How to Modernize the Middle East
Democracy is not a value by itself.
The United States used to try this—modernizing the Middle East by forcing reforms. The strategy was to support military-sourced dictators who would keep the Islamic clergy under control.
That strategy didn’t have long-run success in Iran, because most of the reforms were socialist reforms, which tend to increase inequality and hamper the economy. Nevertheless, women in Iran benefited by securing the right to vote, by dressing fashionably, by going into higher education, and into various professions.
A military commander who is prepared to be a transitory ruler is easier to find than a theocracy that will give up its hold on power. With time, a person ages, an institution hardens.
But a nation in the hands of its Islamic clergy is a totalitarian disaster.
In 1980, soon after Ayatollah Khomeini came to power in Iran following a coup, the revolution “closed universities for three years (1980–1983) and after reopening banned many books and purged thousands of students and lecturers from the schools.”
Books which do not comply with public chastity rules are still banned, even though the Culture Minister recently admitted that the Koran itself does not comply with public chastity rules either, but was given an exemption because it’s a divine revelation.
In recent times, the U.S. has actually assisted in the overthrow of semi-secular dictators in favor of a democracy that was destined to put an Islamic theocracy in power. The U.S. government will even fund private agencies to promote democracy in Islamic nations, and ends up fostering the rise of the theocrats.
Democracy is not a value by itself. If it comes with no constitutional protections, and a vigilant and independent judiciary, it is likely to lead to increasing intrusions by the State into the private affairs of its citizens. True value lies in a government committed to protection of individual rights and tightly constrained by a strong Constitution.
Spain, under Dictator Franco, and Greece, under a military rule, secured some economic freedoms, and thereby, prosperity and high economic growth.
A military commander who is prepared to be a transitory ruler is easier to find than a theocracy that will give up its hold on power. With time, a person ages, an institution hardens.
The real option, however, is to encourage a mass apostasy, immediately after the coup. Islam is already a shrinking religion, see here, here, here, and here.
And what about trying to change Islam instead?
The Origins, and the LGBT-friendly and Feminist Islam Variations
That inquiry takes us back 1,400 years. To Mecca (or a lesser-known place in the then Arabia which revised history rewrote as Mecca), then a religious center for many religions, but mainly pagans, who worshiped multiple gods.
The ancient Greeks and the Romans had multiple gods. So do the Hindus. Many goddesses, too. Three cheers for the first foray into feminism thousands of years ago.
The ancient Greeks and the Romans had multiple gods. So do the Hindus. Many goddesses, too. Three cheers for the first foray into feminism thousands of years ago. In amongst, say, eighteen of Aurora, Vishnu, Zeus, Krishna, Apollo, and Aphrodite, a newcomer throws in a 19th god, and no one objects. Polytheism is tolerant. No central authority. Just you and your god. No monopolies.
Then came Mohammad.
According to “The Story of Mohammed: Islam Unveiled” by Harry Richardson, a high priest in the powerful tribe of Quraysh adopted his orphan nephew named Mohammad. Mohammad’s family were both traders and people who made money from religion, organizing pilgrimages etc.
One fine day, when he was about forty years old, Mohammad claimed that an angel visited him when he was meditating in a cave, and commanded him to recite some verses. Mohammad came to believe (or at least he said so) that he was the last of the great prophets, and that his god was the only god. Some people ridiculed him, but, nevertheless, his clan grew.
Now the pagan society was a multi-religious one, somewhat peaceful, so they perceived the strict monotheism as a threat to their religion business, and rightly so. When Mohammad began to ridicule his own ancestors, who were sacred to the Quraysh tribe, the tribal elders wanted to kill Mohammad, but Mohammad’s powerful uncle protected him.
Later, when Mohammad’s uncle died, he became vulnerable, but it so transpired that neighboring Medina at the time was full of warring tribes that sought a powerful ruler. Mohammad agreed to become their ruler provided they accepted Allah as the only god and Mohammad as the sole prophet. The tribes agreed. Mohammad now commanded a significant army and subsequently went on a military conquest rampage through Arabia. That’s the story we hear from Richardson.
But the details are unusually gory. Scholar Peter Townsend, author of “Questioning Islam” attests to his many sources being renowned in Islamic circles as authentic. What he describes is in line with what we get from various other sources such as Wafa Sultan (A God Who Hates), Robert Spencer and David Horowitz (Islamophobia), Ali Sina (Why Can’t Islam be Reformed?), Bill Warner (Why We Are Afraid, A 1400 Year Secret, and Political Islam), Robert Jeffress (Muhammad Was A Bloodthirsty Warlord), Christopher Hitchens (The Sexual Abuse of Children in Islam), Richard Dawkins (Islam is One Of The Great Evils in the World), Sam Harris (The Example of Mohammad), and Dr. Stephen M. Kirby (The Fantasy Islam of Reza Aslan).
Suffice to say that the charge sheet laid by some of these writers includes breaking treaties, murder, plunder, genocide, keeping and trading slaves as well as sex slaves, pedophilia, beheading, ordering innocents to be stoned to death, and torture. All of it reportedly blessed by the canon, and much of it, Townsend says, by just-in-time revelations.
One can’t modernize Islam if, as Richardson says, the canon was designed around emulating the founder as the moral ideal. Further, the only authority is the founder, who has long since been dead, and, even if, as Townsend says, multiple versions of the Koran abound, the central belief is that the document is the word of God and thus eternal.
We are stuck unless someone says, “All these accounts are patently false.”
If there is such a challenge, it must be heard, and heard well. In a well-publicized, public, enquiry.
Or, we can ask, “Can you reconstruct the canon such that the actions of one man don’t matter?”
