Forever Enemies--Islam and Democracy

It's a harsh statement. And an even harsher reality. It's one we all have to get a grip on.

Islam requires an absolute unity between faith and state. There is and cannot be any meaningful separation between Power Temporal and Power Spiritual. Without this feature there is no meaning for the Islamic concept of community. Islam may allow some sort of subordinate role for some features of temporal government but puts severe limits upon its scope and authority.

Western history shows that Europe went through a long, painful and very bloody process of enervating the claim to temporal authority claimed by the Bishop of Rome. Secular rulers and the people under and behind them wrested both national sovereignty and political power from a religious institution most reluctant to give them up.

It took the Reformation, the exsanguinations of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, the forces let loose by the American and French Revolutions, and the Unification of Italy to pry the palsied hands of religion from the levers of power.

It also took untold numbers of people burned at the stake, cast into dungeons, tongues pierced and ears cropped in the pillory to put paid to the idea of religious domination of the political processes.

Not until the Twentieth Century was half over did the golem of religion finally leave the Western political arena.

Five hundred years and more to settle for once (and, hopefully for all) the question of separation of faith and state. A long time. A very long time.

Only one state with a Muslim majority population has even tried to trace the route taken by Europe and the United States--Turkey. In that country there are heart breaking signs that the brilliance of Ataturk is being discarded under the new blandishments of resurgent Islam.

Without a complete separation of the institutions of faith and state in the operation of the affairs of state there can be no true, meaningful democracy. Unless, of course, each and every person within that democracy is an equally fervent adherent of one religion.

That is more unlikely than whales flying over mountain tops.

Democracy requires more than simply the separation of the institutions of faith and state.

It requires the acceptance of compromise solutions. The kind of solutions that make few, if any, happy with the solution. Democracy requires settling for second best, accepting a half loaf. It requires trading interests. It requires, in short, a cultural tradition of negotiation for the least-worst outcome.

Islam does not allow for negotiation. It rejects compromise. It demands a whole loaf. The pragmatic compromiser is wide open to the charge of apostasy.

Democracy insists upon the majority fully respecting the rights and immunities of the minority. This is a very difficult task as American history down to today shows unmistakeably. The American people and their government have shown remarkable unwillingness to grant a minority--any minority--full respect and full rights.

The history of Islam demonstrates a total disregard for the rights, even the most basic human sort, of any and all non-Muslim minorities. Even the protection racket sanctioned by sharia, the treaty of protected people of the book, is honored more in the breech than the full observance. The "protection" was not only hemmed in with restrictions and humiliations but was dependent upon a cash payment. (Hmm, maybe the Mafia should declare itself a religion. No more pesky Federal prosecutions for running a racket.)

To be fully effective in protecting the rights and privileges of all citizens, a democracy needs a legal system which is insulated sufficiently from the winds of public opinion, fad and fancy to operate above the fray. Further, the court system must command the respect of not only the other branches of government but the minds of the citizenry to assure that its rulings will be heeded.

It took the US a mort of years and an infinitude of horrible Supreme Court decisions to find a balance that assured the least among us would not be deprived of rights and that the decisions would be abided, even if grudgingly, by the citizen and state alike.

Islam requires that the courts apply only the sharia to any and all cases. This semi-fossilized body of sacred literature is not designed to protect, let alone advance, the rights and privileges of the least among us.

Dissent, disagreement and passionate argument are inherent to democracy. American politics used to be a full-contact sport, and, even today, has its rough and cutting edges.

Not just electoral politics either. The politics of all important issues can be measured in dissent, disagreement and passionate demonstration of views. Whether war or abortion, capital punishment or state aid to religious schools, people express their positions with a vigor even an incivility that citizens of other countries find extreme.

(The Geek can't help but point out to interlocutors from France, Germany and Japan that dissent in those countries, democracies all, has been and is robust to the max.)

Islam does not allow any dissent and provides for disagreement among religious scholars only regarding the fine points of interpretation of various sacred or semi-sacred documents. That is hardly the sort that does a genuine democracy any service.

Democracy demands much of its practitioners. It is not easy to accept diverse views vigorously argued. It is not easy to see the law require an apparent injustice such as releasing a criminal because the police didn't dot every Constitutional "i." It is not at all emotionally pleasing to see the "wrong" side win an election and the "right" side hand over power.

Islam is a lot easier. All that is necessary beyond observing the Five Pillars of Faith is to keep one's mouth shut if one disagrees, restrict one's opinions to those which are clerically approved, kick a dhimmi every now and then if he doesn't get off the sidewalk quickly enough and, before prayers, stone a woman to death.

Democracy of a true sort and Islam of the genuine Quran based variety have never and can never coexist in the same state for long. As Turkey, a tragedy in the making, demonstrates.