This paper discusses the meaning and impact on modernity and then connects secularism and democracy to the modern world. Modernity creates enormous differences resulting in many losers as well as many winners. It is the losers whose identities have become dubious who are causing problems. Secularism and modernism have created a crisis of religious identity.
All of the monotheistic religions have a tendency towards
supersessionism. Each believes it has a special relationship with God
that excludes others. This is the beginning of fundamentalism and
Radical Islam.
Moderate religionists believe in ijtihad (independent thinking) which
is about freedom of thought, rational thinking and the quest for truth
through an epistemology covering science, rationalism, human experience
and critical thinking. The violence behind Religious fundamentalisms is
a very modern phenomenon. They operate and engage within modernity.
I use the term created by Oliver Roy distinguishing between fundamentalists – Jihadists and neo-fundamentalists; the latter term for those that support violence but do not act violently. The Jihadists are comparable to the heresy seekers in ancient times. They will destroy all whom they define as infidels, both Islamic, Christian and secularists.
Democracy has begun to be implemented in Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan
and Egypt the results may not be consistent with the war against
Radical Islam. The war against terrorism may not be consistent with the
American policy of fostering democracy. There is no evidence that it
reduces or prevents terrorism.
As a result of globalization modernism is spreading more quickly that
ever before. It tends to create homogeneous cultural standards. But
cultural differences do matter; some even believe it is the key to
Radical Islam breeding alienation which in turn breeds terror.
The enlightenment, begun at the end of the eighteenth century was based on the questioning of authority. Both the French and American revolutions rebelled against the authority of their respective Kings ultimately rejecting their authority. That long century actually ending after WWI radically changed Europe and created with the United States – the West - the center of the world. Religion – the divine right of Kings – was the basis of monarchal authority. In Judaism the King was never God’s messenger and his power was limited by the Prophet and the Priest. When the Roman Empire converted to Christianity the Pope and Emperor shared powers. The powers of the Holy Roman Emperor ended before the enlightenment. In Islam the Caliph was the political ruler, but not usually God’s messenger. While the Caliphate ended after WWI some radical Muslims (and particularly Osama bin Laden) seek its re-institution.
Modern thought entails the embracing of reason, rationalism, science,
technology and empiricism. Religious authority is based on faith,
belief and tradition. Modernism is nor directly related to values, but
modernism does damage ‘divinely’ revealed wisdom. No religion is
inherently compatible with democracy; believers accept God ordained
absolute values. However some believe that the interpretations of these
values are to be determined by man in a democratic manner (the Talmud
is an example). (It is certainly true that the twin horrors of the
twentieth century –fascism and communism – occurred in enlightened
Europe, they were neither enlightened nor modern as defined above.)
Marshall Berman described modernity as follows:
“great discoveries in the physical world, changing our image of the universe and our place in it, the transformation of scientific knowledge into technology creating new human environments and destroying old ones, . . immense demographic upheavals, severing millions of people from their ancestral habitats . . . cataclysmic urban growths, systems of mass communications . . . mass social movements of people . . striving to gain some control of their lives’ and globalization. (All That is Solid Melts into Air: The Experience of Modernity.)
These enormous differences result in many ‘losers’ as well as many
‘winners’. It is the losers whose identities have become dubious who
are causing problems.
Modernity requires pluralism as the criteria for success is merit
based. It employs the systematic skepticism of the scientific
method to settle important questions of public policy. It encourages
the growth of the free market and individualism, consumerism and gives
individuals the freedom to choose among an ever-expanding range of ways
to satisfy them.
What may be universal is not the desire for democracy (as suggested by
Francis Fukuyama) but rather the desire to live in a modern — that is,
technologically advanced - life which, if satisfied, tends to drive
demands for political participation. Liberal democracy may not be
necessary but it appears to be one of the byproducts of this
modernization process.
Modernity developed in the west over a 500 year period – from the
Renaissance to the Enlightenment to Modernism. When modernity arrived
in the Muslim world it was clearly a foreign concept.
Among the eighteen countries who comprise the Mid East six are
monarchies, seven dictatorships and three with one party government’s
and two participatory democracies. 1 The two democracies are Israel and
non-Arabic Turkey. Consider the fifteen country members of the Arab
League: Mauritania (a small country in northern Africa) was ranked
highest at 81 by the World Audit (2006) in terms of democracy, Egypt
was ranked 104, Syrian 124 and Lybia was last at 148. (Iran, a
non Arab state was ranked 132, Israel 33 and Turkey 62.) 2 The
first seventeen countries in the World Audit were countries in the
Europe Union, the United States, Australia and Canada.
