Now to Islam. It is, first, a religion that makes very large claims for itself, purporting to be the last and final word of God and expressing an ambition to become the world's only religion. Some of its adherents follow or advocate the practice of plural marriage, forced marriage, female circumcision, compulsory veiling of women, and censorship of non-Muslim magazines and media. Islam's teachings generally exhibit suspicion of the very idea of church-state separation. Other teachings, depending on context, can be held to exhibit a very strong dislike of other religions, as well as of heretical forms of Islam. Muslims in America, including members of the armed forces, have already been found willing to respond to orders issued by foreign terrorist organizations. Most disturbingly, no authority within the faith appears to have the power to rule decisively that such practices, or such teachings, or such actions, are definitely and utterly in conflict with the precepts of the religion itself.
Reactions from even "moderate" Muslims to criticism are not uniformly reassuring. "Some of what people are saying in this mosque controversy is very similar to what German media was saying about Jews in the 1920s and 1930s," Imam Abdullah Antepli, Muslim chaplain at Duke University, told the New York Times. Yes, we all recall the Jewish suicide bombers of that period, as we recall the Jewish yells for holy war, the Jewish demands for the veiling of women and the stoning of homosexuals, and the Jewish burning of newspapers that published cartoons they did not like. What is needed from the supporters of this very confident faith is more self-criticism and less self-pity and self-righteousness.
Those who wish that there would be no mosques in America have already lost the argument: Globalization, no less than the promise of American liberty, mandates that the United States will have a Muslim population of some size. The only question, then, is what kind, or rather kinds, of Islam it will follow. There's an excellent chance of a healthy pluralist outcome, but it's very unlikely that this can happen unless, as with their predecessors on these shores, Muslims are compelled to abandon certain presumptions that are exclusive to themselves. The taming and domestication of religion is one of the unceasing chores of civilization. Those who pretend that we can skip this stage in the present case are deluding themselves and asking for trouble not just in the future but in the immediate present.
This is why multiculturalists are deluding themselves in believing many cultures can wholly retain their autonomy yet still peacefully co-exist in a democratic society. One only needs to look at the angry nativism rising in Europe, a frustrated response to the the carving out of separate Islamic sectors in society, to see how such a policy has balkanized those countries. Different cultures have thrived in America only because they assimilated themselves to the enduring values of America being founded on a civic ideal; of a nation-state not built on race, ethnicity, or religion, but instead, on dedication to a limited government where individuals participate in self-governance, and respect the rule of law which applies equally to all. Immigrants to America retain some of their culture; they speak their own languages, create their own communities, and practice some of their customs in both the private and public sphere. But as Hitchens notes, just as we demanded that the Mormons in Utah give up polygamy before joining the union, we must also ask Muslims to do the same to be part of western society. So in a sense, we do ask they give up some of their culture to be part of the ideal of America.
No comments:
Post a Comment