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Posted on 06/13/2002 2:35:30 PM PDT by BlackIce
MY RECENT COLUMN, Why Islam Can’t Join the Modern World, triggered quite a large volume of angry protests from Muslims in FrontPage’s Go Postal forum and in my e-mail inbox.
My argument was simply what common sense and empirical realities tell us: Islam regulates every realm of its believers’ lives and negates individualism. Consequently Islam is mutually exclusive with free will and, therefore, with a pluralistic and liberal society. This is precisely why it has not, and cannot, join the modern world.
I don’t understand what’s so complicated about this.
Most of my Muslim critics respond by emphasizing one boring, repetitive and pathetic theme: that the Islam I am criticizing (the one that exists) is not the real Islam. The real Islam, I am told, will give freedom and be very modern. It’s just that this real Islam is nowhere to be seen yet.
Right.
Here we have the traditional and dishonest excuse of tyranny lovers: that the worldly incarnations of their ideas should never be blamed on the ideas themselves. This asininity has always been the favorite ploy of socialists. Whenever you confront a Leftist about the genocide that the socialist idea has spawned (i.e. Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot etc.), the response is always that the true socialism hasn’t been tried yet. That’s because, the Leftist explains, the reality of the Marxisms that liquidated 100 million lives in the 20th century have nothing to do with the ideas that gave them birth.
But we didn’t need the socialist mass murders of the 20th century to confirm that the socialist idea is, in and of itself, a prescription for genocide. You simply can’t have a society that forbids private property and political dissent and not have state terror.
It’s the same with Islam. You can’t have a religion that mandates the thwarting of free will and then not have state totalitarianism, social neuroses, and cultural impotence.
The Muslims with whom I debate always assert that the real Islam can join the modern world, but in the same breath they condemn everything about the modern world and boast how Islam is not a part of it. Therefore, even though they deny that a place like Iran is the real Islam, the real Islam they describe always ends up sounding like a carbon copy of the existing Islam that they try to separate themselves from.
The typical Muslim tells me that I am wrong about Islam because it does allow free will. So then I inquire whether, in the real Islam, a woman will have the free choice to drink alcohol, go dirty dancing at a bar, pick up a guy and take him home. This always crystallizes the issue quite quickly. The Muslim usually gets very upset and responds, with much anger, about how this behavior is very wrong, how decadent the West is, and how Islam simply does not allow such immorality. He then articulates his moral indignation about my opposition to "eliminating" moral depravity.
Right, and my point exactly.
Whenever someone starts talking about "eliminating" the universal tragedies, ills, and evils in our human condition, and begins to imply that the "solutions" to them lie in state governments or religious theocracies, I get shivers of dread up my spine. Because that’s when I know that pure and unadulterated evil is itching to take on living form.
I don’t necessarily support the lifestyle of the hypothetical woman that I raise in my question. I understand the social ills that her potential lifestyle engenders in our liberal society. But I am much more frightened of the attempt of an external authority to prevent that woman from exercising her own moral and social choices. Anyone who understands anything about the notion and reality of original sin, and is aware of the nightmares that the experiments with social utopia have spawned, knows that the attempt to annihilate human ills by force always spawns much greater and darker demons.
Thus, the typical Muslim who chastises me about our Western society’s problems (i.e. unwanted teenage pregnancies) always scares me, because the assumption on which his chastisement is made implies that something can be done about it – without a negative trade-off. But the human condition teaches us that the capacity for evil exists in all realms, and that while unwanted teenage pregnancies are obviously a tragic reflection of the moral decay of our liberal democratic society, the "remedy" to eliminate this problem is laden with much more precarious danger.
What I am saying is that if we want to have a society where young teenage girls are dissuaded from having reckless sex and getting pregnant, we must try to do so by fighting for the increase of moral values in our society. And I believe in fighting for those values.
But the state and religious institutions must stay out of this realm in the context of enforcing laws that will negate free will and punish transgressors. The choices that young women make, and that all humans make, about their own private ethical and social behavior must ultimately be made by them.
Muslims disagree with this. And no wonder that when they boast about how the real Islam will rectify a problem like pre-marital sex, the images of burqas, female genital mutilation, public stonings and beheadings, forced marriages, and honor killings pass through my mind.
The problem here, therefore, is that Islam is inherently oppressive and violent. Yes, I know about all of those verses here and there in the Koran that talk about peace and love. Very heart warming indeed.
But the problem is that Islam forbids the separation of Church and State (Surah 2:193), as well as the right of dissent (Surah 4:59). And that is what Sharia Law, the religious law of Islam, holds in place. It makes no distinction between spiritual and temporal life. In other words, it covers not only ritual, but every aspect of life. In so doing, it makes sure to dish out severe punishments for any transgression of the rules.
It is obvious, therefore, that the very notion of Islam allowing democracy is simply ludicrous. If this occurred, then a majority of people might just decide that women don’t need to wear veils and that starting an official opposition party to the established Islamic structure is a good idea.
In these circumstances, how long do you think Islam would remain Islam?
All of these realities make it clear why, in their efforts to root out "sin," and to control male-female sex by putting women out of sight and out of touch, Islamic societies engender a much darker demon. For example, while Islam might greatly reduce the number of unwanted teenage pregnancies, its demonization and seclusion of women not only inflicts mass terror, but has also given birth to a widespread phenomenon of the sexual abuse of young boys by adult males. This reality is perfectly reflected in Afghanistan, where the Taliban’s extreme restrictions on male-female relations have yielded a widespread prevalence of the sexual exploitation and abuse of young boys.
But Muslims cannot reflect on this reality honestly, because then they would have to confront the reality that Islam and women’s rights are mutually exclusive.
