Why I Took Part in Hizb ut Tahrir’s Debate on Secularism
This is a guest post by John Holmwood, Professor of Sociology and Head of Department, University of Birmingham. It follows on from this post.
“I was one of us, at ease, so long as I passed/
my voice into theirs”
Daljit Nagra Look We Have Coming to Dover
Daljit Nagra’s poem eloquently expresses the problem faced by many minority groups seeking to have their own concerns recognised as legitimate within public debates. These concerns are frequently misrepresented, if they require the dominant population to listen carefully and to reconsider their own prejudices. A recent example is the Archbishop of Canterbury’s discussion of how Sharia law can be accommodated within secular civil and family law. This elicited an overwhelmingly negative media response which both misrepresented what was being argued and blamed him for opening the debate. Within Muslim communities this contributed to the idea that the majority population is only at ease when other voices are suppressed.
This was the context in which I agreed to participate in a debate organised by Hizb-ut-Tahrir, to argue forcefully that secularism was positive for Islam, in general, and for Muslims in Britain, in particular. The fact that this debate attracted over a hundred people from the local community should be a clear indication of its significance to the community. Against those that argue that Hizb-ut-Tahrir should be shunned, I simply ask if it would be better that those who came to listen should be denied the opportunity of hearing alternative views. It is not simply a matter of free speech, however, but also a matter of the willingness of secularists like myself to present our views outside our area of ease, or comfort zone.
Text of talk: IS SECULARISM RIGHT?
Let me say explicitly at the outset that I want to argue that secularism is right. I also want to argue that secularism is frequently misunderstood, and especially by its noisiest proponents. But in saying this, I don’t expect to find it easier to elicit your agreement with what I want to propose from my side in the debate (but then I don’t think dialogue is about reaching agreement, but about reaching a better understanding of where we disagree and why). I want to propose to you that secularism and Islam are not mutually exclusive and, more strongly, that secularism is the condition for Islam to flourish in the modern world.
Let me now say what I mean by secularism. I want to identify three meanings, in order to quickly get the first out of the way and concentrate on the remaining two as perhaps raising the most important issues for us. These are militant secularism, the idea of the secularisation of society, and a third, which I shall call pragmatic secularism.
Militant secularism as a system of belief parallel to that of religious belief, but radically antagonistic to it. This is a form of secularism that I repudiate entirely and it is not what I am proposing. Associated with atheism, it makes a sharp (and to my mind false) separation between science and religion, the rational and the irrational. The primary advocate of this position in contemporary Britain is Richard Dawkins. I don’t want to deny its public significance, but when we present the issue of secularism and Islam it is self-evident that militant secularism is opposed to Islam and its expression in political life and civil society, just as it is opposed to other religions. It is frequently associated with sentiments that there are more wars caused by religion than anything else. This is simply to say that wars are tied up with what people believe and for most of human history most humans have expressed themselves through religion. There is no particular reason to think that wars would not take place without religious motivations for them. More importantly, religious belief is also an important impetus in movements to change the world, relieve suffering etc (Red Cross and Crescent/ Christian Aid/ Islamic relief), and in peace movements. I am far from arguing, then, that religion is a negative influence in public life.
More important than militant secularism for understanding current dilemmas is what sociologists call the secularisation of society. This is an argument that the rise of modern institutions, in particular the nation-state, rational legal systems and capitalist market economies are associated with the disenchantment of the world, the rise of individualism and the decline of religious observation and organised religion. This is a reasonable description when applied to Britain where, over the last 100 years, attendance at religious services has declined dramatically.
For a long time, most sociologists thought that this was an inexorable consequence of the development of modern societies, that with modernisation comes secularisation, and a secular population underpins democratic institutions. However, sociologists have become less confident in this trend and now speak of a post-secular age. The collapse of communism has been associated with the re-emergence of religion as a social and political force and along with demographic changes in the world, there is now a higher proportion of the world’s population expressing religious faith despite increased globalisation and modernisation.
