situation. And then people moan about the fact that religious education is proliferating in the country.

Well, if you do have an issue, then stop all religious education, because if you are not consistent, then what kind of values do you support? Either the government supports all religions or supports none. Given the problems that religious education provides, I support secular education. If you want to get religious education, then go do it on your own time, in your own temples, mosques and churches.

Technorati Tags: Education , Secularism , United Kingdom

Turkish military expels officers

Now here's an interesting situation. Turkey's army does not like islamists. And calls any form of islamist behaviour as treasonous and reactionary. And chucks them out with no further ado. On the other hand, we see a strange sort of similar behaviour in the US Army.

See what the Washington Post has to say about this and I quote, "A military watchdog group is asking the Defense Department to investigate whether seven Army and Air Force officers violated regulations by appearing in uniform in a promotional video for an evangelical Christian organization.In the video, much of which was filmed inside the Pentagon, four generals and three colonels praise the Christian Embassy, a group that evangelizes among military leaders, politicians and diplomats in Washington. Some of the officers describe their efforts to spread their faith within the military." Will these chaps be court martialled and chucked out for being reactionary? :) Same thing in Pakistan as well. That army's lead by people who dont really like islamists, the islamists have this sad tendency to try to knock off the Army leadership. But then people call the Pakistani Army leaders as liberals, which is at variance to what I think Liberalism is all about.

But here's a question for all who want to keep their armies firmly secular and rid of any of this religious nonsense. In USA, Pakistan and Turkey, the incidence of religious thought and fevrour is rabidly rising. So just HOW in the name of all that's holy do they expect their new soldiers and officers to be secular? Import them from Mars? This is a tough call and something that will keep on making waves in the future.

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Turkey's secular military expelled 10 officers for being "reactionary" — a euphemism for Islamist activities — along with 13 others accused of lack of discipline, an official said Sunday.

The military, a strong supporter of Turkey's secular standing, ousted the 10 officers for "reactionary activities," the military official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to media.

The phrase "reactionary activities," usually refers to alleged ties to religious groups or a religious agenda seen as a threat to the nation's secularist tradition.

It was the first time the Higher Military Council disclosed the number of those expelled on that specific allegation. In the past, it only released the total number of dismissed officers and gave no other details, the Milliyet newspaper said.

The Zaman newspaper, known for its religious readership, reported that Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Defense Minister Vecdi Gonul signed the council decision, but that they disagreed with it.

Erdogan's Justice and Development Party — which the opposition says has a secret Islamic agenda to scrap secularism — won more than 46 percent of votes in the July 22 elections.

Erdogan and other party officials have repeatedly denied the allegations made against them, pointing to entry talks with the European Union as proof.

The military dismissed 13 other officers because of behavior disrupting discipline which harms the military's prestige, newspapers reported.

The military has expelled hundreds of officers for alleged ties to leftist or Islamist groups since 1996.

Iraqi attitudes continue to shift toward secular values or are they?

Here are two stories, both from respected organisations, both claiming diametrically opposite views. The first one, based on a survey, claims that Iraqi's are becoming a nation, increasingly secular and nationalistic. The other one is claiming that this nationalism view is rare and despite the football victory, its going down the toilet. How is it possible that such a wide divergence takes place? Well, the clue lies in the survey, as you can see, the survey was primarily carried out in Baghdad, a cosmopolitan place anyway, so one would expect that secularism and nationalism, so close to the levers of power, would be but normal.

But as we have seen, the challenge to the nation of Iraq is coming not from Baghdad itself but from outside. See here for a previous essay on the future of Iraq.

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Aug. 2, 2007
Iraqi attitudes continue to shift toward secular values

ANN ARBOR, Mich.—The political values of Iraqis are increasingly secular and nationalistic, according to a series of surveys of nationally representative samples of the population from December 2004-March 2007.

Findings from a July 2007 survey are expected to be released before the end of the summer.
Click image to see slideshow of charts

So far, the surveys show a decline in popular support for religious government in Iraq and an increase in support for secular political rule, said sociologist Mansoor Moaddel, who is affiliated with Eastern Michigan University and the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research (ISR).

"Iraqis have a strong sense of national identity that transcends religious and political lines," Moaddel said. "The recent out-pouring of national pride at the Asian Cup victory of the Iraqi soccer team showed that this sense of national pride remains strong, despite all the sectarian strife and violence."

