Charlie Hebdo: Time to 'Impose the Enlightenment' on Islam (Die Zeit, Germany)
"This is
precisely the impertinent demand that must be imposed on Islam if it really
wants to be part of Europe. Things needn't go as far as laughing at caricatures
of Mohammed, but it will certainly have to go almost that far. … What exactly
would imposing the Enlightenment mean for Islam? In addition to realizing
religious tolerance (this will never exist in Islam as long as apostasy is considered
worthy of punishment), undisputed equality for women, a clear precedence of
secular over religious law, and above all: goodbye to Islam as a notion of world
order."
After each terrorist shock of the last fourteen years has
come a mandate to differentiate between Islamism and Islam. This applied after New York, it
applied after
London, it applied after Madrid,
and after the murder of Theo Van
Gogh. Now, after the massacre at the editorial offices of Charlie Hebdo,
it is again being proclaimed - should suspicions of an Islamist attack be
confirmed.
The distinction between Islam and Islamism was never wrong,
but it was incomplete. Absolving the moderate Muslim majority should have been
coupled with a demand - that Islam conduct a self-examination into the beliefs,
intellectual rigidities and anachronisms that even with moderate interpretations of
the Quran cause some young people to cry out "Allah is great!"
as they massacre journalists. For as wrong as it is to equate Islam with
Islamism, it is just as wrong to deny any connection between the two.
This widely under-engaged debate, which has been avoided for
fear of a reasoned critique of Islam in mosques as well as parliaments,
editorial offices and universities, is perhaps the greatest failure of terrorism
prevention of the past decade and a half. It failed as a result of optimism
that in the long term the extremists would be isolated and marginalized if the
moderate religious center remained stable and supported.
This desired result, however, never materialized. On the
contrary, both nationally and internationally the Islamist movement became
stronger. The jihad has not only conquered countries, but pop culture. And this
is not simply a fantasy religion on which al-Qaeda fans, travelers to Syria and
the killers of Paris or Kobani base their brutality.
Rather, it is a religion that unfortunately, hasn't passed through the European
Enlightenment.
This is precisely the impertinent demand that must be imposed
on Islam if it really wants to be part of Europe. Things needn't go as far as
laughing at caricatures of Mohammed, but it will certainly have to go almost
that far. This is a presumption that should have been formulated much sooner. There
is no point in presenting Lessing’s parable of the ring if
in the end the speaker is the only one who remains tolerant.
Posted By Worldmeets.US
What exactly would imposing the Enlightenment mean for
Islam? In addition to realizing religious tolerance (this will never exist in
Islam as long as apostasy
is considered worthy of punishment), undisputed equality for women, a clear
precedence of secular over religious law, and above all: goodbye to Islam as a notion
of world order.
The idea that the world can be peaceful only when the world
is Islamic is not radical; it is part of Mohammed’s teachings. You can
dismiss this as historical, but one can just as easily hype it as a political
challenge to Western democracy, which is what has happened over and over again
with SayyidQutb, founder of
the Muslim Brotherhood, Osama bin Laden and Islamic State Chief Abu Bakr al Baghdadi. The Paris killers would have lived under
the delusion of a holy war against the decadent West. To put it bluntly, Islam,
even moderate Islam, still too often results in alienation from the Western
style of life.
Within these deep currents of dangerously unquestioned faith
is where a critique of Islam can and must begin, both from within and without. Until
then, differentiating Islam from Islamism will remain what it has been for too
long: a mantra that isn't wrong, but is one of appeasement.