But the jury is out, because the secularisation thesis also understood that religious belief could be one of the vehicles for protest about the injustices and dislocations associated with the process of modernisation. Indeed, Hizb-ut-Tahrir, is itself a social justice movement as well as an expression of political Islam. The rise, or return, of religious belief might, after all, then, be part and parcel of a longer term secularisation of society, whose first phase is the rise of religiously mediated protest.
Nonetheless, we have an interesting confluence between this return of religion in the post-communist world and militant secularism. It is precisely their unease about the lack of certainty that secularisation will deliver a world in which religious belief is no longer significant that fuels their anxieties, just as it is a fear among some people of strong religious faith that modernity is corrosive of religious belief that leads them to want to embed what are essentially modern institutions in religious beliefs.
For the present, and the foreseeable future, we do live in a post-secular world in which religious belief is of fundamental importance to much of the world’s population. There can be no dialogue on the militant secularist assumption that our interlocutors are going to be removed by the forces of history. The idea that they are may give some people personal comfort, but it also gives rise to a dangerous dogmatism. The reality of the modern world is that we increasingly need to live together as people of different religious beliefs and no religious beliefs within one political community.
But living together with different religious beliefs and no religious beliefs within a political community also confronts what is the most dangerous of all modernist ideologies. This is the idea that a political community needs to be the expression of a unified social community – the ‘people’. This is the ideology of ethnic cleansing, of population exchange between Greece and Turkey at the end of the Ottoman Empire, and of partition in India at the end of British Empire. This is a much more dangerous European legacy than secularism and it is ironic if political Islam should also wish to have political institutions the expression of a unified, social (religious) community.
This brings me to the third meaning of secularism, pragmatic secularism, and what I want to suggest to you is most relevant to our contemporary dilemmas in a globalised world. Pragmatic secularism is simply the separation of political and legal systems from religious affiliation; in other words, the disestablishment of religion. Here, religious belief is appropriately a matter of organisation in what sociologists call civil society, but it is not enshrined in political institutions.
The origins of pragmatic secularism do not derive from a sense of the decline of religion, but precisely from the opposite, that it is a live and potentially divisive force and that separation allows people to express their different religious beliefs within a single political community. Secularism in India before and after partition would be an example, or what has been articulated to manage religious divisions between Catholicism and Protestantism in Britain (albeit without the full disestablishment of religion).
Pragmatic secularism is also a position that has roots within religious traditions, too, in the sense that all religions have traditions of thought that recognise their self-limitation in terms of their relation to others of different faiths – a recognition that other faiths find their space because all religions are mediated by fallible human belief in their relation to their God. This, in part, was the motivation of President Mohammad Khatami’s speech to the United Nations in 1997 calling for dialogue, and his actions as President of Iran to strengthen secular institutions: “in various religious traditions, man speaks with his creator by calling him ‘Thou’ and thereby ascends from an isolated ‘individual’ to personhood. Likewise, the cultural heritage of various nations, poetic and literary, has benefited from various forms of dialogue in the explication of human, ethical and social themes. From ‘Kalileh va Demneh’ (Panjeh Tantra), which is an ancient book in dialogical style, to the mystical works in the East and West, beautiful and attractive examples of dialogue can be found. Philosophers, mystics and reformers, when seeking to explain the rational, ethical, and social aspects of truth, have turned to dialogue to avoid misunderstanding.”
I want to suggest to you that this is also consistent with allowing space within the civil law for people to find resolution to disputes within legally recognised conciliation consistent with their religious beliefs –whether that be Sharia Courts or those of Beth Din. The Archbishop of Canterbury’s views on Sharia, then, are entirely consistent with pragmatic secularism and he might even be regarded as providing its best articulation. Similarly, it is something to celebrate that mortgages consistent with Islamic principles are now available. Importantly, a principle of voluntarism is retained. Fully civil courts are available for those who wish to use them, but there is also an articulation of religiously-informed courts for those seeking conciliation directly mediated through religious authorities that they accept.
I am now in a position to begin to outline a much more robust thesis for why secularism is right for Islam. Secularism, in the pragmatic sense I have outlined, might be the very condition for religious faith to flourish in the modern world, not its antagonist.
