No, according to Larry Diamond, whose paper on Arab democracy is worth reading in full. Here’s an excerpt worth considering for the “Islam is a fundamentally retrograde, anti-modern religion” crowd: [Read more →]

Stephen Walt tallies the human cost of US interventionism in the Middle East. Some people will inevitably misinterpret this as a strained argument for moral equivalence, but read the whole, caveat-laden post before you pass judgment. I think Walt is pretty clear that pointing out negative Muslim perceptions of American foreign policy is not the same as arguing the United States is morally culpable for, say, every death in Iraq since 2003.

I linked to this earlier, but amateur history buffs will find Cato Unbound’s discussion on the origins of modernity pretty fascinating. The central point of contention is the so-called “first cause” of modernity – did the West develop because of spontaneous social change, secularism, the rise of “engineering culture,” or competition between European states? I’m inclined to agree with Stephen Davies insofar as competition among states probably laid the groundwork for the subsequent cultural, political and social changes we associate with modernity, but all four contributors raise some interesting objections.

One point of agreement among the contributors is the radical discontinuity between pre-modern Western civilization (read: Christendom) and modern culture. All four authors seem to agree that the connection between Christendom’s essential features and Western modernity is pretty tenuous, which raises a few interesting questions about other religions’ encounters with modernity.

Some of the best evidence for the modern departure from Christendom are what early European liberals had to say about religion. I’m immediately reminded of Leon Gambetta’s famous utterance, ,”Le cléricalisme, voilà l’ennemi!” His views on Christianity were shared by any number of his classically liberal contemporaries. From Galileo to Darwin to the Scopes Monkey Trial, innumerable scientists of the early modern era also held skeptical views about the compatibility of science, reason and faith.

Christianity and modernity survived this encounter. The pope now speaks of the fundamental relationship between God and reason. The recent Manhattan Declaration emphasizes the connection between liberal accomplishments like ending slavery and challenging the divine right of kings and Christianity. The theological and historical truth of these claims are almost irrelevant – the larger point is that Christians have self-consciously accepted the legitimacy (and, indeed, desirability) of liberalism and modernity.

The disconnect between how the contemporary Church views its relationship with liberalism, modernity and science and how early liberals viewed the church is worth remembering in the context of the current debate over Islam. You frequently hear that Islam is fundamentally incompatible with pluralism, liberalism, and the penumbra of Western political and cultural practices. If the Christian experience teachers us anything, however, it’s that the fluidity of historical interpretation and theology can open up space for liberalizing movements to take hold within a major Abrahamic faith. Over the next few decades, it will not surprise me if major Muslim leaders begin emphasizing how Islam preserved the works of great philosophers and fostered scientific learning throughout the Middle Ages as evidence of their faith’s integral relationship with science and modernity. In fact, it’s already pretty common to hear similar talking points from moderate Islamic leaders in the United States and Europe. This narrative may not be completely accurate, but that’s almost beside the point. If the number of liberal Muslims reaches a critical mass, they’ll find ways to justify their political and cultural outlook within a rich theological tradition, just as liberal Christians have done in the West.

UPDATE: See also Johnathan Rowe at Positive Liberty.

Rod Dreher:

On the other hand, it is also wrong to pretend that the Muslim religion had nothing to do with this massacre, that it is mere happenstance that this mass murderer’s crime was incidental to his Islamic faith. The US is in a war against Islamist terrorism. What Hasan did yesterday, on the evidence, was an act of Islamist terror. Period. When a devout Christian commits an act of violence against an abortion clinic, and does so pretty clearly in the name of his religion, it would be an act of stupidity, and possibly moral cowardice, to declare an investigation of his religious motive off-limits. And, in fact, we don’t do that, even as we are, or ought to be, aware that the overwhelming majority of Christians neither commit nor endorse such acts. Similarly, it is right and proper to have a critical discussion of the role Hasan’s religion played in this evil act, if only so we can identify Muslims like him in the future before they’re tempted to act on their convictions.                                 —(my emphasis)

Let’s look at that assertion I’ve highlighted.  The US is in a war against Islamist terrorism.

