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Re: Argentine's elections
Well, I've got to get into this one. And again, I seem to be
debnating with Alex.
>
>
>Victor:
>
>I surely agree with you that the conditions of Mexico today are not
>exactly analogous to the US 100 years ago. I do think, however, that
>countries, on occasion, relive problems and situations which have been
>dealt and done with in the past by others.
>
>An example could be Algeria or Egypt, which are having to deal with
>issues of separation of Church and State which were dealt with by most
>other countries at least a hundred years back.
>
This seems to show how shallow your analogy really is. The conditions of
seperation of church and state in the Islamic world is absolutely the
opposite of that in Christianity. The Catholic tradition established
in the middle ages of church-state integration was first of all not
a complete one--theye had seperate shperes of influence. The problem
in the reformation was that the modern state needed to take over areas
of control that previously had been in the hands of the clergy. Further
more, that seperation is itself rooted in Christian tradition itself--
when Christ was asked whether taxes should be paid to Rome, he uttered
the statement "Give to Ceasars what is Ceasars--give to God what is
God's" (or word to that effect) which established a clear precedent
for a seperation between religious and secular authority. Furthermore,
Christ's doctrine was in itself clearly opposed to the practices
then common of religious involvement in secular affairs--witness the
scene when Christ throws the money changes out of the synagogue. This
is why the Pharasees saw him as a threat--he threatened the secular power
that they had previously enjoyed. Certainly, this situation became
confused under middle-ages Catholicism as the church took over more
and more economic and political power until it was challenged by the
rise of the modern secular state. But I would also emphasize that
protestantism and even the Catholic reaction both emphasized the
interpretation of seperation of church and state--even in Catholic spain
the monarchy made some leeway at taking over some of the role of the
church. In the colonies the power of the church was far greater than
it was even in Europe, leading to the need for a violent overthrow
on the part of the reformist state.
On the other hand, in Islam there is a clear injunction
AGAINST the seperation of church and state. Mohamed was both a religious
AND a secular leader, and the Koran is based on the need to interpret
the moral code of God THROUGH the secular state (as opposed to AGAINST
the secular state (Rome) in the time of Christ). Thus, the legitimacy
of the state is far more related to religion in the Islamic world
than it ever was in the Christian. Christian monarchs claimed a dubious
"divine right", supported by the church, but their authority was clearly
secular--that is, they enforced SECULAR law, not the religious code--
reaching back to the Judaic tradition established in the seperation of
the authority of the Prophets from the Kings (Solomon and David being
concerned with secular rather than religious matters). But Islamic
rulers have to enforce a secular code that has its roots in the Koran
itself. That is, the Koran is both a religious text about our relationship
with God as well as a secular text about the governing of society. The
latter is simply considered an extention of the former. Clearly, this
doesn't mean that the law is etched in stone--the Koran is always open
to interpretation based on the question" what is its meaning in the
current circumstance?--but it does mean that debate about secular
matters cannot be as easily seperated from its religious context as
it has been in the west.
I don't want to make like I'm an expert on these issues. I
just want to clear up a misunderstanding that I think has relevance
in showing the weaknesses in your process of analogy.
>
>
>I'm not sure if I would compare Mexico to the US at any state of its
>_political_ development (I think we have traversed fairly different
>paths). Economically speaking, we might learn a lesson about how the
>power of the Rockefellers got diluted in the US, and went on to create
>a society with a more "democratic capitalism" (TM); and the lesson
>might well be: don't do the same, it was the wrong way to go about it.
>
I agree that we can learn lessons from history--although I'm not sure what
lesson you are refering to in this situation. But those lessons must take
into account the complexity of the current situation. History NEVER
repeats itself, despite what the pundits says--because each situation has
\its own unique set of contingencies. I'm sure that you would agree with
this, and maybe you regret making such a simplistic-sounding statement in
the first place now that we're jumping all over you. In a global context,
for example, the situation in Mexico today is NOTHING like the situation
that the US enjoyed 100 years ago--with millions of acres of "free land"
for the taking (as soon as the army could push all those indians off it),
millions of slaves providing cheap labor that poured into the coffers
of New York financiers and merchants, and millions of immigrants desperate
to find work at any wage. These conditions of "economic growth" were
absolutely unique and absolutely immoral. While we Americans benefit from
the today, I for one find it difficult to reconcile my personal moral
code with these facts.
>Saludos,
>
>Alex
>
Y saludos y lo mejor para ti, tambien.
john
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