The seventeen leading democratic countries use global and modern
techniques and market economies to create the best education, the best
health systems and far higher incomes for its citizens than the rest of
the world. Given the international information systems this is becoming
known though out the world through the internet. (The Arab world has
the lowest rate of internet users in the world except for Africa.) It
may be that these countries also have the largest breakdown in
traditional values – whether modern or post-modern.
It is clear that modernity and democracy are connected.
Modernity is in some ways unrelated to Secularism or democracy.
Ayatollah Khomeini stated that ‘technical innovations, new products,
new inventions, and advanced industrial techniques which aid in the
progress of mankind, then never has Islam or any other monotheistic
religion opposed their adoption’. 3 This is the same man who purchased
hundreds of thousands of plastic keys manufactured by technological
Taiwan. The keys were hung on the neck of children so when they
martyred themselves against Iraqi land mines and machine gun bullets
they would know that the keys guaranteed that the gates of Heaven were
open to them.
Orthodox – even ultra-Orthodox - Jews in both Israel and America
use modernity and technology to its fullest.
However there is a problem; modernity is opposed to tradition. One of
the major bases of tradition is religious authority; modernity assumes
technical authority. Modernity may be considered anti-traditional.
Modernity creates new principles, tends to foster new political
authority. Modernity requires independent reasoning. Can that be
limited to ‘technical innovations’ and not apply to politics and even
to religion?
Secularism in continental Europe bans religion from public life and confine it to the private sphere. It can best be exemplified by France which banned headscarves in public schools. The other democratic country that bans headscarves in public places is Turkey. France has a cultural belief in integration and assimilation; this differs from multiculturalism in the U.K. and Northern Europe. Multiculturalism not only allowed ghetto life but justified it. It allowed immigrants to believe that they could enforce Sharia law rather than adopt western laws and shared values. July 7 in London suggested that multiculturalism has failed.
The French belief in integration equally failed. Their ghettos (in the
suburbs) are based on poverty. Their immigrants do not understand
themselves as being citizens of the Republic.
The three French schoolgirls who created the headscarf issue by going
to their public school spoke fluent French, did not speak Arabic and
wore modern dress as well as putting on modern scarves. By publicly
claiming a Muslim identity as opposed to a French identity they were
rejecting the French assimilationist ideal of homogeneity. A French
identity is thus inconsistent with a religious believer; that is a
fundamentalist version of secularism.
In the French rioting around the suburbs of Paris (October 2005) they
did not rage about issues of the Middle Eastern (Israeli-Palestinian or
Iraqi) problems, did not burn flags only cars not caring about Muslim
or non-Muslim cars; they were rejecting being treated as
minorities. Very few of them go on a regular basis to the Mosque.
They all spoke fluent French, very few spoke Arabic. Their complaint
was not being considered French and consequently not being able to find
employment.
Both the multicultural and in integration models have failed. (Oliver
Roy, Western Suburbs: The De-Territorialization of Islam, Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace, March 29, 2006)
Secularism is a very broad term implying many things even to religious
thinkers. Harvey Cox in his famous ‘The Secular City’ considers that
‘secularization is the liberation of man from religious and
metaphysical tutelage the turning of his attention away from other
worlds and towards this one.’ 4 It assumes all men and women are
created equal. That is a biblical concept; God created a single couple
from whom the rest of mankind developed. Secularism grants religion
autonomy to all people and gives it the greatest free space.
Secularism seems to imply that religion is a private affair. Perhaps as
Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel noted that while ‘it is customary to blame
secular science and anti-religious philosophy for the collapse of
religion in the modern society. It would be more honest to blame
religion for its own defeats. Religion declined not because it was
refuted, but because it became irrelevant, dull, oppressive and
insipid. When faith is completely replaced by creed, worship by
discipline, love by habit; when the crisis of today is ignored because
of the splendor of the past, when faith becomes an heirloom rather than
a living fountain; when religion speaks only in the name of authority
rather than with voice of compassion, its message becomes
meaningless’. 5
According to the Pew Global Attitude Report (December 2002) 59% of the
population in the United States felt that religion played a very
important role in their lives. In secular Western Europe less than 25%
had that belief. This seems to suggest that America is a religious
(Christian) country and Europe is a secular continent. Islam goes to
another level. In the most populace primarily Islamic countries -
Indonesia 95%; Pakistan 91% and Bangladesh 88% (the three largest
majority Islamic countries in the world) - religion is very important
in people’s lives. (27% of Israeli Jews considered religion important
according to the 2004 census.)
