Radia Daoussi Hennessey on the Threat of an Islamist Constitution in Tunisia

Radia Daoussi Hennessey
Google Images

One of the Iraqi students who took my EWIS graduate-studies writing course last winter is a great advocate of universal human rights, and of course women's rights, so I thought of her yesterday when I read Radia Hennessey's article, "Tunisia's Theocratic Temptation" (New York Times, May 2, 2013), especially these words about the problematic constitution that has been drafted for Tunisia under the influence of Islamists:

Two renowned Tunisian constitutionalists have wisely declined to be part of the panel appointed to review the draft constitution. Both Yadh Ben Achour and Kais Saied realize that the text is rife with impossible contradictions (a state religion and Tunisia as a civil state), severe omissions (the universality of human rights) and that highlighting these deficits could endanger their safety.

This sounds very similar to the problems my student was writing about. She went even further than Hennessey, critiquing cultural relativism and radical multiculturalism, arguing that these undermine human rights and women's rights. But Hennessey might well agree, for she's rather adamant:

It is a constitution that paves the way for a Shariah-based theocratic state with no checks and balances -- and immune from future change or amendment. The obsession with religion has so derailed the work of the Constitutional Assembly that the nature of government is not even well established in the draft text.

Tunisia is a liberal Arab state, seemingly Europeanized, so why don't more people openly oppose this seriously compromised document? Ignorance and fear:

My cousins, who are doctors, nurses or bankers, misunderstood the concept of secularism. They equated it with atheism. It took hours of conversation to convince them that secularism protects the right to practice religion by ensuring no one has the right to tell you how to worship. And the few who do know what a secular state means are terrified to advocate for it because there is the threat of Salafist extremists.

One reason that her cousins might not have known that "secularism protects the right to practice religion by ensuring no one has the right to tell you how to worship" is that, strictly speaking, this isn't true. Secularism does restrict "how" to worship. It doesn't restrict beliefs, but it does restrict their practice. Salafis -- a particularly rigorous strain of Islamists -- would find their religious practices restricted, for they wouldn't be allowed to force others to practice Islam as they do. Secularism does restrict religious practice -- and a good thing, too! Radia Hennessey is right to press for secularism even if her defense of it is not entirely correct. And she warns:

The separation of mosque and state, as a way to ensure the freedom of religion, is an urgent imperative if this so-called Arab Spring is not to dry up.

Is anybody listening?

The West's Success: 'Caesarean Section'?

Julius Caesar

(Image from Wikipedia)

Not so long ago, I blogged about Niall Ferguson's book Civilization: The West and the Rest, which I've not read, of course, but I did read up on Ferguson's views and learned about his 'killer apps' -- as readers will recall.

More recently, my friend Malcolm Pollack blogged on Ferguson's report from China (which may appear in his book), posting a passage on what a scholar from the Chinese Academy of the Social Sciences wrote about the West's success:

We were asked to look into what accounted for . . . the success, in fact, the pre-eminence of the West all over the world. We studied everything we could from the historical, political, economic, and cultural perspective. At first we thought it was because you had more powerful guns than we had. Then we thought it was because you had the best political system. Next we focused on your economic system. But in the past 20 years we have realised that the heart of your culture is your religion. Christianity.

I had posted some words on this quote myself, so I was ready to discuss it some more if anyone should express interest. Others do appear interested, for Malcolm noted that Dennis Mangan is also curious about the passage. Malcolm even posted a comment to Mangan's blog entry on the topic:

I wondered if the Chinese scholar himself had said any more about why this should be so: about what, exactly it was about Christianity that they thought best explained. As it turns out, the next line of the quoted passage reads . . . "The Christian moral foundation of social and cultural life was what made possible the emergence of capitalism and then the successful transition to democratic politics. We don't have any doubt about this" . . . . I'd still like to know more. In what way, specifically -- by what mechanism -- did these scholars think that Christian morality accounted for the West's flamboyant (and flamboyantly capitalistic!) success?

There are two parts to this. First, the "emergence of capitalism". What about Christian morality uniquely fosters capitalism?

Then there's the "transition to democratic politics". Implicit in this is the remarkable assertion (for a Chinese scholar to make in public, at least) that democracy is a key factor in our global domination. And of course Christianity explicitly distinguishes between God and Caesar. But again: why do you suppose the Chinese Academy of the Social Science concluded that Christian morality is more conducive to democracy than to collective socialism?

I don't know why this academy drew this conclusion, but I have my own theory about how Christianity contributed to the West's secular success, and I think that this success turns upon the point noted by Malcolm, the crucial distinction between God and Caesar, so I commented:

I think that embedded in Christianity -- it's there in the foundational texts -- is a distinction between the sacred and the secular, and thus religion and state, in which the secular is allowed its legitimate place, a distinction that enabled the development of secular laws not subject to religious control, and therefore amendable according to what would work pragmatically, the long-term result being the rise of a powerful, free society that rested upon religiously based legitimacy and was therefore free from religious challenge . . . in principle.