This, as the young people say, is the part where I break it down (word by word).

1) Terrorism

As has been said by many others, you can’t shouldn’t have a war against a tactic.  Terrorism is a tool and will horribly be deployed.  A country like the US particularly doesn’t want to declare itself in a war against a tactic whose technological and social trajectory is inevitably headed in the upward direction.  Otherwise you have definitionally set yourself up for failure.

Another reason I think the US (or any country for that matter) would not want to define itself in a war on terrorism is that it leads to the potential for ideological backlash.  e.g. I’ve never lived in a village where robotic aerial drones frequent and periodically drop bombs.  I assume however it is an act that would cause me to experience sheer terror.  If a country defines itself in a war on terror than it will admittedly set itself up for the charge of hypocrisy if it uses tactics that are seen to be (or really are to be fair) terror-inducing.

Also given Rod’s own analogy between the shooter and say a Christian abortion-doctor murderer, why is the US then at war against Islamist terrorism and not simply, as a civilized rule-based society, opposed to all criminal terrorist acts?  Does this individual’s despicable actions represent any real threat to the government of the United States?  Does any talk even of domestic home-grown Islamic extremism represent a substantially more serious threat to public order than say Salvadorean gangs, Mexican drug lords, and/or ultra ring-wing terrorist organizations?

I agree with Rod that when you have say anti-abortion terrorist activities by self-defined Christians claiming religion as their motivation, you should study their religion.  I agree with that proposition in the Ft. Hood case.  But why go from there to this act as part of some larger war?

Here’s terrorism expert Marc Sageman (h/t Yglesias) testifying before Congress this past October (p.2):

I excluded lone wolves, who were not physically or virtually connected to anyone in the global neo-jihad, for they often carry out their atrocities on the basis of delusion and mental disorder rather than for political reasons.

Sound relevant in the Ft. Hood case?

On to the other word I suppose to answer that one.

2) Islamist

Islamism is political view that seeks to create an Islamic state.  There are all kinds of problems with saying the US is in a war against Islamist terrorism. [Read more →]

I agree with conservatives like David Horowitz and John Hinderacker; in light of the shooting at Ft. Hood, we need to reassert and protect our values.  The question of course, is the who we’re protecting our values from.  Hint: it’s not Muslims.  But first, a few quick points about Muslim-American attitudes:

1. Muslim-American are overwhelmingly happy with their place in the United States:

Back in 2007, the Pew Research Center released the first comprehensive survey of Muslim-American attitudes.  According to the survey, nearly eight out of ten Muslim-Americans say that they are happy with their lives in the United States.  To break that down a bit, 24 percent of Muslim Americans would say that they are “very happy” with their lives, 54 percent would say that they are “pretty happy,” and only 18 percent would say “not too happy.”  Among the general public, those numbers are 36 percent, 51 percent and 12 percent respectively.  Which brings me to my next point…

2. Most Muslim-Americans see no conflict between religious commitment and living in a modern society:

63 percent of Muslim-Americans say that they see no conflict between being a devout Muslim and living in a modern society.  What’s more, a strong plurality of Muslims (43 percent) say that Muslims coming to America today should adopt American customs.  By contrast, only 26 percent say that they should remain distinct, and 16 percent say that they should try both.  Indeed, reading through the report, the vast majority of data suggests that on the whole, Muslims are glad to be in the United States and happy with the opportunities the country provides them.

Unfortunately, a good majority of Muslims are also worried about various forms of discrimination, racism, prejudice and stereotyping.  19 percent of Muslims say that they are worried about discrimination/racism/prejudice, 15 percent are worried about being viewed as terrorists, 14 percent are worried about ignorance of Islam, and 12 percent are worried about stereotyping.