What makes both religious America and secular Europe part of the West
is that both are Modern. Europe is however post-modern accepting moral
relativism. They devalue all traditional morality including even
tolerance. Thus in Europe the Danish cartoon fiasco instead of
accepting freedom of speech as allowing newspapers to criticize
religions the cartoonists were criticized. American being more
traditionally religious believe in the traditional morality once called
Judeo-Christian values.
Another difference between America and Europe is that in America only a
couple percentage of the population is Muslim (double digit percentages
include Hispanic Christians); in Europe the Muslims population borders
on double digits percentage. These ‘guest’ workers are third generation
and French speakers will never be going home, in fact do not have a
home. If as projected Muslims will be close to 30% by 2050 a conflict
between Secular and Muslim Europe – a conflict of religions if not
civilizations - is inevitable. (This may also help explain why European
policy towards Israel and the mid-east differ from American.) It is
likely that within the next decade, European governments will become
more racist and begin to restrict Muslim immigration. America is a
country of immigrants; and as such has created an ideology of
multiculturalism combined with integration; the use of hyphenated
identities (Muslim-American) is quite common. Europe with its separate
nationalities in separate countries never has. There is no European
nationality and no hyphenated Europeans.
The separation of Church and State, a paradigm of secularism is
generally rejected by Muslims. But that separation was never necessary
or complete in Europe. At the end of the middle ages, every European
prince dictated the religious beliefs of his subjects; the sectarian
conflicts following the Reformation led to more than a century of
bloody warfare.
It exists in Christianity owing to the fact that all Church’s have
hierarchies and therefore can be organized as separate bodies. Islam
(with the exception of the minority Shia) do not have a hierarchy and
therefore cannot be organized other than by the political hierarchy.
Separation of Church and State is not synonymous with societies of
‘disbelief’. In fact in the United States where a minimalist position
towards religion persists constitutionally, more people attend Church,
Mosques and Synagogues on a regular basis than in Catholic Italy,
France or Spain or even in Muslim Turkey. In Poland religion used their
power to legitimatize the restoration movement but when they attempted
to control the basis of government authority they failed.
Not all Muslims rejected the separation of the temporal from the
religious worlds even early in the History of Islam. Hasan al Askari
the eleventh Shia Iman (d. 874) stated ‘My deep conviction is that the
Prophet of Islam did not create a state. . . . I believe that Islam can
survive without political power, without a state.’ 6
More recently the Egyptian Islamic cleric and Sheik at Al Azhar
University, Abd al-Raziq wrote the following just before a ‘Congress of
the Caliphate’ in 1926. ‘Muhammad was solely an apostle. He
dedicated himself to purely religious propaganda without any tendency
whatever towards temporal sovereignty, since he made no appeal in favor
of a government. . . the Prophet had neither temporal
sovereignty nor government. He established no kingdom in the
political sense of the word nor anything synonymous with it. . .
. he was a prophet only, like his brother prophets who proceeded him.’
7 Al- Raziq was dismissed for these positions.
Democracy by definition implies that religious believers be guaranteed
freedom to worship. However this is in exchange for non-believers
entitlement not to worship, thus we have the separation of Church and
State. Does religious freedom require religious indifference? Does this
mean that the Hebrew Bible, the Christian Bible and the Koran’s
requirement of justice and mercy can no longer be a demand of the
state? Is a leading Turkish Islamist Ali Bulac correct in calling
secularism ‘Satan imitating God’. 8
The United States is in fact a Christian country, thus public
institutions are closed on Christmas Day. The President rarely ends a
speech without the words ‘God bless America’. In Israel however, a
Jewish State, the Prime Minister rarely mentions God. In Great Britain
the Queen is the ‘Defender of the Faith’. However religion in the
United States and Great Britain is private. In Israel religion freedom
is guaranteed but family law is controlled by each religious community.
Yet all are three countries are Liberal Democracies – although
certainly not perfect in protecting civil rights of all its citizens.