How do other religions compare?

Islam is surely the prime example of a religion that refuses legitimacy to the secular, and look at the results.

Even Confucianism -- let's take it as a religion -- imposes a morally based system of ritual upon all of society, including the state, from which no detail escapes.

I leave a full comparison to these and other religions as homework.

One might object that this analysis implies that not Christianity, but rather its absence, is responsible for the power of the West. That objection fails to grasp that this outcome was the consequence of a deeply Christian principle, the already noted distinction between God and Caesar.

Or so I think . . .

In other words, the West's success rests upon a religiously sanctioned absence of religion, an absence that depends upon a particular religion, specifically Christianity, for the divinely granted condition that provides the absence its legitimacy, the condition being that so long as God gets what is owed Him, Caesar gets what is owed him.

The operative question is that of what, in both cases, is owed, which is where things get complicated, but in principle . . .

Kenneth Elzinga on the Role of a Christian University

Baylor University

Illustration by Roger Beerworth

(Image from Baylor Magazine)

As a Baylor University alumnus, I receive for free the University's quarterly magazine. I've previously posted on the Baylor Magazine, and some readers might recall that I was interviewed a couple of years ago on my memories of its Honors Program, an article especially worth reading, of course, and proof that Baylor takes an interest in even the least of its alumni. I'm now hoping for an interview on my memories of the NoZe Brotherhood . . . but that might be expecting too much.

Seriously, though, the magazine has interesting articles, and the most recent issue reprised a thought-provoking speech by University of Virginia professor Kenneth Elzinga on the role of a Christian university. Titled "Different to Make a Difference" (Baylor Magazine, Winter 2010-2011), Professor Elzinga makes a rather provocative remark on a category of Christians in secular schools that he calls "evangelicals":

The professors, researchers and scholars in higher education I have labeled the "evangelicals" believe that the quest for truth begins and ends with Jesus. Their work involves teaching and research in their disciplines, but their calling entails extending the reign of Jesus into all realms. The evangelicals might resonate with the words of the Dutch reformer Abraham Kuyper: "There is not one square inch of the entire creation about which Jesus Christ does not cry out, 'This is mine. This belongs to me.'"

Let me first acknowledge that in its context in the article, this quote is not quite as extreme as it sounds here, abstracted from Professor Elzinga's other statements, but perhaps taking it out of context is useful for thinking about what it might mean. I'll merely note that he recognizes that such evangelicals don't wear their Christianity on their sleeves, so long as they're at secular universities, where "they operate under a constraint," unlike at a Christian school, and he gives an example of the difference:

[W]hen I teach the economic theory of income distribution at the University of Virginia, which I will start next week in the classroom, it is not fair game for me to ask, "What might the biblical principle of gleaning, leaving some extra grain in the fields for the poor, teach about income distribution in an industrialized society?"

You can have that kind of conversation in Christian higher education. It should not be considered out of bounds to think of biblical perspectives of this sort, even if Christians in higher education who are at secular schools cannot go there. This is called integration, integrating the Christian faith with one's discipline.

I often post here on my blog about the danger posed by Islamism due to its integralism, namely, its refusal to accept a distinction between religion and state, between the sacred and the secular, so in all honesty, I have to wonder where the line would be drawn by Professor Elzinga's "evangelicals" -- "those [Christians] . . . who subscribe warmly to the biblical and theological tenets of the Christian church, those cardinal beliefs and affirmations which have been reiterated in the confessions and creedal affirmations of Christian churches," a rather more inclusive use of the term "evangelical" than one ordinarily encounters.

Professor Elzinga notes the "constitutional doctrine of a separation between church and state," but he doesn't say much about it. I would like to hear him offer a speech that includes that issue, for his remarks leave me wondering about his views.

Baylor University itself is very interested in the issue, I might add, for its Institute of Church-State Studies edits a highly respected journal titled the Journal of Church & State, which is now in its 53rd year of publication and is published by Oxford University Press.

I might also add that Baptists have traditionally been strongly in favor of a strict separation between religion and the state . . . however difficult the line may be to draw.

Echoes of change in the Arab world . . .

Father Zakaria

(Image from Zakaria's Site)

Since I don't know Arabic, my information about the Arab world comes to me already filtered, which is a reason for concern, of course -- am I being misled, misinformed, misdirected, mystificated? -- but we all depend upon filters for most of what we know, so we have to learn to deal with that by finding more than one filter.

