A small note on nuclear weapons and "Islamic norms"

Arguabley it is a contentious issue as to whether or not Muslims should adopt "democratic" forms of government. From an historical perspective, it is a powerful argument to embed the formation and creation of democracies within the histories of Christian Europe and its outposts in North America and Australia.

1. It is powerful for those who advocate that endorsing "democracy" is tantamount to an attack on "Islamic norms".
2. It is an equally powerful argument for those who advocate that Islamic societies and thought cannot cope with what democracy brings ("pluralism", "secularism", "civil rights", etc).

These are important topics of debate. But not the main thrust of my post. My post relates to the endorsement of nuclear weapons by people who make argument number (1). If indeed "democracy" is solely attached to Christian European histories then why do they also endorse the use of technologies that have been created out of the same histories? We now know that science and technology, though not completely relativistic like some postmodernists would have us believe, are related to how societies and cultures view themselves and the world around them.

So if Islamic norms dicatate a particular form of government then there are also Islamic norms that dictate particular forms of conduct in warfare. Suffice to say that nuclear bombs would destroy a lot more than crops, cattle and monks in monestaries. So my question, to those who advocate (1) and endorse nuclear weaponary; why choose one norm over the other? Isn't this itself a relativistic move?

I can quite understand the geopolitical world in which Muslim countries (e.g. Pakistan, Iran) operate and so wish to obtain nuclear weapons. But then this Machiavellian logic is the outcome of the "secular politics" that is rejected by the same people advocating (1). So again we have a tension in the claim to uphold "Islamic norms" in one hand, yet on the other hand the eager appropriation of weapons came from a context and were created by histories and societies that are also inimical to Islamic norms and values.

Comments

[haroon]

Or could a 'Muslim' state simply refuse to assert or deny that it had nuclear weapons, thereby creating the possibility in the minds of other nation-states and therefore re-creating deterrent capacity. Of course, it has to be believable -- it can't be Qatar claiming as much, no one would believe it (no offense to Qataris. Hey, you have al-Jazeera!)

That is to say, what's the position on claiming something as a necessary evil? Of course, I don't think one can say democracy is as much of an attack on our norms as nukes or WMDs are, but then that throws open the floodgates. Some people tolerate some aspects of democracy, not all; some people see it as a necessary though not desired institution, a stop-gap, a mechanism to create a broad social alliance to remove a disliked government and create a free space for Islam's operation.

For that matter, what is a WMD?

[eteraz]

Its a good argument you make. Science emerges from a secular history. Nukes arise from western history. Islam is not secularism, so nukes are not Islamic. I'm smiling again.

But, uh, a lot of people I know would say that winning is Islamic, so nukes are Islamic.

peace.

[praktike]

A good question.

My answer, from an agnostic American's perspective, mind you, would be that people are usually fairly quick to jettison their beliefs when it suits their interests.

This post by Matthew Yglesias was about Social Security, but I think that the theory of ideology he lays out is broadly applicable.