Fukuyama wrote that ‘Modern liberal democracy is based on twin
principles of liberty and equality. The two are in perpetual tension:
equality cannot be maximised without the intervention of a powerful
state that limits individual liberty; liberty cannot be expanded
indefinitely without inviting various pernicious forms of social
inequality. Each liberal democracy thus must make tradeoffs between the
two. Contemporary Europeans tend to prefer more equality at the expense
of liberty, and Americans the reverse, for reasons rooted in their
individual histories. These are differences of degree and not
principle; while I prefer the American version in some ways over the
European one, this is more a matter of pragmatic observation and taste
than a matter of principle.’ 9
Dr. Abdel Wahab Elmessiri, an Islamic intellectual and not a cleric
called this paradigm ‘partial secularism’ and suggests that both
Christian and Muslim thinkers can co-exist with this variety of
secularism. It is what he calls ‘comprehensive secularism’ – ‘the
separation of all values not only from the state, but also from public
and private life, and from the world at large – a value-free world’;
this ‘man-centered’ and ‘nature-centered’ world is, to him as a Muslim’
unacceptable. 10
Secularism may be the only faith to protect all faiths. Secularism and
modernism have created a crisis of religious identity.
All of the monotheistic religions have a tendency towards supersessionism. Each believes it has a special relationship with God that excludes others. Both Christianity and Islam believe that salvation requires their particular belief system. Judaism separates requirements for Jews versus for Gentiles; the former has much stricter ritual requirements than Gentiles.
Supersessionism is based on seeking the differences between the
religions; it is equally possibly to seek commonality. Each of the
Abrahamic religions believes in the Ten Commandments, a system of
ethics. In the Koran all the Ten Commandments are included except
‘protect the Sabbath’ (Sura 17:23-39). The Christian Bible has Jesus
stating that love your neighbor is critical as Rabbi Hillel (the great
Talmudic sage) equally stated.
Jessica Stern notes, there are two sides to religion - "one that is
spiritual and universalist, and the other particularist and sectarian”.
Why do we not seek out the universalist themes rather that the
particularist themes? It is the latter which fosters
fundamentalism.
Judaism has had little governmental power for the last 2,000 years and
thus kept its supersessionism beliefs internal. Christianity used
religion to control the western world and Islam used religion to
control the eastern and Mediterranean world. Christianity adjusted to
the enlightenment, secularism and modernity. But it did not reject
supersessionism towards the Jews until it accepted responsibility
for the Shoah (Nostra Aetate published October 1965 11). Its position
towards Islam is less clear.
Islam has not yet adjusted to secularism and modernity and remains tied
into medievalism. Most Islamic countries are third world, poor and
governed dysfunctionally. Given that Muslims may not yet be able to
reject supersessionism. Indeed these failures may be responsible for
the rise of fundamentalism and Radical Islam. No form of fundamentalism
can tolerate diversity; yet that is one of the signs of modernism.
According to Abdulaziz Sachedina, a devout Muslim non-clerical Shi’ite
scholar ‘[T]he categorization of religiously ordained God-human and
inter-human relationships in Islamic sacred law, the Shari’a, is an
explicit expression of the distinct realms of religious and temporal on
earth.’ 12
Relations between God and humans are based on repentance and
forgiveness. Inter-human transgressions must be redressed if violated
or forgiven by the possessor of the right, if impossible to restore.
Maimonides claims that on Yom Kippur the ‘Day of Atonement’ one may not
ask God’s forgiveness until one has resolved inter-human issues (as do
Islamic jurists13). Violation of human and civil rights are
crimes against religion as ‘they violate the sanctity of the dignity
bestowed by God on humankind’. 14 Sachedina eloquently writes about the
freedom of religion in the Koran. 15 A ‘fatwa’, an interdict, was
issued in order to prevent Muslims from hearing and reading his texts.
For moderate Muslims ‘ijtihad’ (independent thinking) is about freedom
of thought, rational thinking and the quest for truth through an
epistemology covering science, rationalism, human experience and
critical thinking. It is often espoused by non-clerics and particularly
by those who advocate some form of Islamic modernism and liberalism.
They define ‘ijtihad’ more broadly.
Muhammad Imara, a rare cleric still writing believed that Islam ‘as a
religion has not specified a particular system of government for
Muslims, for the logic of this religions suitability for all times and
places requires that matters which will always be changing by the force
of evolution should be left to the rational mind, to be shaped
according to the public interest and within the framework of the
general precepts that this religion has dictated.’ 16
This world-view is unacceptable to the overwhelming majority of Muslim
clerical religious thinkers. Islamic clerics tend to stifle independent
thought and to confine the right to understand and explain Islam to
only other Muslim clerics. It is also opposed to reasoning, because it
believes that reason shall be employed only when the texts are silent
and if no medieval scholar has addressed the issue under scrutiny.
Reason, according to this viewpoint, is the last resort for
understanding the will of God. They believe in group think and for them
individualism is a form of idolatry.
