Religious parties in a democracy

Ok, I am revealing a little bit of my inner geek here, but the way I learn about the world is not Time Magazine or the Washington Post like most people, but rather by reading the geopolitical intelligence reports from Stratfor (the same place many US Presidents turn) and to research journals like Democratization.  These sources tend to be a lot more comprehensive, objective, penetrating.  But a lot harder to read because they are long and use lots of scholarly language. 

The latest of Democratization was a special issue that brought together a series of papers from some of the leading experts around the world on religious political parties.  The researchers are all from different places and so they have very different ideas (hence the more objective perspective you get when you read them all). 

The impetus for the collection was the Arab Spring and how the different Muslim Brotherhood parties are handling their newfound power in Egypt, Tunisia, Syria, etc.  For example, why did the Muslim Brotherhood in Tunisia put together a broad, pluralistic coalition while the Egyptian Brotherhood decided to become the autocrat they replaced? Is it because of the way the party had been treated over the last few decades by the former leadership/society?  Or because of the values of the society itself?  Or socio-economic differences?  Or was it due to differences in the parties?  The extremity of their religious views?  Their conservative/progressive political stance independent of their religion?  How connected they are to the military? If they were a minority part of a governing coalition in the past (and got a taste of governance)?  If they have a nationalistic ideology? 

It is really hard to do valid research in this area because there are no control groups.  Do these studies used a case study method and looked all over the world (I was shocked by how many religious parties there are around the world), including India, Northern Ireland, Italy, Chile, Turkey, Israel as well as the Arab Spring examples.  It is really the questions that they raised that I found interesting:

·         What would you think of a party that has extreme religious views but believes in pluralistic governance (compared to the moderately religious party that wants total control)?

·         What about a party with a great deal of support from the general population but dominates the military and favors a militaristic foreign policy?

·         What about a party that wants to force the whole country to follow its religious laws and practices, but those laws and practices happen to be very open and tolerant (allows same sex marriage, feeds the hungry, etc)?

More questions than answers, but I found this to be really good food for thought.

The Zimmerman verdict is about the threshold of evidence, not racism in America

I was going to hold back because everyone seems to be so emotional about the Zimmerman verdict.  But I have to present this, because it is a completely different perspective on this case. 

This is what struck me from this whole fiasco.  Both groups, the passionate individuals demonstrating in support of Treyvon Martin and who were so sure that George Zimmerman should have been convicted of Murder One and the equally passionate individuals demonstrating that Zimmerman was the victim of overzealous prosecution, were making the SAME BIG MISTAKE.

We live in a legal system based on a standard of reasonable doubt based on the evidence presented in court.  How many of us were in that court?  Were you?  I wasn't.  Neither were any of the people demonstrating - from either side. 

What does this tell us?  It doesn't tell us if the verdict was correct or not.  But it does tell us that NO ONE - Not the people on one side or the people on the other side - NO ONE can say that the verdict should have gone one way or the other.  Not you and not me.  Because we didn't see the evidence that was presented in court.  And so we can't say if that evidence meets the standard of convincing a jury of 12 U.S. citizens beyond a reasonable doubt that he was guilty of a strict legal definition of murder or manslaughter as explained to them in court. 

We can read the judge's instructions to the jury, and we can even read transcripts of the testimony at some point.  But we can't put ourselves in the place of the jury who were required to look into the eyes of the few witnesses and determine whether they were convincing or not.  Beyond a reasonable doubt.

My heart tells me the George Zimmerman went way over what he should have.  He was a neighborhood watch member who was pretending to be a cop.  He was looking for trouble.  He should not have been there in the first place.  He should not have gone after Treyvon.  And he definitely should not have shot his weapon.  This is a great example of why we need stronger gun laws.  But I also think that there are a gazillion scenarios in which the testimony would not reach the standard of reasonable doubt, even if he really was guilty of murder in the absolute sense.  I can also imagine scenarios in which it would have.  But since I was not in the courtroom, I don't know either way.  And neither do you.  And neither do any of the people demonstrating.

So I think it is great if they are demonstrating for something productive.  Perhaps they could demonstrate for programs to get better race relations.  Or to mandate better training for neighborhood watch volunteers.  Or for more volunteering in one's community.  But death threats to Robert Zimmerman (George's brother)?  Or even the people who are so sure that Zimmerman should have been found guilty and the verdict is just another example of institutionalized racism in the US.   This is ridiculous.