What might be the evidence for this? You are probably struck by the irony that my description of pragmatic secularism has few pure cases (after all, Britain has an established Church). The close approximations are India and the United States. Both are places where religion flourishes. And, the USA has always been the paradox that sociologists have confronted when arguing for the secularisation thesis. It is the country in the West where the separation of religion and the state is most clearcut, yet religious belief and observation remains strong – the secularisation thesis seems least applicable in the ‘lead society of modernity’. I want to suggest to you that this is perhaps precisely because of its paragmatically secular character.
Why might this be so? Politics is a realm of contestation and disappointment. While religiously-grounded political protest is a powerful feature of the modern world, the association of religion with government potentially serves to delegitimate religious authority, not to secure its legitimacy.
Building religion into the state also ties religion to the geo-politics of state systems, frequently with disastrous consequences. These disastrous consequences involve not only ethno-religious conflicts between different communities, but also civil war within the community of believers. Frequently co-religionists are not unified by their faith, but divided by it.
It would be better to harness religion to the resistance to that kind of geo-politics and to movements for social justice? And might there not then be common cause among people of different religious belief, rather than divisions among them. Practically, we can find such examples in the city of Birmingham in community action together by citizens of different (and no) faiths, but also in wider social movements such as ‘make poverty history’, or ‘stop the war’, where religious charities and organisations were fundamental to popular mobilisation across religious differences. Religious belief, then, can be the ground of action in the modern world without seeking to have expression within formal political institutions.
Might Islam, then, not flourish better if conceived very strictly as ummah – that is, as a community of believers, or, loosely organised (global) civil society of believers – rather than as a caliphate, that is as a political organisation? In this way, secularism would be right for Islam, without Islam being diminished in any way in its moral claims over believers.
Postscript:
Dialogue within a political community organised on pragmatic secular principles would not need to be secular dialogue, nor would it exclude the expression of fundamental disagreements. We do not need to respect each other’s opinions, but we do need to be willing to listen and to understand, in order to learn from what is being said by those regarded as ‘different’. This requirement holds for all members of a political community, whatever their ‘identifications’. No ‘voice’ should be passed into that of others, except by the process of open dialogue.
Comments
| 19 May 2008, 5:28 pm |
Yes, this article is the predictable ‘multiculturalist’ propaganda which part of the liberal/Left propagandises for. It ignores the main totalitarian tenets of Islam, and its long, past and present, violent, imperialist history.
Mr. Holmwood apparently regards Islam, and Sharia, as part of some largely benign, modest, tolerant organisation which the West should increasingly accommodate. I suppose it’s a matter, a vital matter, of understand the historical evidence, and acting on it; Mr. Holmwood can play the dhimmi; I will do my best to resist.
“An Anatomy of Surrender” (Bruce Bawer):
http://www.city-journal.org/2008/18_2_cultural_jihadists.html
| 19 May 2008, 5:40 pm |
Do you have any record of what the opposing speakers said as well? I’d be interested to hear.
| 19 May 2008, 5:44 pm |
Islam is no more incompatible with a secular state than any other religion. To think otherwise demonstrates a remarkable lack of confidence.
What I did say to Prof H, when we first discussed this issue is this. I think that the Professor was chosen, effectively, as a “patsy” in this debate. He put forward a strong argument for secularism. However, the way this would have been portrayed by Hizb ut Tahrir to their followers and potential recruits is:
“The Professor gave you the kufr view of the best way to organise a state. We’re giving you the Muslim perspective.”
Hizb prefer to debate against white liberals than Muslim liberals or traditional theologians for precisely this reason. First, white liberals cannot (convincingly) ‘do’ the Islamic theology: Hizb tends to do very badly when challenged by more sophisticated theologians. Secondly, it allows them to set up the dichotomy of kufr v Islam.
Oh and Hizb certainly presents itself as a “social justice movement”. A quick look at its Constitution makes it very clear precisely what sort of “social justice” it seeks to establish. I think most people would think twice about speaking on the platform of a white organisation which had these political goals.
| 19 May 2008, 5:53 pm |
“But living together with different religious beliefs and no religious beliefs within a political community also confronts what is the most dangerous of all modernist ideologies. This is the idea that a political community needs to be the expression of a unified social community – the ‘people’. This is the ideology of ethnic cleansing, of population exchange between Greece and Turkey at the end of the Ottoman Empire, and of partition in India at the end of British Empire. This is a much more dangerous European legacy than secularism and it is ironic if political Islam should also wish to have political institutions the expression of a unified, social (religious) community. ”
Nothing ironic about it. The idea of a unified community of believers is precisely what drives militant Islam and is a central tenet of their belief structure. Why does Professor Holmwood think this is a specifically European idea?