The Koran (as does the Bible) has contradictory views on religious
tolerance. One sura (chapter) states ‘there is no compulsion in
religion’ (2:257) and ‘I have my religion, and you have your religion
(109:6). And ‘if God had wished, He would have made all humankind one
community’ (11:118; 16:93; 42:8). ‘The people were one community (umma)
then God sent forth the Prophets, good tidings to bear and warnings,
and He sent down with them the Book with the truth, that He might
decide the people touching their differences’ (2:213). 17 ‘Our [Muslim]
God and your [Jewish and Christian] God is one; and it is to him we
bow’ (29:46).
Do these not imply the people of the world as one community, prophets
coming from the different religions and books with truth? 18 Does this
not imply tolerance and pluralism?
The Koran, however also states ‘If anyone desires a religion other than
Islam, never will it be accepted of Him; and in the Hereafter he will
be in the ranks of those who have lost (3:85). Muhammad is reputed to
have said ‘he who changes his religion must be killed’ 19 and in
Muhammad’s farewell statement ‘I was ordered to fight all men until
they say, 'There is no god but Allah’ 20
Religious identity creates an ‘us’ and ‘them’. In almost all of the
world’s conflict areas religion is part of the problem not part of the
solution. 21
Religious zealots are not easily assimilated nor do they belief in multiculturalism. In fact they are resolved against co-existence.
The violence behind Religious fundamentalisms is a very ‘modern’ phenomenon. They operate and engage within modernity. Religious fundamentalism, whether Jewish, Christian or Islamic answer similar needs and occupies a shared theology and psychological territory. They all believe in a theological ‘sacredness’ which is inviolable and nonnegotiable and a psychological need that centers in their religious identity. In both Israel – a Jewish state – and Iran – an Islamic state – the issues of being Israeli (as opposed to being Jewish) and being Persian remain contentious.
For religious fundamentalists, the claim is based on the demand that
the word of their God must be taken literally. Fundamentalists are
absolutely certain about their beliefs and destinies. ‘We’, the rest of
us – non-fundamentalists - cannot quite achieve this level of
certitude. Thus fundamentalists believe in religious ideologies that
are always just beyond the grasp of those excluded from their
literalist system of belief. Thus to Hamas believers it is literally
true that God gave to Islam the land that they call Palestine. To
Jewish (and some Christians) believers of the Greater Israel thesis it
is literally true that God gave the land they call Israel to the Jews.
We have our Bible and they have their Koran. A modernist has no way of
proving either belief since scientific proof is a tenet of modernity.
The democratic government of Israel has given up on Greater Israel.
Will Hamas ever acknowledge and agree to live in peace with a Jewish
state that has been established in the midst of the Muslim wafq?
Radical Islamism is a byproduct of modernization itself, arising from
the loss of identity that accompanies the transition to a modern,
pluralist society. It is no accident that so many (in fact almost all)
recent terrorists, from Sept. 11's Mohamed Atta to the murderer of the
Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh to the London subway bombers, were
radicalized in democratic and secular Europe and intimately familiar
with all of democracy's blessings. More democracy is likely to mean
more alienation, radicalization and terrorism.
Islam traditionally divides the world into the Muslim World and the
non-Muslim infidel World. Under the best of circumstances the Muslim
World can only have a truce with non Muslims. This is a form of
imperialism and the height of supersessionism. Can an independent
non-Muslim nation state or civilization develop and maintain a peaceful
relationship with Islam?
The real problem is the violent form of fundamentalism known as Radical
Islam. However it also includes those you support violence even if they
do not themselves act violently. Followers of Saudi Arabia Wahhabism
may not in themselves be violent but have for decades supported violent
fundamentalism. Wahhabism can be understood as a return to medieval
purity and piety. The most quoted Sheiks consider themselves Wahhabees.
(Salafism is a non-Saudi Arabian mutant of the same disease.) Since bin
Laden, 9/11, consistency has reigned between Salafism, Wahhabism and
Radical Islam; they all believe in theological totalitarianism. As an
example it was against the law for President George Bush to bring a
Bible into Saudi Arabia or pray at a thanksgiving dinner at a U.S.
Base. He had his dinner on an American ship.
These Muslim extremists are bent on purging Islam (and the infidel
world) of anyone who does not subscribe to their particularist and
intolerant views. Today Sunni jihadist terrorists in Iraq have begun to
use apostate (‘takfir’) as a rallying cry for violence against the
Shiites as the Shia do against the Sunnis. Ayman –al Zawahiri, the Emir
of Iraq (appointed by bin Ladin), has stated as his objective the
prevention of Iraqi Shiites and Sunnis uniting. Bin Ladin has accused
the Saudi’s (the founders of Wahhabeeism) of apostasy. They
demand the death penalty against apostates.