Even then, we may be stuck with a philosophy that is profoundly anti-reason. As Aaron Segal reports, “… its tenets have not satisfactorily been reconciled with those of science. Islam’s most deleterious effect may be to remove most Muslims from direct contact with science.”
The record of history is out there now. How will they put the genie back in the bottle?
And yet, quite a lot of gimmicky variations are being tried— LGBT-friendly Islam, Feminist Islam, Secular Islam, No-hadith Islam (i.e. accounts of the founder’s life removed from the canon), even a Tolu-e-Islam in which the spearhead, “Ghulam Ahmed Pervez, did not reject all hadiths; however, he only accepted hadiths [accounts] which ‘are in accordance with the Quran or do not stain the character of the Prophet or his companions.’” (See here—Liberal and Progressive Muslim movements)—Interesting concept—mythologize the founder with pure goodness—much easier with a blue-skinned Krishna who appears only in fiction, and if done right from the start. The record of history is out there now. How will they put the genie back in the bottle?
None of these variations is a force yet. But the fact that some imams are bending over backwards to save their status is a good thing.
The Theocrats and their Master Illusion
According to Richardson, ‘four-fifths of them [Muslims] don’t know Arabic’, “they are sternly dissuaded from understanding its [the Koran’s] meaning”, “… only those who are committed enough to want to become Islamic religious leaders or ‘Imams’ learn the truth about Mohammad’s life.”
“Radicalization” could be defined as removing the blanket.
What? Is the entire world of Islam under a blanket of subterfuge, a world stranger than The Matrix, constructed with a master illusion? In that case, “radicalization” could be defined as removing the blanket.
Perhaps less than a hundred million have actually subscribed to the full canon with knowledge and consent, the rest are merrily unaware, and may be being exposed only to the parts of the ethic that do not differ from those in most other religions, such as compassion and charity. Townsend does claim that parts of the Koran were plagiarized from Jewish and Christian texts.
Some with full knowledge are surely quietened, not by consent, but by fear of the theocrats.
Sam Harris claims to have poll results that suggest concentric circles—perhaps as many as 20% as full Islamists (Harris’s term), and suicidal terrorists a much smaller percentage of that. The rest have diminishing layers of awareness. The claimed number of 1.6 billion converts is false. And some with full knowledge are surely quietened, not by consent, but by fear of the theocrats.
Perhaps here and there in the texts, lie pillars of goodness creatively inserted by well-meaning imams—built, potentially, on a foundation of quicksand. Foundations which we cannot ignore.
Notwithstanding that some religious scholars try to reinterpret canonical texts to introduce a compassionate or rational interpretation, for most, it’s a task of memorizing and recitation.
However, memorizing and recitation is an inferior task compared to the act of creating, or the task of building our understanding of the real world. Preachers and imams are performing an intellectually inferior task to those performed not only by inventors and scientists, but also by doctors, artists, nurses, engineers, merchants, electricians, and plumbers.
There is only one kind of world in which “such recitalists” rise to a position of unbridled power—a theocracy. And when they get there, they want to stay there.
The imams memorize. Then they recite. We need even our electricians and plumbers to think. To detect where the problem lies. And then fix it.
There is only one kind of world in which “such recitalists” rise to a position of unbridled power—a theocracy. And when they get there, they want to stay there. Men of reason, like Galileo Galilei, are a threat to them. They are dealt with. Mercilessly.
The Apostasy Option
The only easy way to become a Jew is to be born to a mother who was one (or there is a hard way). But aren’t the doors of Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity, and Islam open to one and all?
Not exactly. Islam’s entry door is wide open, but the exit door is triple-padlocked with an electrified fence. The prescribed punishment for apostasy (a total desertion from one’s religion) is death. Sometimes, that results in a tortuous death. It’s not an empty threat. From Bangladesh to Sudan to Saudi Arabia, it’s often carried out.
Truth is an intercontinental ballistic missile. The West must launch this weapon. Fearlessly. Openly. Repeatedly.
Even in the West, where there is a loudly-proclaimed freedom of religion, Islam-apologists have made it difficult to help apostates.
The Guardian, a left-leaning, politically correct newspaper, ran a feature in 2015—“As debate rages over the radicalisation of young British Muslims, are we overlooking a different crisis of faith? Ex-Muslims who dare to speak out are often cut off by their families and fear for their lives. A brave few tell us their stories.”
We hear stories of fear, of ostracizing, of threats.
According to Vice News, whose 2016 video shows an apostate being attacked with an axe in Britain (yes, in the U.K.!) says “Many ex-Muslims risk so-called honor killing, forced marriage, kidnap, and communal violence at the hands of their families for ‘bringing shame’ on their community. In Western countries, ex-Muslims are often thrown out of the family and face isolation and exclusion.”
Private organizations, like Faith to Faithless and Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain, had to spring up to assist, because politically correct governments are not doing enough.
And a day will come when we will no longer fear democratic elections in, or refugees from, the beleaguered humanity of the Middle East.
Facilitating democracy as a way to get theocrats into power is regressive. Backing the lesser evil of military dictators pressured to commit to free speech and a free economy is potentially a temporary option. Engineering a coup may be essential, in order to establish free discourse.
Truth is an intercontinental ballistic missile. The West must launch this weapon. Fearlessly. Openly. Repeatedly. With absolute contempt for terms like Islamophobia. Let the faith try to rise to the challenge and win or retain converts in open discourse.
But I suspect that, with open discourse, Reason will win converts, the Middle Eastern brain drain will accelerate, as will the exodus to atheism and other religions. And a day will come when we will no longer fear democratic elections in, or refugees from, the beleaguered humanity of the Middle East.
This article benefited from comments made on an earlier draft by Stephen Hicks and Sally Driscoll.
About the Author: Vinay Kolhatkar