This is a really important point.  Contra the Hinderaker’s and Horowitz’s, we have absolutely nothing to fear from the 2.5 million Muslims who call the United States home.  It’s to our credit as Americans that we have built a society where people of different religious beliefs and cultural traditions can live and work in peace without fear of harassment.  Insofar that we should worry about anything, it’s those who would ostracize Muslims and use the weight of the federal government to isolate them.  Anger and hostility breed hatred and extremism, and if we want to remain a society committed to tolerance and mutual respect, then we should work our hardest to marginalize anti-Muslim voices.

Scott’s quickie on Andy McCarthy’s take on the tragic Ft. Hood shooting (hands up – anyone whose surprised it was A Mac?) is timely and worth the read.  There are some very excellent comments in the thread which are also worth a look (esp. recommended is #10 from Chad).

The controversy of course comes down to the question of the shooter (Nidal Hassan Malik) and his Islamic faith.  Folks like McCarthy want to draw linear causality from the religion to the act.  Instead of “The Devil made me do it,” it’s “Islam made me do it.”

Now Islam, of course, is not the only factor involved.  For some background, here a relevant story from the AP (h/t to Br. Mark).  Of particular note is the common refrain of how negatively Hassan (as a psychiatrist) was affected by working with returning soldiers from the battlefield as well his rather private, lonely existence.

The only point I want to make in this context is to watch how Islam is discussed in this controversy.  My presumption–and see for yourself if this holds–is that Islam is always treated as this giant, monolithic thing.  So either it’s the cause (implied in McCarthy’s case) or it’s kind of put in the corner and ignored (for various sensitive cultural-political reasons).

Either way, this response treats Islam as some uniform entity.  When in reality there is no such thing as monolithic Islam.  What exists (in enormous numbers and influence) are Muslims around the world who have all kinds of views, ethics, ways of understanding the relationship of their faith to the world in which they live, and doctrines or elements of the faith they foreground.

This is particularly the case in a religion like Islam (esp. Sunni Islam) that lacks any centralized authority structure that once and for all determines the true meaning and practice of the faith.

In other words both anti-Muslim US conservatives and Muslim (or Muslim-friendly liberals) always want to get to “the real Islam”.  But that is, to use an old Arab metaphor, a mirage in the desert. There is no “real” Islam, neither the stereotypical bloodthirsty avenger practicing the religion of the sword nor the totally peaceful religion of brotherhood.

Islam treated in this Huntington-esque fashion of some uniform, glacier-like cultural bloc the world over is just nonsense.  What matters is what Muslims do and how they understand, argue for, and what they believe.

Some (very broad and generic) history is helpful here.  Especially in relation to the question of religion and political policy (esp. US foreign policy), since it comes up in this context, insofar as it was appears to have been a motive behind Hasan’s actions given how he understood the concept, emphasis on his understanding. This topic is usually discussed under the label of jihad, so a little history on that one. [Read more →]

I am, frankly, taken aback by some of the reactions to Ross Douthat’s latest column, which makes the commonsensical observation that wavering Anglicans may find the Pope’s combative approach to Islam more attractive than their own church’s more conciliatory policy. Adam Serwer, for example, uses the column as a jumping off point for blaming Christians for the Iraq War:

Douthat is considered a “reasonable conservative” in liberal circles, but this column is downright nutty. It’s frightening enough that someone who attended school in a city as international as Boston could endorse the idea of viewing Muslims worldwide as a “foe” of Christianity.  But consider the fact that there are probably a number of people in charge of making foreign policy decisions in the last administration, who saw Christianity and Islam as “foes” and acted or advised accordingly. In fact, the march to war in Iraq despite the lack of evidence of weapons of mass destruction, the false linkage of Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda, and even the argument that the use of torture is justified against Muslims are easily explained by the worldview of a person who sees Christianity and Islam as being “foes,” particularly if one sees America as a “Christian Nation.”*

I mean, what? Other than his willful misinterpretation of the word “foe,” I challenge Serwer to identify anything at all in Douthat’s column that endorses religious conflict between Muslims and Christians.