Oliver Roy called those fundamentalists involved in Violence as neo-
fundamentalist’ while those that support violence but do not act
violently simply as fundamentalists’.22 Both oppose any form of
secularism, modernity (despite using modern techniques) and democracy.
They all believe they alone speak for God and a literalist Koranic
text. They do not believe in any man made innovation.
Neo-fundamentalists do not believe in national or tribal cultures,
different legal schools, philosophies or theologies. They reject all
forms of Occidentalism and Orientalism, Bin Laden the icon of
neo-fundamentalist believes in the universal Caliphate.
Neo-fundamentalists believe only in ‘good Muslims’ – their kind – all
else are infidels and apostates. They are firm believers in Jihad being
required individually by all ‘good Muslims’. They are equally opposed
to the ‘near enemy’, Muslim run states like Saudi Arabia, Egypt and
Israel of course and to the ‘far enemy, the U.S. and Europe.
Fundamentalists as defined by Roy consider Jihad a collective duty, not
an individual duty; neo-fundamentalists consider suicide bombing an
individual duty.
Neo-fundamentalism is an apocalyptic movement one of whose objectives
is the destabilization of the West and everything modern. They wish to
destroy all and begin anew. They are a new version of the medieval
Christian millennium thinkers. Or even earlier ancient thinkers. Think
of the writers of the Dead Sea Scrolls and their absolutist hostility
toward fellow Jews or ancient Christian heresy seekers such as
Augustine hostility towards the Manicheans. The
neo-fundamentalists are defenders of the faith renewing the Crusader
Wars. They believe another Saladin will arise to lead the battle.
These new apocalyptic people appeal to the disenfranchised and
alienated and uprooted - as a new communal identity. They appeal to the
failures of globalization – to those in need of a reconstructed
identity.23
The community these fundamentalists are building is not a polis; it's
what they call an ummah, the global community of Muslims, and it is
open to all who share their faith. (In this way it is comparable to
Communism.) They are global Muslim fundamentalists. The ummah's new
globalists consider that they have returned to the fundamentals of
Islam; much of what passes for Islam in the world, much of what has
passed as Islam for centuries, they think a sham. Roy has observed,
these neo-fundamentalists wish to cleanse Islam's pristine and
universal message from the contingencies of mere history, of local
cultures. For them, Roy notes, "globalization is a good opportunity to
dissociate Islam from any given culture and to provide a model that
could work beyond any culture." It is interesting that both
fundamentalism and globalization disconnect religion and culture.
But societies have always been made of continuities and
discontinuities and the identity of a society survives through
the changes. Progress continues because people and consequently
societies grow. Societies without change are not more authentic; they
just do not know they have died (like the aborigines). Progress is not
evil, it simply is reality.
The neo-fundamentalists identified by Roy claim to be anti-modernists
and yet they use modern techniques. They extensively use the Internet,
chat rooms and cellular messaging, international banking and modern
bombing techniques. They are western trained using modern technical and
analytical skills. They differ from us in having radically different
value systems. They can blow themselves up in the midst of a crowd of
women and children. Christian martyrs were willing to die for their
faith, Jihadists are willing to die for their enemies death.
The Arab world claims to define Islamic identity. Arabism is a culture
not a religion. There are Muslim Arabs, Christian Arabs, Jewish Arabs
and secular Arabs. Arabism is characterized by collectivism rather than
individualism; it discourages dissent and initiative; innovation and
social change and emphases family, clan and tribal cohesion. It would
appear that there is something in Arab political culture that has been
more resistant to democracy. It might well be a cultural obstacle that
is not related to religion, such as the survival of tribalism
Does Islam define its identity as Arabism? Globalism discouraged
exactly these characteristics. Do the Muslims of Indonesia the largest
Muslim country in the world and relatively democratic; define their
political identity so? According to Ralph Peters (‘Rolling Back Radical
Islam’, Parameters, Aug. 2002) only 20% of Indonesian Muslim population
follow the accepted rituals of Sunni Islam. The majority do not speak
or read Arabic, pray to shrines and Saints, drink alcoholic beverages
and few of even the minority wear the burka.
Khaled Kelkal one of the first French Islamic Radical said in a
paraphrase of Al Banna ‘I am not French, I am not an Arab, I am a
Muslim’. Hizb ut-Tahrir, the missionary neo-fundamentalist
organizations states it thus: ‘Our Brotherhood is Real and their
Citizenship is False’. 24 Its motto seems to be ‘If you don't volunteer
to be my brother you should die’.
