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[DJ]

The West has lost too much credibility there to do any pushing in the right direction. I suppose if it advocated sharia the people might turn against it

And even internally forced secularism, like in Turkey, breeds resentment and is a set up for yoyoing back to religious extremism. You just can't radically change the politics without changing the culture, and culture can be too chaotic to control.

[Ancre]

Yeah, I agree with DJ here. There's nothing we can do, and I'm not even sure we should do anything. After all, it's their country, their government, their decision to make, not ours, and I don't see why we should intervene if we don't like their choice. In the same way I would be pretty annoyed if the lybians tried to tell us what to do.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

I disagree. NATO definitely gained favor with Tunisia and Libya for the intervention. The kinds of influence we can use without them backfiring are supporting progressives in the area and helping to protect the Arab Spring states against backlash from the remaining members of the old order. It will take time, but less time than a hands-off approach will. Modern values are infectious, and exposure will lead to propagation without forcing anyone's hand.

And even internally forced secularism, like in Turkey, breeds resentment and is a set up for yoyoing back to religious extremism. You just can't radically change the politics without changing the culture, and culture can be too chaotic to control.

I don't know about that. Ataturk did pretty much everything right that one can do in attempting to accelerate the fall of a traditional society in exchange for a modern one. I can't really find any other examples that match what he did with any measure of success.

I believe Turkey will stand. What we're seeing there now is analogous to the rise of the religious right in the US during the 70s. Scary and possibly able to get some things their way, but ultimately doomed to failure.

[Sheb]

Well, they don't think Sharia law should be implemented, they think law should be based on Sharia. So yeah, adultery is going to be illegal, alcohol will be illegal or very strictly regulated, but I don't think we'll see any stoning of chopping hands.

[andrea]

I don't think we should judge too harshly about that. after all, you can still see the influence of christian values in western nations.
laws arise from culture. it is natural that religion plays a role. What matters is how big this role is.

[kaijyuu]

Well, it's still bad that there's religious influence. Expected? Sure. But still bad.

[Zangi]

Need not look further then the Republican party and Israel to see religious influence upon a nation.

[palsch]

One issue with completely stripping Sharia law is that you do need some new base of law to build the new system on.

Sharia (or rather Fiqh) is the underlying legal system and philosophy behind the whole legal system in much of the Islamic world. This is comparable to common law (in most of the English speaking world and commonwealth) and civil law (in the rest of Europe and non-English ex-colonies). Even when entirely new countries have sprung up (like Israel) they have been based on one of these underlying legal concepts. Even Socialist law was a modified version of civil law and has arguably entirely merged back into a simply variation of civil law again.

It seems very unlikely to me that an Islamic nation would entirely abandon Fiqh/Sharia as the underlying basis of their legal system for one of the western/European origin systems. So at some level we are going to have an underlying Sharia system.

The question is much more what a nation's laws are rather than whether or not Sharia is the underlying philosophy. I've read modernist arguments that suggest the death penalty should be forbidden under Sharia (similar to how Jewish leaders effectively abolished the death penalty despite it being effectively mandated by a plain language reading of their religious legal texts).

[MetalSlimeHunt]

I don't think we should judge too harshly about that. after all, you can still see the influence of christian values in western nations.
laws arise from culture. it is natural that religion plays a role. What matters is how big this role is.

Here's the thing, though: Western law has become disconnected from Christianity. Even in European nations where there is still a state church, the influence is more often state-to-church instead of church-to-state, and said state churches are a dying breed. Norway abolished theirs not long ago, if I recall correctly. Even in the USA, the most religious nation in the western world, has a strict separation of church and state that is being enforced better all the time. Religion is slowly weakening in the west, and has been for some time now.

Islamic law is in virtually the opposite position. Religion is a statically present and absolute way of life that is part of the government by nature. Islam has a wider social scope in the present than Christianity has had for a couple hundred years. It is all encompassing and very socially powerful. Islam is probably one of the strongest social structures to have ever existed, given how long it has lasted and how little it has changed or fractured, relatively speaking.

[Il Palazzo]

Islam is probably one of the strongest social structures to have ever existed, given how long it has lasted and how little it has changed or fractured, relatively speaking.

Have you heard of Judaism?

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Islam is probably one of the strongest social structures to have ever existed, given how long it has lasted and how little it has changed or fractured, relatively speaking.

Have you heard of Judaism?

Here's the thing, though. Judaism is considered to be an ethnic religion, small and stable by nature. Islam is a universalizing religion, and universalizing religions tend to grow quickly but fracture often.

[ChairmanPoo]

Here's the thing, though. Judaism is considered to be an ethnic religion, small and stable by nature. Islam is a universalizing religion, and universalizing religions tend to grow quickly but fracture often.

A devil's advocate kind of forumnite would argue here that we haven't had so many universalizing religions to make sureproof predictions on how they evolve :p

(Also: Islam is very fragmented)

[SalmonGod]

Not sure I agree with you about the separation of church and state stuff here in the U.S., MSH.  I think younger generations are growing more secular, but the current power structures are increasingly fundamentalist.  In a decade or two, it will start phasing out... but at this moment, our separation of church and state feels very weak to me.

[kaijyuu]

Depends what you're comparing it to. Other first world states... moderately weak. The rest of the world/previous human history, our separation of church and state is great.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Not sure I agree with you about the separation of church and state stuff here in the U.S., MSH.  I think younger generations are growing more secular, but the current power structures are increasingly fundamentalist.  In a decade or two, it will start phasing out... but at this moment, our separation of church and state feels very weak to me.

In Germany, there is a government sponsored church tax. In the UK, the Church of England controls many schools and has permanent spots in the House of Lords. In Denmark, there is a state church.

Trust me, separation of church and state is strong here. It is strong because it needs to be strong to fend off our religious people. Why do you think fundamentalists are complaining all the time? They know they've lost ground. What they don't know is that they'll probably never get it back.