Who Gets To Call The Shots?

For John, BLUF:  Are civil rights universal or determined by culture?  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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From The New York Times we have this item, "The Brotherhood Will Be Back", by Shadi Hamidmay.

This article looks at the question of if the Muslim Brotherhood, or other Muslim oriented political groups are done or if they are a part of the political landscape and will remain so well into the future.  The author uses the term "Liberal" in its more classic sense.  From the article:

This poses a thorny question for Western observers:  Do Arabs have the right to decide — through the democratic process — that they would rather not be liberal?

That is a fundamental question.  If a nation has a culture where women are married off by 18 and female circumcision is practiced, what is our right to object?  How about if we have invaded the nation for other reasons?  Are we then free to try and change their culture?

Conversely, should we accept the cultural vision of immigrants with Muslim Brotherhood connections AND Muslim Brotherhood sentiments in the US.  Should we carve out a special Sharia exception in some part of our nation?

As a side note, the author, who appears knowledgeable about politics in Islamic denominated nations shows his fundamental ignorance of the American "Tea Party", but then, that only puts him in the same bin as a lot of Progressives and Media types.

Regards  —  Cliff