Incidentally can anyone explain what his field of sociology is? This is on his official CV: “John’s main research interests are the relation between social theory and explanation and social stratification and inequality. His current research addresses the challenge of global social inquiry and the role of pragmatism in the construction of public sociology. ”
And these are some of his publications:
Holmwood, J. 2007. ‘Sociology as professional practice and public discourse: a critique of Michael Burawoy’ Sociological Theory 25: 46-66.
Holmwood, J. 2007. ‘”Only connect”: the challenge of globalization for the social sciences’ 21st Century Society 2(1), 2007. Pp. 79-93
Holmwood, J. 2001. ‘Gender and critical realism: a critique of Sayer’ Sociology 35: 947-65
Holmwood, J. and Kemp, S. 2003. ‘Realism, regularity and social explanation’ Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour 33:165-188.
Any the wiser? Me neither (and I have a sociology degree!). Strikes me as another woolly thinker along the lines of the Archbish of Canterbury ie so profound he disappears up his own profundity…
| 19 May 2008, 6:01 pm |
A good post…i agree with the professor…but i have to echo David T’s critique…a Muslim, like for example Ed Husain, would demolish Hitz in an argument…
| 19 May 2008, 6:12 pm |
The Prof was also absolutely right to seek to establish the case for secularism by debating Hizb. This can’t be stressed enough. I took a lot of stick - in fact am still taking it - for agreeing to speak against a member of a fascist organisation when I was a student, at a meeting which breached the so-called “no platform” policy.
The limited point I’m making is about appearing at a HuT event: where you’ll be dancing to their tune.
| 19 May 2008, 6:39 pm |
Interesting piece. Not sure about how you define the term “militant secularist” though. I would have thought “militant atheist” was more apt.
Secularists should, by definition, consider religious beliefs to be a personal matter for individuals and nothing to do with governments. One can advance this notion vociferously (or militantly) without making any hectoring claims as to what particular beliefs people should (or should not) subscribe to.
| 19 May 2008, 7:02 pm |
Jack R, “Islam” per se does not mean anything. It’s a religion, a life code, as you prefer. The book per se is harmless. Just like the Christian and Jew books, it is full of contradictions. Why? Well, because it has to be useful under many circunstances…
If a peaceful “muslim” prince (or whatever is the correct terminology) wants peace… no problem. The holy book will contain a lot of sentences which prove his point is right. If the next prince wants to start an agressive war, then no problem. He will find out the appropriate sentence which allows him to start a war… Yes, even the most illegal war.
Easy, eh?
This is the most elementary first step. To understand that the three big religions DO contain a lot of contradictions, the two sides of the same coin. But they are still “books”, nothing else. Someone has to read them. Someone must say “the book allows my current political programme”. And that’s what matters.
So when you say “Islam” you are in fact talking about a concrete interpretation of this religion (nowadays). A political, social movement in fact.
They are dangerous? Oh well… I am old fashioned, you know… I still think that a since WW1 a total war is ONLY possible if you are er… an INDUSTRIAL society.
Tell me how many Army Corps do you have? And how many Armies? How many tanks? What about planes and ships? Your factories produce weapons? Ammunition? Do you even have Heavy Industry? What about research and science?
And can you really arm all of your Armies? Enough clothes and food for your soldiers?
Now do me a favor and tell me what “Islamic” society [today] can conduct a MODERN war… In fact, why a tiny state like Israel has prevailed should tell you something about this inevitable axiom… Swim or drown. And er… they can’t swim… and yes, the most lunatics of them still say they want to take over the whole world. The poor things…
You have to understand that desperation is what is leading them… The world keeps going on. Now you have many big blocs: America, EU, India, China, Japan. They [Arab societies] are NOT part of this movement. Inferiority complex too, if you prefer.
