Culture Wars

From an article by by Ehsan Ahrari, Asia Times.

“There is no denying that because of the absence of any distance between religion and politics in Islam, most Muslim grievances are couched in the language of religion.”

“What is at issue here is that the fundamentalists of both sides are equally at fault. The secular fanatics are as much responsible for fanning the current flames of hatred and turbulence in Europe and other Muslim countries as their Muslim counterparts.”

“… secular fanatics should also examine their own behavior about the overall issue of insulting someone else's religion, then call it merely an exercise of free speech…"

“However, expecting a due regard to Muslim religious sensibilities (or toward other religions) is very much part of polite behavior that those countries claim to be championing everywhere in the world”

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The first paragraph highlights the major error in Mr. Ahrari’s thinking. When a religion becomes the basis for governance, it ceases to be merely a personal belief system and crosses into the realm of political ideology. When government is theocratic, then criticism or derision of political policy and views become, by necessity, criticism of religious dogma, (the West overcomes this contradiction by explicitly separating the realms of religion and politics). In a theocratic environment, the only way to assure religion is not insulted is to make political criticism unlawful, as it is in many cases in Iran. In the present case, it would amount to the unlawfulness of criticizing the founder of a political movement i.e., Mohammad.

If religion is merely morally informing the political views and decisions of individuals, as it is in the West, then one can criticize political policy without engaging in direct criticism of the informing theology. It cannot be the case that Islam is at once the basis for government and law, but given special dispensation from political or satirical criticism. In this context, the founder of a political movement must remain open to criticism and yes, even derision. As the founder of a religion Mohammad may indeed deserve of the respect Muslims demand; as the founder of a political movement he is in a no more privileged position than Karl Marx or Ronald Reagan. In the context of a “Muslim Reformation”, Muslim interests are served by decisively defining and differentiating these contradictory positions, not by demanding special dispensation.

Furthermore, equating religious fundamentalism with “secular fundamentalism” is untenable. Religious fundamentalism as expressed within Islam is a totalitarian ideology; the same is not necessarily true of secularism – a secular society may be totalitarian, but it may also be democratic or something else. In a secular society, modes of personal and public conduct are open to debate and alteration with changing mores, perspective and custom. A fundamentalist regime derives primarily from a priori government and personal rules of conduct. By definition, “dogma” is not open to debate or alteration.

While I can empathize with the outrage Muslims feel at seeing their prophet depicted in these cartoons – as a Christian I would feel the same about a similar depiction of Jesus – it is precisely the power of liberal democracy that no one theology or ideology is held in some special esteem or consideration. If this were not so, it would be unreasonable and hypocritical for Muslims to expect tolerance and acceptance in predominately Christian Europe or America. Everyday in Muslim countries heinous depictions of Jews and Christians are disseminated through their mass media. Every Friday imams in mosques all over the Muslim world spew their hate filled, vitriolic, theocratic rhetoric with impunity. Before the Muslim world asks that the Christian west remove the mote from their eye, they should remove the log from their own. Freedom in the West unlike “freedom” in Muslims countries, means freedom for all, including those one may disagree with and those whose beliefs and practices one might find offensive.