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| September 20, 2006 |
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| Dear Concerned Citizen, |
by Dinesh D'Souza |
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Several years ago I accused an acquaintance of mine of having a problem with anger. “What the hell are you talking about?” he fumed. The incident came back to me when I read about Pope Benedict quoting a Byzantine emperor who charged that Islam was a religion of violence. Angrily disputing the Pope’s accusation, radical Muslims warned that the Pope deserved to die for his remarks!
Confronted with fanatical Muslims who seem bent on corroborating the worst accusations against their religion, we in the West seem justified in upholding Samuel Huntington’s famous thesis of a “clash of civilizations.” From the Danish cartoon controversy to the recent papal incident, we seem to be witnessing a virtually unbridgeable abyss between Western principles and Islamic principles. We believe in free speech, and they don’t. We believe in reason and pluralism, and they believe in violence.
This way of portraying the Muslim world, however, suffers from two serious flaws. First, it is tactically foolish. This becomes obvious when we recognize that there is a second clash of civilizations, and it is within the Muslim world. The Muslim world is divided between traditional Muslims and radical Muslims. The traditional Muslims are the majority, but the radical Muslims are an influential minority and their numbers are growing. For the past few decades the radical Muslims have been actively recruiting members from the traditional Muslim population. In some parts of the Muslim world, we have seen the Islamic radicals grow so strong that they are in a position to win elections.
What this means is that no victory is possible in the war against terrorism without stopping the growth of radical Islam. No strategy can work that fails to stem the tide of conversions from traditional Islam to radical Islam. No matter how many Islamic radicals we kill, the strength of radical Islam is undiminished if it is capable of replenishing its numbers with traditional Muslim recruits. Consequently America should make it a central element of its strategy to drive a wedge between traditional Islam and radical Islam. If we can find common ground with traditional Muslims, we can deter them from flocking to the radical camp.
Attacks on the Muslim religion as violent, or attacks on the Prophet Muhammad as a forerunner of Islamic terrorism, are terribly counterproductive because they have the direct effect of unifying traditional Muslims and radical Muslims. How can traditional Muslims be expected to show any sympathy toward assaults on their most sacred beliefs and the founder of their way of life? Even if true, such accusations should not be made publicly because their effect is likely to strengthen the worst elements in Islam and make terrorism worse.
But is what the Pope said true? Is Islam, in fact, a religion of the sword that cannot be integrated into a modern world that values reason, tolerance, and pluralism? While Christianity began in defeat, with a Christ on the cross and the early Christians hounded and persecuted, Islam began in victory and conquest. Historically, there is no doubt that the Islamic empire was established by the sword- but so was later Christendom. If I may use the Pope’s language, however, this should not be considered a mortal sin. Rome was founded by conquest, as was America. The state of Israel too, to take a more recent example, was founded by the sword.
Islam’s origins do not justify the conclusion that it is a religion that makes no provision for tolerance or pluralism. Islam has, from the beginning, made a distinction between conquering land and bringing it under the rule of Islamic law—this is allowed—and forcibly converting people to Islam—this is not allowed. The Koran itself insists that “there is no compulsion in religion.” I realize that many people bandy about quotations from the Koran about “slaying the infidels” and so on, but these quotations apply only to pagans, not to Jews and Christians. As monotheists, Jews and Christians were allowed to practice their religion in every Islamic empire, from the Abbasid dynasty to the Mongol empire to the Ottomans.
When the Muslims ruled northern India for centuries, they could easily have forced all the Hindus to convert on pain of death, but they didn’t. India remains overwhelmingly Hindu, a tribute to Islamic and later British tolerance. In the medieval period, Islamic tolerance contrasts favorably with Christian intolerance. In the fifteenth century, Jews were attending synagogues in Muslim regimes while Christian rulers in Spain gave them three choices: leave the country, convert to Christianity, or be killed! The Pope made no mention of this in his speech.
Let us remember that Islam has been around since the eighth century, while Islamic terrorism is a phenomenon of the past 25 years. Consequently it is wrong to blame Muhammad, the Koran, or the Muslim religion for something that is clearly a recent phenomenon. The real question to ask is, what is it about Islam today that makes it an incubator of fanaticism and terrorism? Why is it that now, as never before, so many people are willing to kill and be killed in the name of Allah? On this question I am eager to hear, not only from the Pope, but from the leaders of traditional Islam.
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Responses to What IS religion good for anyway?:
Your description of secular use of religion to control the masses describes to a "t" the current neo-conservative strategy of the Bush administration. The manipulative use of religions language and social control of the masses while destroying human rights and undermining the constitution would make the 16th century prince puff with pride.
- Jim frisbie
Canby, OR
"Our Judeo-Christian heritage"?
Excuse me, but that is Jewish and Christian heritage. To a Jew, Judeo-Christian in a well meaning but offensive term, implying that
Christianity supercedes Judaism .