Radical Islam is an ideology like fascism or communism; none trust
individual human beings or communities to determine their own lives.
They all assume humans will choose the ‘wrong’ alternative. It is a
form of intransigent homogeneity.
Radical Islam will not succeed; anymore than the Luddites in the
nineteenth century could by destroying new machinery. A prosperous
society, in fact desired almost universally by all who are aware of it,
requires technologically advanced modernization. And more and more are
becoming aware daily.
Dr. Wafa Sultan, a Syrian born psychologist stated in an Al Jazeera
T.V. interview: “The clash we are witnessing around the world is not a
clash of religions, or a clash of civilizations. It is a clash between
civilization and backwardness . . . between barbarity and rationality .
. . between human rights on the one hand and the violation of these
rights on the other, between those who treat women like beasts and
those who treat them like human beings."
In March 2006 Abdul Rahman, an Afghan was on a trial for his life for
converting to Christianity. Only the West who have supported
Afghanistan independence with billions of dollars (as well as its
blood) rejected this medievalism, not a single Muslim majority country
publicly rejected this travesty. He was released based on insanity –
after all why else would a Muslim convert to Christianity! He has been
given asylum in Catholic Italy.
Both Sultan and the incident involving Rahman represent medieval ideologies. It is probable that the only way to communicate the reality of the modern world to these imperial theocrats of Radical Islam is the current fight to the death.
We should also distinguish between territorial Jihadists (Iraq,
Palestine, Chechnya, and Kashmir) and theological Juhadists. The former
can be rightly or not be viewed as ‘freedom fighters’, the latter are
simply imperialist terrorists. Recently Nawaf Mousawi, a leading
Hizbollah spokesman said his organization feared assassination at the
hands of the theological Jihadists (Mark Perry and Alastair Cooke, Asia
Times, March 31, 2006).
Conclusion:
Modern ideas have always spread throughout world. The scientific method has much more to offer in the every day reality of people’s lives than older and traditional thought. Thus it was not surprising that according to the United Nations Development Report on the Middle East (2002) in virtually every Arab country a majority of respondents would emigrate to the United States if they had the opportunity. The overwhelming majority of Arab youth aspire more to the values and lifestyles of western societies than those symbolized by austere Jihadists theocrats.
As a result of globalization modernism is spreading more quickly that
ever before. Take China and India as examples of two countries that
represent 40% of the world’s population. Thirty years ago both
countries were poor third world countries. Thirty years from now both
will be superpowers in a multipolar world. There are hundreds of
millions of poor people in these countries who have been left out of
their incredible economic growth. But they do not wish to pull down
those succeeding but to join then; and slowly they will. Jihadists
prefer their hatred bred of resentment to a rational discussion of
improvement. (The changes in India may be particularly interesting
since it has the second largest number of Muslims in the world. While
religious conflict does on occasion break out between Hindus and
Muslims, the level of tolerance in secular India is quite high. The
conflict is largely revolves about disputed Kashmir.) Coping
successfully with globalization is possible for the leaders of China
without what the West defines as liberal democracy. They opted for a
combination of authoritarian and market rules and so far they are
succeeding. Since modernization requires meritocracy and individualism
they seem to be slowly democratizing.
Cultural differences do matter; some even believe it is the key to
Radical Islam. Globalization tends to create homogeneous cultural
standards and this breeds alienation which in turn breeds terror (Roy
and Fukuyama). Slightly more than 15% of the world’s Muslims are Arabs;
60% are Asians almost all Sunnis and almost all influenced by Sufism.
Arab Sufism almost does not exist. Indonesia the largest Islamist
country in the world is democratic and its culture includes elements of
Asian folk and populism in its Islamism. As an example honor killing
does not exist in Southeast Asia. The same is true of Malaysia. (Robert
W. Hefner, ‘Asian and Middle Eastern Islam’, May 30, 2006, Foreign
Policy Research Institute)
Singapore (a majority Chinese country), Malaysia (a primarily Islamic
country) and India (a primarily Hindu country) all have had recent
significant economic growth.. Iraq and Iran, both majority Shia
religious neighboring countries have vastly different cultures, one
Arabic and one Persian.
Radical Islamists are largely Arabic for reasons that are cultural
rather than religious. It is difficult to weigh the importance of
religion versus culture.
Democracy has begun to be implemented in Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan
and Egypt – the results may not be consistent with the war against
Radical Islam. The war against terrorism may not be consistent with the
American policy of fostering democracy. How democracy is implemented is
critical; free elections should be the culmination of the
reform process, rather than the starting point. Free elections in Iraq
have exacerbated sectarian and ethnic fault lines of the Iraqi society
and fostered terrorism. Imposing democracy is to quote Madeleine
Albright, former U.S. Secretary of State an oxymoron.