I therefore rely not only upon MEMRI but upon a diversity of sources, even the mainstream media. Some time ago, I learned -- through the mainstream media -- of the Copt Raymond Ibrahim, who is fluent in both Arabic and English and has edited The Al Qaeda Reader (August 2007), a book that I really ought to read since it "gathers together the essential texts and documents that trace the origin, history, and evolution of the ideas of al-Qaeda founders Ayman al-Zawahiri and Osama bin Laden," or so the product description at Amazon states, and I suppose that it does attempt to do this since it is a "collection of the key texts of the al-Qaeda movement."

Mr. Ibrahim also writes for the National Review Online, which may be the mainstream source where I first read of him, and offers yet another window into the Arab world through his expertise in Arabic. In March of this year, he offered on NRO a view of "Islam's 'Public Enemy #1' Coptic priest Zakaria Botros fights fire with fire." I read it at the time and forgot about it, but it has recently again come to my attention. The "public enemy" stuff might sound over the top, but that's simply a designation being reported by Ibrahim:

Though he is little known in the West, Coptic priest Zakaria Botros -- named Islam's "Public Enemy #1" by the Arabic newspaper, al-Insan al-Jadid -- has been making waves in the Islamic world. Along with fellow missionaries -- mostly Muslim converts -- he appears frequently on the Arabic channel al-Hayat (i.e., "Life TV"). There, he addresses controversial topics of theological significance -- free from the censorship imposed by Islamic authorities or self-imposed through fear of the zealous mobs who fulminated against the infamous cartoons of Mohammed. Botros's excurses on little-known but embarrassing aspects of Islamic law and tradition have become a thorn in the side of Islamic leaders throughout the Middle East.

This is the sort of fascinating development in the Muslim Arab world that those of us ignorant of Arabic miss out on. Outside our ken lies an entire world where people debate issues that most of us know little to nothing about. For instance:

The most dramatic example of [Muslims debating issues raised by Botros] . . . occurred on another famous show on the international station, Iqra. The host, Basma -- a conservative Muslim woman in full hijab -- asked two prominent ulema, including Sheikh Gamal Qutb, one-time grand mufti of al-Azhar University, to explain the legality of the Koranic verse (4:24) that permits men to freely copulate with captive women. She repeatedly asked: "According to sharia, is slave-sex still applicable?" The two ulema would give no clear answer -- dissembling here, going off on tangents there. Basma remained adamant: Muslim youth were confused, and needed a response, since "there is a certain channel and a certain man who has discussed this issue over twenty times and has received no response from you."

The flustered Sheikh Qutb roared, "low-life people like that must be totally ignored!" and stormed off the set. He later returned, but refused to admit that Islam indeed permits sex-slaves, spending his time attacking Botros instead. When Basma said "Ninety percent of Muslims, including myself, do not understand the issue of concubinage in Islam and are having a hard time swallowing it," the sheikh responded, "You don’t need to understand." As for Muslims who watch and are influenced by Botros, he barked, "Too bad for them! If my son is sick and chooses to visit a mechanic, not a doctor -- that's his problem!"

That sort of debate must be fascinating in the Middle East, where speech is not quite so free as we're used to hearing in the West. What are the results of such free speech? Ibrahim 'reports' that many Muslims are abandoning Islam for Christianity:

The result? Mass conversions to Christianity -- if clandestine ones. The very public conversion of high-profile Italian journalist Magdi Allam -- who was baptized by Pope Benedict in Rome on Saturday -- is only the tip of the iceberg. Indeed, Islamic cleric Ahmad al-Qatani stated on al-Jazeera TV a while back that some six million Muslims convert to Christianity annually, many of them persuaded by Botros's public ministry. More recently, al-Jazeera noted Life TV's "unprecedented evangelical raid" on the Muslim world.

The Islamic cleric's warning about "six million Muslims" converting annually to Christianity sounds to me like a figure plucked from the air. If the conversions are "clandestine," how would we know that there are "mass conversions"? How would we know that Magdi Allam's conversion is "only the tip of the iceberg"? This is a point where I grow skeptical about some of the information that I'm receiving through my filter.

Whatever the truth on that matter, we at least hear an echo of things that the Muslim Arab world is talking about, and we see that debate is going on there in a world that is rapidly changing -- and changing in unexpected ways different even than those articulated in the debates over the Coptic priest Zakaria Botros. For a fascinating look at some of these other changes, read Robert Slackman's recent article for the International Herald Tribune, "Young and Arab in land of mosques and bars" (September 22, 2008).

Young Arabs at Exclusive Bar in Dubai

(Shawn Baldwin for The New York Times)

Islamism ain't the only game in town.

Hirsi Ali: "Islam is hostile to reason."

Immanuel Kant (1724-1804)

Philosopher of Tempered Reason

Also with "Downcast Eyes"?

