Excellent, must-read article that has been reposted today on Global Politician, but originally was pressed over on Gates of Vienna. Fjordman does a great job of refuting the idea that Islam can coexist with Democracy. Here are a couple of teasers and links to parts one and two. Please read it all:
Is Islam Compatible With Democracy? Part I
I will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve. Therefore strike off their heads and strike off every fingertip of them. The Koran, 8.12
Allahs Apostle said, I have been made victorious with terror (cast in the hearts of the enemy) Hadith of Bukhari, Volume 4, Book 52, Number 220
He who strikes terror into others is himself in continual fear. Claudian, Roman poet
Occasionally I get annoyed over the fact that I am compelled to spend significant amounts of my time refuting Islam, an ideology that is flawed to the core and should be totally irrelevant in the 21st century. But then I try to see it from a positive angle: The good part about our confrontation with Islam is that it forces us to deal with flaws in our own civilization. It has already exposed a massive failure in our education system and our media, both filled with anti-Western sentiments and ideological nonsense. These legacies from the Western Cultural Revolution of the 1960s and 70s have left us unable to recognize the Islamic threat for what it is. Thus, when we are confronted now with the question of whether or not Islam is compatible with democracy, we also have to ask under what conditions a democratic system is able to function.
Is Islam Compatible With Democracy? Part II
According to Salim Mansur, associate professor of political science at the University of Western Ontario, Canada, “Democracy is in a cultural sense an expression of the liberal modern world that situates the individual as the moral center of politics and society. (
) It is the idea of the inalienable rights located in the individual, rights that need to be protected, nurtured, and allowed the fullest unhindered expression that makes democracy so morally distinctive from other cultural systems. From this liberal perspective, the common error about democracy is to view it as a majority system of governance. In a democracy based on individual rights, on the contrary, it is the protection of the rights of minorities and dissidents that reflect the different nature of politics within the larger context of democratic culture.”
This definition is opposed to an illiberal democracy, which is “similar to what Samuel E. Finer, a professor of politics and government, wrote about in Comparative Government as ‘façade democracy,’ a bowing of the head to the idea of democracy by the tiny elite of those in power as a means to enhance their legitimacy and perpetuate their authority.”
One great obstacle to establishing democracy in this cultural sense in Muslim countries is that Muslims have been taught from birth that non-Muslims can’t be expected to enjoy the same kind of rights as Muslims do.
And work continues here on the Anvil on my own ‘Refuting Islam’ multimedia series. Don’t be surprised if I reference some elements from the above article along the way at some point, either by coincidence or by design. I should have the second part of ‘Refuting Islam’ ready in May. The focus will be on the chapter Women.
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