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COMMENTARY
April 25, 2004
Eastbound
I wrote something last week that I thought might be fairly controversial but found to my surprise it wasn't. The remark was a buttressing aside a judgement about what is and isn't possible in what is sometimes called "the real world" (to distinguish it from the numerous fantasy worlds in which we actually live). In this "real world" not everything that seems desirable can happen and "wishing doesn't make it true". There are big and consequential facts of life and any attempt to deny or to ignore them will be repaid in grief. My supposedly controversial thesis was Islam and democracy are incompatible. This drew some sporadic fire from letter-writers both in the paper and in my inbox. But I didn't sense anyone had put his heart into resisting the proposition. Rather: limp throwaway easily predictable arguments were used. Positively Since democracy has come to places we thought previously unreceptive, such as Eastern Europe, Latin America, and East Asia, why not to the Muslim countries? Negatively I don't see how Islam is any more opposed to democracy than Catholicism once was. The first proposition is irrelevant. It does not follow from the fact that Peter Paul and Patrick have learned ballroom dancing that William can do it -- especially should it turn out that William is missing a leg. The second is simply false. I've looked fairly carefully and there is nothing in Catholic doctrine to oppose the separation of civil and religious orders nor the use of voting within either. (Even the Popes are elected.) Nor is there anything to prevent a Catholic from accepting the legitimacy of non-Catholic rulers (elected or otherwise). The whole religion began in "give unto Caesar that which is Caesar's" and thus in acknowledgement of a civil power that was not even Christian. And it is founded in such wildly libertarian assertions as that you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free . St. Paul writes that we should not only tolerate but embrace whatsoever is good, whatsoever is pure, whatsoever is beautiful, whatsoever is of good report . God reaches us not only through scripture and the mass but through every other mediation. And all modern ideas of civil liberty emerged from that Christian tradition borne around the world by European proselytizing and imperialism. We call it "the West" today -- but the West became the West through being Christian. Whereas the whole idea of the Sharia universal in Islam runs counter to the notion that human beings can vote to determine anything of importance. God -- Allah -- has decreed the right structure for society from the beginning of time. Ours is to live exclusively by the light of his Koran which specifies an entire social order both civil and religious in remarkable detail. And in particular Muslims may never acknowledge the civil authority of a non-Muslim ruler. The principle that even a bad and unjust Muslim ruler (Saddam Hussein for instance) is preferable to a good and just non-Muslim has been universally accepted within Islam throughout its history. I believe any reasonably well-informed imam will back me up on each of these points. Other points while true have become today more controversial because Muslims living in our "modern Western" world are compelled to live certain contradictions. For instance the very existence of Muslim communities under non-Muslim rule in the West today is in defiance of Sharia. Traditionally the only reason a Muslim could have for even visiting the Dar al-Harb (the abode of war beyond the frontiers of Islam) was to negotiate the return of hostages. It is after staring at such hard truths and many like them for a long time that one concludes Islam and democracy are incompatible. Moreover where democracy has been successfully introduced into an Islamic culture -- the one clear example is Ataturk's creation of modern Turkey -- it could be done only by directly attacking and suppressing all public expressions of Islamic authority. In other words Turkey could only be democratized by being simultaneously de-Islamicized. One may argue that Islam is better than democracy. But one cannot argue that they are marriageable. One might hope that they will make room for each other -- but they can only do so by mutual retreat. Indeed the very root of "Islamist" terrorism is the violent rejection of essentially Christian ideas about human liberty and responsibility. Nota bene: I'm not saying democracy can't come to Islamic countries. Rather that it can only come at a terrible cost. David Warren
© Ottawa Citizen
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