And they would have to reconcile themselves with the fact that the Taliban was not an aberration of Islam, but the logical extension of it.
Thus, it becomes obvious why my recent column upset many Muslims. By the tone and substance of their responses, it is easily discernable that they long for all of us to be in the real Islam. That way, they wouldn't have to read what I wrote, because I wouldn’t be allowed to publish what I think.
When my Muslim critics rail against me, I always can’t help from observing that the only reason they can e-mail me and write letters to the editor is because they are protected from the despotism of their own religion by the blessings of living in a free society. If Islam took over where they live, these individuals would not be able to engage in their free expression without fearing that, if their words were construed as saying something un-Islamic, they would suffer severe harm to their physical health.
Paradoxically, therefore, the only hope there is for Islam, if there is any hope at all, exists in the Western Muslims who are protected from the laws of their own religion. That’s because the only place where Muslims can work to reform Islam without a threat of having their heads chopped off is in the societies that infidels built.
But the most important question remains: can a reformed Islam even remain Islamic?
The point is that the real Islam is not, and will never be, a place of freedom and peace. If it will be, it will not be Islam, because it will have to reject its Sharia Law, its religious police, and its own Prophet - whose main accomplishments and messages were rooted in violence and military conquest.
My critics reprimand me for not understanding anything about the real Islam.
Sorry, I understand it all too well.
And when I make the statement: "will the real Islam please stand up" I am obviously being facetious.
Because it already has.
I understand the point that is being made here but do not think that the example is a good one. Arguably, the woman mentioned does have the free will to do these things (if she could find a bar). She will just be punished for them by the society she lives in. In this case she would be killed. The same can be said of the most other civilizations extant in the seventh century. Islam just never really evolved. Kind of a Jurassic religion.
In the United States I can bury a tire iron in someone's head and may also be put to death by my government. The big difference is that there seems to be a more hospitable parity of the punishment and it's relation to the offense. In a sense we are allowed to create our individual system of morality so long as it is not of undue detriment to our fellow citizens.
For one thing, while the communists were atheists, utilitarians, and materialists, they didn't deny the existence of the real world, or logic, or common sense. (Well, not most of the time anyway - there WAS that weird little bit with Lysenko, who thought he could teach the crops to grow better.)
Nor were communists particularly suicidal. Some were extremely brave fighters (the Russians at Stalingrad against the Nazis), but if you believe that you're compost when you die, and there's only one go around the block, you tend to want to preserve your life & not throw it away unnecessarily.
Jihadi Islam, on the other hand, seems to be based on the idea of suicide as the "ultimate weapon" in the war plan to kill as many "infidels" as possible.
The Russians and the US managed to *not* nuke each other for almost 50 years because both sides (again, with a few exceptions of "brinkmanship") knew that if a nuclear war were launched, it could have been the *last* war we ever fought. Radical Islamists, on the other hand, would say, good, go for it - better dead than dhimmi.
What communism did NOT want to do was destroy the infrastructure of society itself. The communists prided themselves (and still do - look at China) on being *modern* countries. In fact, one of the main reasons the Afghans took up arms against the Soviets back in the early 1980s was because the Soviets tried to make them give more rights to women, and *keep* 20 years of modernization in Afghanistan. We forget that from around 1960 to the time of the Soviet war, Afghanistan was relatively 'modern' for a Central Asian Islamic country. It was literally driven back into the stone age first by the Soviet war and then by the Taliban.
Islamic countries on the other hand want modernization only so long as it can give them what they need to exert totalitarian control over their own people. Otherwise they want to live culturally in the pre-medieval period.
Four Myths About Muslims
Source: CNSNews.com; Published: June 13, 2002;
Author: C.T. RossiTrying To Find A `Moderate' Islam Is A Quixotic Quest
Source: CNSNews.com; Published: May 20, 2002;
Author: C.T. RossiThe Islaming of Europe
Source: CNSNews.com; Published: May 20, 2002;
Author: Alan CarubaWhy Islam Can't Join the Modern World
Source: FrontPageMagazine.com; Published: May 16, 2002;
Author: Jamie GlazovIt's The Attitude, Stupid [re: Palestinians]
Source: Toogood Reports; Published: May 14, 2002;
Author: Philip SafranReports of Moderate Islam's Existence Have Been Greatly Exaggerated
Source: CNSNews.com; Published: April 22, 2002;
Author: C.T. RossiIt's time to snap out of Arab fantasy land {Steyn}
Source: National Post; April 19 2002;
Author: Mark SteynIslam Vs. The World
Source: Toogood Reports; Published: December 2, 2001;
Author: Alan CarubaWill the Real Islam Please Stand Up!
Source:Van Jenerette Editorial Comment, Various Publications;
Published: October 14, 2001; Author: Van JeneretteCivilization Envy
Source: National Review Online; Published: September 28, 2001;
Author: Jonah GoldbergTerror's Homebase, All Over The Map -- Jihad: The Trail of Political Islam
Source: Wall Street Journal-- Book Review; Published: | March 29, 2002;
Author: Adrian KaratnyckyThey Live to Die (Islam Martyrdom)
Source: Wall Street Journal; Published: April 7, 2002;
Author: Reuel Marc Gerecht20 Suppressed Facts About Israel, Islam
Source: Koenig's International News; Published: April 9, 2002;
Author: Jim BramlettHOROWITZ: A MIDDLE EAST HISTORY PRIMER
Source: News and Opinion.com; Published; April 10, 2002;
Author:David HorowitzArafat Must Go!
Source: CNSNews.com; Published: April 10, 2002;
Author: Alan CarubaNetanyahu speaks before US Senators
Source: http://netanyahu.org/netspeacinse.html; Published: April 10, 2002;
Author: Netanyahu address US Senators
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