Though I teach religion from the view that all of life is affected by our beliefs and values, and am much appreciated by students,
too many religion departments are sticking with "theology" and "Bible".
You have a good idea, but some of your language needs other than Christian perspective. - Cia Sautter, Ph.D.
I appreciated the article written by Wiker and his side-bar regarding Machiavelli. However, I found To the Source's sidebar on E.O. Wilson nothing more than irresponsible invective.
There is no comparing Wilson with Machiavelli. Doing so is nothing less than a strawman argument. Calling Wilson's latest book The Creation: a meeting of science and religion a form of "soft Machiavellianism," "old fashioned political calculus," and "hard core patronization" was simple ad hominum fundamentalist rhetoric intended to caricature an honest plea for help from Christians in saving the environment.
Wilson is quite honest in his proclamation of agnosticism and exactly where he stands; he is also quite honest about how Christians can help him out in a cause he loves. Never once does he suggest that he believes Christians should be "dismissed as irrational and superstitious" as you imply. In fact, he clearly states that secularists need to enlist Christians in saving the Creation "in an atmoshere of mutual respect." For once, we have a secularist coming to Christians for help in solving a problem . . . and then you trash his attempt with didactic invective.You should be ashamed.
As a Christian biologist, I was embarrassed because of your irresponsibility. You need to read Augustine more:
“Usually, even a non-Christian knows something about the earth . . . about the kinds of animals, shrubs, stones . . . from reason and experience. Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking nonsense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn. . . . If they find a Christian mistaken in a field which they themselves know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions about our books, how are they going to believe those books in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven? Reckless and incompetent expounders of Holy Scripture bring untold trouble and sorrow on their wiser brethren when they are caught in one of their mischievous false opinions and are taken to task by those who are not bound by the authority of our sacred books.”
I found in Wilson's plea a softening of his opinion regarding Christians and an opportunity to show him that he could still be welcomed and loved by his one-time brethren . . .thus, perhaps, getting him back into the fold by us respondiong to his cry. However, your attack just reinforced current views of Christians as maintaining "foolish opinions about our books." Shame on you, "reckless and incompetent expounders of Holy Scripture" with your fatwa against him.
- Dr. Dan Brannan
Professor of Biology
Dr. Wiker's response:
First, some clarity about our piece on Machiavelli. The focus was not on Machiavelli’s atheism, but on Machiavelli’s use of Christianity for his own secular ends. That was also our focus on E. O. Wilson as well, and I stand by our calling Wilson’s plea a form of “soft Machiavellianism” insofar as he (like Stephen Jay Gould before him) seems to be extending a friendly hand, not because he is really friendly, but simply because he needs a political hand. He says as much in the very words we quoted. If we didn’t live in a democracy where “fundamentalist” votes counted, then he wouldn’t need to count on fundamentalist votes to promote the protection of the environment.
We did not say that promoting the protection of the environment is a bad thing. In fact, Christians are required to do so because they view their position in regard to creation as one of stewardship. Nor did we take up an analysis of Wilson’s evolutionary claims in particular, although I would have been happy to do so. Our sole focus was his admitted desire to reach out to Evangelical Christians only because he needs them politically, even though he quite obviously believes Christianity to be untenable superstition left over from a pre-scientific age. If the members of Wicca happened to be a significant voting majority, or devotees of astrology had considerable political clout, Wilson would seemingly be reaching out to them as well. This is to follow Machiavelli, not in his ruthlessness, but in his advice for non-believers to use believers for political ends.
Finally, in regard to St. Augustine, I whole-heartedly agree, but we were not expounding Scripture, nor am I a fundamentalist. [Editor's Note: See our citation of St. Augustine's quote in this tothesource article] Christians must take into account the latest science, although not uncritically. I invite you to read my most recent book, A Meaningful World: How the Arts and Sciences Reveal the Genius of Nature. In it, rather than turning away from science, and show that it points to God rather than away from him.
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We live complex lives. We strive to sort out priorities that sometimes conflict or seem incompatible. A moral framework is needed to help us understand the reality around us. Our Judeo-Christian heritage provides a framework to help us comprehend the choices we make and the conflicts that arise over them. It is not only the main source of our spiritual values, but also many of the secular values we depend on.
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Dinesh
D'Souza
Dinesh
D'Souza, the Rishwain Research Scholar at the Hoover Institution
at Stanford University, served as senior domestic policy analyst
in the White House in 1987-1988. He is the best-selling author
of Illiberal Education, The End of Racism, Ronald Reagan, The Virtue of Prosperity, and What's So Great About America. D'Souza's forthcoming book
The Enemy at Home will be published by Doubleday in January 2007. He is the designated
expert on current American culture for tothesource. |
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tothesource, P.O. Box 1292, Thousand Oaks, CA 91358
Phone: (805) 241-3138 | Fax: (805) 241-3158 | info@tothesource.org |
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