It’s true that Catholicism and Islam compete for spiritual converts. But this isn’t Lepanto or the Siege of Jerusalem. It’s a straightforward case of religious pluralism, with both faiths striving to attract adherents through persuasion and institutional expansion. Are secularists like Serwer threatened by a robust public competition between Islam and Christianity? And if so, why?

The assumption that seems to undergird this line of thinking is that religious leaders should always avoid public agreement. This strikes me as both hopelessly naive and antithetical to the very idea of religious faith. Islam and Catholicism are spiritual cousins, but both faiths also have serious doctrinal differences. Denying these distinctions empties religion of any meaning other than some vague, Unitarian-lite belief in a higher power, which does serious violence to two venerable theological traditions.

*I also think Bush deserves some credit for distancing his (admittedly disastrous) foreign policy from any religious conflict.

Without lapsing into Steynian hysteria, I think there are real concerns about the growing population of alienated, socially immobile Muslim immigrants in Europe. In that vein, Michelle Goldberg’s review of Reflections on the Revolution in Europe is worth a read, if only because it’s one of the few time I’ve seen a liberal acknowledge the problems associated with large-scale Muslim immigration.

I am, however, generally opposed to anti-immigrant hysterics, so I think it’s worth considering the possibility that Europe’s Islamic population will not remain poor, culturally alienated, and economically stagnant. In general, societies that experience an influx of immigrants get better at assimilating newcomers over time. When I lived in Helsinki, for example, the Finnish government adopted a generous asylum policy towards Somali refugees. This resulted in a lot of tension between native-born Finns and the Somalis, as neither group had a lot of experience with cultural assimilation. Finnish newspaper cartoons would lapse into what most Americans would describe as racist tropes, drawing Somalian immigrants with cartoonishly big lips, gleaming white teeth, and massive ears. A more mundane example of Finnish-Somali culture clash is the wrapper of a popular licorice candy:

Does this mean that all Finns are incorrigible racists? I suppose it’s possible, but this is the same country that adopted a Somali-friendly immigration policy in the first place. The cartoons could speak to a disparity between elite and popular opinion, but a more banal explanation is that societies with few immigrants are generally bad (at least at first) at immigrant assimilation. Americans are pretty attuned to racial stereotypes because we live and work in a racially diverse climate; most Finns, on the other hand, were blissfully unaware that something as silly as a candy wrapper could be construed as offensive. As Finland’s Somali population becomes more politically and economically visible, however, this will probably change, in much the same way the United States has gradually become more comfortable with a diverse cultural landscape. Assimilation is a difficult process, and the emergence of large, economically-depressed Muslim minorities poses a real challenge to Europe, but I think we should consider the possibility that inter-ethnic tensions will decline as Europeans acclimate themselves to a genuinely multicultural future.

What can one say about Frank Gaffney’s recent Washington Times piece that is worthy of such a paranoid piece of propagandist drivel?  First, let me stress that I doubt very much Gaffney truly believes what he’s writing.  (Is it even possible?)  I often get the impression that many of the ostensibly smart movement conservative types say a great deal more than they actually believe – something that comes to the fore whenever the wickedness of elitism is invoked, for instance, by movement conservative elitists.

Gaffney, you see, is trying to reawaken the “Obama is a Muslim” meme, long after any but the staunchest of conspiracy theorists have said their fond farewells and pounced on new obstructionist tactics, hyperbole, and so forth (think: fascism, socialism, social fascism, cancer, etc….I tried watching Fox News yesterday and stumbled on this hard-hitting interview between Sean Hannity and Sarah Palin and honestly, I wanted to watch it to learn how Obama is a socialist and how our auto-industry will be owned by China soon since we owe them money and now the government owns GM, but I just couldn’t.  I had to turn it off.  It was too painful.)

But I digress. [Read more →]

Blaise has a good, cynical take on the Cairo speech and the problems Obama faces sugar-coating State Islam: [Read more →]