In the March 2007 survey, 54 percent of Iraqis surveyed described themselves as "Iraqis, above all," (as opposed to "Muslims, above all" or "Arabs, above all") compared with just 28 percent who described themselves that way in April 2006. Three-quarters of Iraqis living in Baghdad said they thought of themselves in terms of their national identity, as Iraqis above all.

"This is a much higher proportion than we found in other Middle Eastern capitals," said Moaddel, adding that such high levels of national identity may counteract tendencies to split the nation based on sectarian differences.

The surveys conducted in December 2004 and April 2006 were supported by grants from the National Science Foundation to U-M political scientists Ronald Inglehart and Mark Tessler. Moaddel collaborated on those surveys, then added some of the same questions to an October 2006 survey of 7,730 Iraqis supervised by the Multinational Forces Assessment Effects Group. In March 2007, Moaddel collaborated with Iraqi social scientist Munqith Daghir, adding the same questions to another survey of 7,411 Iraqis. The surveys were conducted by a private Iraqi research group headed by Daghir, the Independent Institute for Administration and Civil Society Studies.

The proportion of Shi's, Sunnis and Kurds interviewed in each of the surveys was roughly representative of their presence in the population, according to Moaddel.

Overall, only 18 percent of those surveyed in October 2006 thought that having an Islamic government where religious authorities have absolute power is "very good," compared with 26 percent surveyed in December 2004.

About a third of those surveyed in March 2007 strongly agreed that Iraq would be a better place if religion and politics were separated, compared with 24 percent in December 2004.

Additionally, Moaddel found a significant increase from April 2006 to October 2006 in the percent of Iraqis who gave six religious political parties a very unfavorable rating.

"The escalating violence in Iraq gives a bleak impression of that country's future," Moaddel said. "Sectarian conflict seems to be increasing on a daily basis, with militias massacring hundreds of Sunnis and Shi'is solely on the basis of their religious identities.

"Yet it would be a mistake to think that this bloodlust represents widespread sentiment among Iraqis as a whole. While neither American nor Iraqi security officials have yet found a way to tame the militias, the Iraqi public is increasingly drawn toward a vision of a democratic, non-sectarian government for the country."



Related Links:

U-M Institute for Social Research

Independent Institute for Administration and Civil Society Studies

Mansoor Moaddel



Contact: Diane Swanbrow
Phone: (734) 647-4416


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A winning goal, then back to war

Aug 2nd 2007
From The Economist print edition

The euphoria of a footballing victory faded fast

JUST when it looks as if salvaging a unified Iraq will be hopeless, there comes a reminder of how strongly many Iraqis still want to live together in a single nation. Iraq's 1-0 victory over Saudi Arabia in the final game of the Asian Cup in Jakarta on July 29th set off a wave of celebrations. Fans ignored the danger of car bombs (which had killed 50 after the Iraqi victory in the semi-finals) as well as the risk of falling bullets (fired into the air to celebrate despite a ban) and poured onto the streets. After the semi-finals, crowds waved the Iraqi flag in the northern city of Arbil, where it is normally denounced by the Kurds as the symbol of the army which waged genocidal war against them. And children in the militantly Shia Baghdad slum of Sadr City chanted the name of Younis Mahmoud, the striker whose goal won the game and who is a Sunni.

Such outpourings of Iraqi nationalism are rare, but they happen. Often they follow a tragedy, such as when Sunnis risked their lives diving into the Tigris to save hundreds of Shia pilgrims who fell into the river after the collapse of a bridge in 2005. At other times they act to prevent a tragedy, such as when Shia clerics called on their followers, apparently successfully, not to retaliate against innocent Sunnis after the second bombing of the al-Askari shine in Samarra in June of this year. Iraqis will also occasionally speak of smaller, more private acts of national unity, such as Sunnis caring for their Shia neighbours' houses after the latter have been run out of them by insurgents.

In honour of the win, the Sunnis' main coalition, the Iraqi Consensus Front, put off a decision on whether to withdraw from the Shia-led government, so as not to spoil the day's joy. A lovely sentiment. But on August 1st it decided—and it withdrew.

The footballing victory has therefore done little to overcome a political deadlock that has stymied proposed legislation on oil sharing and a partial roll-back of the purge that threw many members of the former ruling Baath party out of their jobs. The glow of sporting glory faded further when Iraq's parliament announced that in spite of the continuing strife it would take a month's break in August. And on the first day of that month the bombers were back. More than 60 people were killed in two bombings in Baghdad.