Their biggest mistake

TFTD: The increasing militancy and radicalisation on the Muslim streets today is sometimes described as a reaction, in part, to the brutality with which the Muslim regimes treated the Islamic groups in their infacy, decades ago. It is said Islamism thrived in the environments these regimes created.

What was the Muslm regimes' biggest mistake? Was it their...

a) ...inexorable hostility to religious expression and political Islam in paticular?
b) ...incompetent governance and corruption?
c) ...confiscation of basic rights and freedoms?
d) ...subservience to the world powers?

... or something else?

You've highlighted all their mistakes; one cannot be said to be worse than another. The interaction between these actions has led to complex social phenomena and brought about the societies we see today. It is sufficient to say that good governance arises from competence and that issues C, D, and A are examples of incompetence in government. The biggest mistake was an absence of seriousness and rigour in establishing effective governmental structures which made effective governance non-dependant on the personalities in power.

Alternatively, we may say that the problem is the absence of effective europeanisation; as john stuart mill said, some peoples have an intrinsic limitation to their own development and must be influenced externally in order to become civilised. I'll let everyone else guess the examples that he gave... <br/>(from Morgan Dexter)

But specifically the Islamism/jihadism problem: would that have arisen if the regimes were more "competent"?
Also, just to understand your point better: are the regimes, in your view, a fair reflection of their people? Or should they be singled out for blame?
(to Morgan Dexter)

The regimes do not reflect their people. We must look at the crucible in which the islamist ideology was forged. The socio-political context gave rise to the islamist ideology. It would be unlikely to emerge if there were a stable prosperous society. Nabhani mentions some me the conditions which create a propensity for change in society; corruption, an absence of affluence and suchlike.

These are not the only factors, but what can be said is that the ones which he mentions and others besides are created in the society by the government and its nature. It could simply be said that the rulers were, are, sowing the seeds of islamism and Creating an environment which allows it to flourish by maintaining a socio-political climate where the aspirations me the society are not met.

Originally the people just wanted a good life and wanted the imperialists to stop their interference. Now, if they adopt the islamist ideology, they will want to create a totalitarian expansionist state and shed the blood of anyone who stands in their way. The socio-political climate is forcing people into the arms of islamism and, in turn, islamism is changing their aspirations and expectations regarding their  lives.
(from Morgan Dexter)

Comments

[Chancellor]

think that you got them all their

[Toppled Pyramid]

My view is that incompetent governance lead to subservience of western powers which combined lead to Islamist hotheadism which lead the elite thinking "we can't let these guys get into power, they're nutbags...and so they took away Freedoms and relied more on colonial powers to keep them out, and that lead to the rise of the Islamist hotheadists even more....till today

[muhammad]

you are assuming the regime is sincere to the muslims. i do not think it was a mistake but a diliberate attempt by the regimes with the help of the west to brutalise the muslims.
toppled pyramids understanding of the reality is dillusional.

[Toppled Pyramid]

Mate...Only people who cannot discuss resort to personal assaults...dillusional I may be but,
1) Regimes aren't sincere or insincere, they cannot speak!
2) Regimes don't make deliberate attempts to do anything, they are not human.

PS: I don't principally object to the modern habit of ascribing verbs to entities, but I am very cautious, because if it actually confuses the person into thinking that non-organic things actually DO things...then we're in trouble, like, "well bro, you must be wrong because the reality disagrees with you!!!" er...don't you mean I disagree with you, and want to pretend that my judgement is so infallible that I ascribe it to reality so that I can try and make you feel stupid for trying to challenge me?

Oh, and by the way, the same is done with Islam.."No, you don't understand, Islam says.." trying to make one feel un-Islamic for challenging THEIR DIY view when they don't even speak Arabic!

3) Now that we got that out of the way we can start talking about bad governance, by individuals, who may or may not have been sincere or insincere (which is actually not the point). Bad governance, even if people are sincere, includes and exacerbates subservience to the foreign powers, it's got little to do with sincerity, and so that is not my point.

4) Western politicians and these Muslim Secular politicians don't want to brutalise people for no benefit, they wish to brutalise them if and when it's in their interests to do so. They deemed that keeping hotheads out was in their interests so they brutalised, as did the Islamist hotheads who also are just as pragmatic in their brutality (or are preparing to be if they get into power).

[traveller]

How does one judge sincerety? I mean the prophet was critical of a compnaion judging the sincerety of a man fighting the Muslims who accepted Islam and reverted three times in the battle.

Sincerety is irrelevant anyway whe analysing what happened in something we study called history.

In order to correct someones erroneous perception of history is just to explain why they were wrong.

Historically and till now, the regimes are actually very different, and disparate in their approaches, from my limited travel and experience in several muslim countries in the middle east I have travelled AND lived in discussed with on various levels ranging from generals and ex-generals in the egyptian and jordanian army and also saudi arabia and qatar, and syria, they uniformally have become more represive against Islamic activists due to the jihadist activity (especially Egypt and Saudi) that has happened in tehir countries whilst liberalising certain aspect of political freedoms of recent - although they all uniformally do not allow a criticism of their ruler but of their governmental policies more so, this is the feeling on the streeets of Syria.

I know this from extensive discussion i had with syrians who state that bashar has clamped down on the intelligence and teh police force excess - this was from my syrian damascene acquaintences, many of them from various intellectual and political backgrounds.

I know this is the case in Qatar and Syria from teh media outlets and the newspapers n bith countries after living their for a number of years. They are senstive to extreme radical elements who want to forcefully overthrow their regimes - inevitably - although not to political criticism. This was teh analysis i.e. that an ex-jordanian colonel who resigned befoer being apointed a general gave me.

He was a very religious man who was fed up of being in the army, but said the majority of teh population supported the moderate islamism and of political engagement within the spectrum of the political system and a minority supported the salafi/tahrir mind set - his words -.

So the situation is such that the regimes are continuoesly reacting to the political situation and the internal and international dynamic around them.

Brutality is never accpetable whther it is people want to secure the regimes through killing and torture or people like HT who say in tehir books they would kill millions and make shahid of millions for the sake of thier opinion and ijtiahd of forcing the lands to obey their leader even if there is difference of opinion which they recognise - see how the khilafah was destroyed.

Allah save this ummah from tyrrany at the hands of rulers, and the hands of teh extremists.