Democracy and especially liberal democracy as a world order may not
succeed and certainly is not ‘The End of History’. Liberalism cannot be
completely even-handed toward different cultures, since it itself
reflects certain cultural values and must reject alternative cultural
groups that are themselves profoundly illiberal. 25 Despite the Arab
street and even Islamists recognizing that their ruling autocrats have
delivered dysfunctional government and tyranny. Liberal democracy as an
alternative is connected with Western political hegemony, occupation
and domination.
Democracy is not a default position when other systems fail. The Arab
governments may be dysfunctional, that does not mean that democracy
will correct the problem. Furthermore there is no evidence that it
reduces or prevents terrorism.
The American invasion of Iraq (wrongly or rightly) seems to have
unfrozen the Arab the system of government but did not necessarily
project western democracy. It may have even increased religious
identity. Will the victory of the Shia religious parties in Iraq and
Hamas in Palestine guarantee minority rights or develop a system of
intolerant ‘majoritarianism’?
It is worth noting than in addition to the Radical Islamists noted
above there are moderate political Islamists in Turkey, Pakistan,
Morocco, Jordan and Algeria that are part of a pluralistic political
governmental process. Whether these groups have embraced democracy and
pluralism or are using the political process to create Islamic states
denying democracy is as yet unknown. Does a moderate theology, one in
which reason is a basic tenet exist? It takes a very sophisticated
reading to find tolerance or democracy in the Koran or in its
commentators. The overwhelming majority of Islamic clerics find
democracy inconsistent with Sharia – Islamic – law. Could Islamic
moderation be a real mutation or ought the West to be aware of ‘Greeks
bearing gifts” - the Trojan horse strategy?
It took centuries for liberal democracy to develop in Europe; perhaps
with technological advances it may only take decades to develop some
coherent system in the Arab world or perhaps it never will. Can the
Arab world develop there own efficient and functional governmental
systems? That is dependant more of them than on the West.
1 Esposito,J.L., Islam and Politics, Syracuse University Pres, Syracuse, 1991, pg. 4
2 http://www.worldaudit.org/democracy.htm
3 Eickelman, D.F., and Piscatori, J., Muslim Politics, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1996, pg. 22.
4 Cox, H., The Secular City, Macmillan, N.Y., 1966, pg. 15.
5 Heschel, A.J., God in Search of Man, Farrar, Straus & Cudahy, N.Y., 1955, pg. 3.
6 Hasan al ‘Askari, Verse et Controverse: Les Musulmans, (Paris, 1971) pg. 132-133, quoted and translated by Cragg, Kenneth, Muhammad And The Christian, Darton, Longman and Todd, London, 1984, pg. 49
7 Quoted in Esposito, Islam and Politics, pg. 69. It should be noted that Raziq later rejected this idea.
8 John Keane in ‘The Limits Of Secularism, from Esposito, J.J. and Tamini, A., eds., Islam and Secularism in the Middle East, Hurst & Co., London, 2000, pg. 36.
9 Francis Fukuyama, After the End of History, Open Democracy, May 2, 2006.
10 Abdelwahab Elmessiri, ‘Secularism, Immanence and Deconstruction, in Esposito and Tamimi, Islam, pg. 69-80.
11 http://www.moshereiss.org/israel/01_israel.htm
12 Sachedina, A., The Islamic Roots of Democratic Pluralism, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2001, pg. 5.
13 Sachedina, pg. 111.
14 Sachedina, pg. 111.
15 Sachedian, pgs. 83-97.
16 Ayubi, Nazih, N., Political Islam, Routledge, London, 1991, pg. 64.
17 Sachedina, pg. 22..
18 See also 21:92; 49:14.
19 Little, D., Kelsey, J., and Sachedina, A.A., Human Rights and the Conflict of Cultures University of South Carolina Press, Columbia, 1988, pg. 7.
20 Efraim Karsh, Kings College, University of London, ‘Islamic Imperialism: A History’, Yale University, New Haven, 2006, pg. 26.
21 Some wit said the Bible should come with a note ‘dangerous to your health’.
22 Roy, Oliver, Globalized Islam, Columbia University Press, N.Y., 2004, pgs. 232- 288.
23 Roy, pg. 269-270.
24 Roy, pg. 274.
25 Francis Fukuyama, After the end of History, Open Democracy, May 2, 2006.