Declan Walsh is the latest to write a piece making
comparisons between what is happening in Egypt at this time and what happened
in other countries where Islam is the predominant religion. His piece came
under the title: “Other Nations Offer a Lesson to Egypt 's Military Leaders” and was
published in the New York Times on August 25, 2013. While there is merit in
some of the writings I have seen so far, one important consideration has
escaped those writers. It is one consideration but it is a complex one, and it
will take a full treatment to explain it.
It is easy to observe that differences exist in what people
do with the ideas they acquire from others, and those they generate themselves.
To simplify our probe into this observation, we set aside the role that
immaturity may play in this matter, and assume that everyone we study has
attained a level of maturity considered to be at least average for their age.
This point made, we can tell that the response to a new idea
as exhibited by a person will be based on both the personal and societal
traits. That is, the family circumstances around which the person grew up will
affect his responses because this is what shapes the personal traits of an
individual. Also, the culture to which the person and the family belong will
affect his responses because culture is what shapes the traits of a society,
which in turn, will help shape the responses of the individual who is raised in
that society.
So now the question remains: What do people do with the
ideas they acquire from others versus the ideas they generate themselves? Well,
as any teacher will tell you, students can be placed in one of two broad
categories. There is the category of students who learn by rote without generating
ideas of their own. And there is the category of students who generate their
own ideas every time you introduce them to something new.
And what you will see happen is that the students who learn
by rote will be so attached to what they have acquired, they will consider the
ideas to be as absolute as dogmas. In contrast, the students who are capable of
generating ideas of their own will not shy away from playing with every new
idea they are exposed to. They will dissect it, shape it, put it back together
and reshape it to see what can be done with it. In this sense, every new idea
becomes a catalyst that prods these people to generate new ideas.
As they grow older, the students who learned by rote at an
early age will consider every new idea they meet as being absolutely good or
absolutely bad depending on the set of beliefs to which they belong, and will
stubbornly hang on to their conclusion as if it were a dogma. As to the
students who learned by mixing the ideas they acquired with those they generated
themselves – well, these students will mull over every new idea that is thrown
at them, and will question how much validity there is in it. They will hang on
to it as long as they feel comfortable, and will drop it the moment it begins
to cause them discomfort.
As it happens, the observations thus described are not only
applicable to individuals but to an entire society as well – however big or
small it may be – as long as it is cohesive enough to have developed a set of
common values. More specifically, a society may in general hang on to what is
called conservative values, and refuse to let go of them even when the winds of
change come blowing in its direction. In contrast, another society may in
general have adopted what is called liberal values, and be amenable to try
anything new that the winds of change choose to blow in its direction.
Of all the values that play a role in a society, nothing
seems to be more prevalent or more powerful than religion. It may be a system
of beliefs, but religion is also a set of ideas and as such, it can be learned
by rote or it can be used as catalyst by a society that is capable of doing
independent thinking. But there is a paradox here that can confuse the
observer. It is that a society that has adopted liberal values can still hang
on to religion, while a society that has adopted conservative values can treat
religion lightly. America is
an example of the first; Germany
an example of the second. History plays a big role here but I shall not get
into it at this time.
What I shall take up is the role that religion plays in the
Muslim countries. It happened that two Arab speaking countries, Algeria and Egypt , have rejected the idea of a
Muslim based form of government. Other Arab governments, including the Hashemite Kingdom
(Jordan ) and the Hejaz (Saudi Arabia ,)
have given their blessings to that rejection. At the same time, however, you
have non-Arab Pakistan , Afghanistan , Iran ,
entities of the Caucasus and Turkey
adhere to that religion more fanatically than the Arabs themselves. Why?
The answer to that question is deceptively simple. Islam is
learned by studying the Koran in Arabic, its original language. The people who
are not born with Arabic as their language, learn the Koran by rote. What they
learn becomes the dogma they feel inadequate to question even if they are
allowed to do so. As to the Arabs, the Koran may contain the principles of
their religion, but it is also a set of ideas that can be interpreted by the
beholder. In fact, depending on how much education an individual has, the Arabs
do spend time debating each other's interpretation of the Koran. They do so
privately, and they do it publicly on television and through the other media.
Thus, we are faced with a situation in which conservative Saudi Arabia has welcomed Egypt 's rejection of an Islamic form of
government while more liberal minded Turkey
has condemned Egypt 's
choice.
What writers such as Walsh do is speculate about what the
rival generals may or may not do to each other but neglect to take into
consideration what ordinary people will do in response.