(Image from Wikipedia)

For some reason, perhaps in part due to this blog, I end up on all sorts of mailing lists and therefore receive a lot of emails, most of which get consigned to my spam folder, but occasionally, I receive materials that I find useful and interesting.

I'm therefore not sorry to regularly find emails from The Spectator, an old (since 1828) conservative British magazine published weekly, for it sometimes has articles that catch my interest. Recently, this one by The Spectator's assistant editor, Mary Wakefield, attracted my eye:

Mary Wakefield, "'We are at war with all Islam': An interview with Ayaan Hirsi Ali," The Spectator (November 28, 2007)

I found most interesting Hirsi Ali's views on reason and religion as she and Wakefield discuss the differing character of Christianity and of Islam:

'Christianity is different from Islam,' says Hirsi Ali, 'because it allows you to question it. It probably wasn't different in the past, but it is now. Christians -- at least Christians in a liberal democracy -- have accepted, after Thomas Hobbes, that they must obey the secular rule of law; that there must be a separation of church and state. In Islamic doctrine such a separation has not occurred yet. This is what makes it dangerous! Islam -- all Islam, not just Islamism -- has not acknowledged that it must obey secular law. Islam is hostile to reason.'

Ayaan Hirsi Ali's eyes are now aglow. She is a terrific believer in reason. For her, Western civilisation is built on the bedrock not of Judaeo-Christian values, but of logic. After seeking asylum in Holland, she spent five years at Leiden university studying political science, absorbing the Enlightenment philosophers -- Spinoza, Hobbes, Voltaire -- and she mentions them fondly, as if they're family. But there's a steely side to her atheism, which says with Voltaire: Ecraser l'infâme! During a recent debate with Ed Husain, as Husain was explaining his moderate Islam, she began to laugh at him, saying: 'When you die you rot, Ed! There is no afterlife, Ed!' And it makes me wonder whether, for Hirsi Ali, Islam's crime is as much against reason as humanity; whether she sees the point of spirituality at all.

Are you so sure you understand what is at the heart of Islam? I ask her. Isn't there a peaceful prayerfulness -- apart from the politics -- that an atheist might not understand? 'I was a Muslim once, remember, and it was when I was most devout that I was most full of hate,' she says.

OK then, you talk about your conscience, and how your conscience was pricked by 9/11. But if there's no God, what do you mean by a conscience? And why should we obey it?

'My conscience is informed by reason,' says Hirsi Ali, surprised I should ask. 'It's like Kant's categorical imperative: behave to others as you would wish they behaved to you.'

Although Hirsi Ali may be unaware -- for I'm not certain how informed she is of Christianity -- Kant was secularizing and sharpening (albeit insisting that his categorical imperative was logically prior to) a teaching of Jesus that has come down to us in two forms:

Matthew 7:12: "So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets."

Luke 6:31 "Just as you want others to do for you, do the same for them."

This so-called 'Golden Rule' occurs in various religious traditions and probably in secular ones as well, so it's certainly not unique to Christianity. Interestingly, Hirsi Ali's formulation of what she refers to as Kant's categorical imperative ("behave to others as you would wish they behaved to you") comes closer to Matthew 7:12 ("do to others what you would have them do to you") than to any of Kant's formulations, e.g.:

"Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law." (Immanuel Kant, Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals, translated by James W. Ellington [1785], third edition Hackett Publishing Company: 1993, page 30.)

Hirsi Ali may have spent half a decade studying political science at Leiden University and learning about the Enlightenment philosophers (though Spinoza and Hobbes are, to be precise, usually considered pre-Enlightenment), including a dose of Kantianism, but her formulation of Kant's categorical imperative sounds more biblical than Kantian. In fact, it doesn't sound like Kant at all. I'm not ridiculing Hirsi Ali, for I find that Matthew's formulation of the Golden Rule comes more readily to my lips than does Kant's secularized and sharpened reformulation of it in his categorical imperative.

I don't know that this particular point is, strictly speaking, an issue of reason and religion, but it's mildly intriguing that Hirsi Ali's appeal to reason as having informed her conscience actually gives biblically informed listeners the impression that she's paraphrasing the Matthew 7:12.

Nevertheless, we should take seriously her claim to appeal to reason, for she is a brave woman under threat of death at the hands of Islamists for such statements as "Islam is hostile to reason." Her critique of Islam is not leveled at present-day Christianity, but her praise for Christian tolerance is tempered:

'Christianity is different from Islam,' says Hirsi Ali, 'because it allows you to question it. It probably wasn't different in the past, but it is now.'

This raises the question of Christianity's relation to reason, an issue broached by Pope Benedict XVI in his Regensberg lecture and also one that interests me, but I'll save this, perhaps for tomorrow.