MidEast Report

ARE ISLAM AND DEMOCRACY COMPATIBLE?
That is the central question of this conference in Istanbul. The consensus among the participants seems to be that Islam is indeed compatible with democracy, and that instability in the Islamic world is caused by illegitimate authoritarian regimes, rather than by anything intrinsic to the Muslim faith.

There is also consensus among the conferees that the West should not seek to impose Western-models of democracy onto the Middle East. I think it's true that we in the West should prepare ourselves to accept an Islamic democracy that may not look like Western democracy, but there are specific qualities of democracy which must transcend culture and ethnicity, such as freedom of speech and of the press, women's suffrage, and, most importantly, secularism. It's been argued that secularism, the separation of Church and State, is the single most important historical factor which allowed the West to develop and eventually overtake the Islamic world. Whether or not Muslims can adopt some measure of secularism in their own societies will dictate how successful democracy will be in those regions.

To put it simply, religion is about assurance; politics is about compromise. The West has learned, through hundreds of bloody years, that the two aren't a very good mix.

In an op-ed published yesterday, Daniel Pipes notes the historical incompatability of Islam and democracy, and asserts that this is unlikely to change in Iraq under the current conditions of U.S. occupation:

"...as a predominantly Muslim people, Iraqis share in the powerful Muslim reluctance to being ruled by non-Muslims. This reluctance results from the very nature of Islam, the most public and political of religions.

To live a fully Muslim life requires living in accord with the many laws of Islam, called the sharia. The sharia includes difficult-to-implement precepts pertaining to taxation, the judicial system and warfare. Its complete implementation can occur only when the ruler himself is a pious Muslim (although an impious Muslim is much preferable to a non-Muslim). For Muslims, rule by non-Muslims is an abomination, a blasphemous inversion of God's dispensation."

Pipes suggests that the only way for Iraq to find its way to democracy is for the U.S. to pull out and install "a democratically minded Iraqi strongman, someone who will work with the coalition forces, provide decent government, and move eventually toward a more open political system." I've had similar thoughts. What Iraq needs right now is an Ataturk, someone with unassailable legitimacy and a committment to republican government who is willing to make the hard choices that will set Iraq on the course to democracy. Unfortunately, right now it seems that the only way for any of Iraq's potential Ataturks to gain such legitimacy is to achieve victory against U.S.-coalition forces.

posted by Matt Duss @ 10:01 AM