To finish:you talk as if the [muslim] book per se was an alive entity. Quite funny and obviously aberrant.
And here is the good news. if they want to take over the world, first they will need to become industrial, modern societies… the little problem is that er… in the process the religious shit will just disappear.
Your post contains a lot of islamophobia as well…
| 19 May 2008, 7:47 pm |
Gosh! The prof has managed to miss all the arguments against the Archbishop of Canterbury and ignore all the real worries.
He makes the same mistakes that all “multiculturalists” make. There are, apparently, these rigidly defined groups called “communities” and they are *different* from ordinary human beings like us. So different in fact that ordinary human rights don’t apply to individuals within those communities.
He even throws in the obligatory reference to colonialism:
“This is the idea that a political community needs to be the expression of a unified social community – the ‘people’. This is the ideology of ethnic cleansing, of population exchange between Greece and Turkey at the end of the Ottoman Empire, and of partition in India at the end of British Empire.”
Gross hyperbole.
Of course no- one is suggesting that minorities should conform in every particular to majority culture. However, Sharia law oversteps the mark because *in practice* it is grossly sexist and homophobic- even if it is “just” applied to civil cases.
The crucial question is: do you think it is a just system? If not then why do you want to apply it to UK citizens?
Oh, and I *would* get rid of the Beth Din as well.
| 19 May 2008, 8:13 pm |
Tzimisces: “Oh, and I *would* get rid of the Beth Din as well.”
This seems to be based on the same confusion as the Archbishop’s speech. Namely, to confuse 1) the existence of private tribunals existing on a voluntary basis, able to make judgements affecting those who voluntarily accept them, or who are voluntarily members of an organisation which set up the tribunal as part of its process of self-government; and 2), the question of according them some sort of official status, so that their judgements are enforced by the state in preference to the law of the land.
For groups (any groups, whether a religious group, the Labour Party or the local tennis club) to establish tribunals in sense 1 is a perfectly legitimate activity in a free society, and to seek to ‘abolish’ them by law would be an infringement of the very freedom we claim to be upholding. Beth Din (plural, because different synagogue groups all maintain their own, and they disagree profoundly with each other) only exist on this basis, and individuals are free to disregard their judgements.
To allow private tribunals in sense 2, however (as the Archbishop seemed to be suggesting) would be a grotesque attack on freedom and universal human rights, and we should indeed resist any such proposals. But the distinction I am making is crucial if we’re to be consistent about our belief in personal freedom.
| 19 May 2008, 8:21 pm |
“”Ed” Husain would demolish Hizt in an argument” that seems odd, especially since he refused to debate them on a forum such as the BBC World Have Your Say program here:
http://forum.mpacuk.org/showthread.php?p=503527#post503527
http://worldhaveyoursay.wordpress.com/2008/04/29/how-can-we-fight-islamist-extremism/
it seems everytime that he has been challenged on this he backs down further like he did here:
“My background is in the public domain - kindly tell us more about yourself and your past/current affiliations with Islamism (of any shade). For others waiting in the wings, please introduce yourself or your family connections to Islamism which make you vulnerable to rise to the defence of Islamism. Otherwise, I reserve the right to silence.”
Mohamed Mahbub “Ed” Husain*
04.06.2007 IPinSight”
source: http://www.deenport.com/iframes/viewtopic.php?topicurl=viewtopic.php?t=16081&sid=c
If these are preconditions that you are attaching to being able to “debate” someone, than you have already lost the argument.
regards,
Sam
| 19 May 2008, 8:35 pm |
David T, after I read the first few paragraphs of the Prof’s text I said to myself “He’s been taken for a patsy” and so I need to know if you are my long-lost twin brother (Remember Twins?).
My second thought was to compare the reading age analysis of a University Professor and 100 members of the local Muslim Community and determine how wide was the mis-match in communication.
Hence, I suspect his speech was word-salad to most people and his argument that the audience should all suddenly become apostates (by becoming secular) beggars disbelief at his naivety.
| 19 May 2008, 8:37 pm |
No, you’ve lost the argument when you advocate gender and religious apartheid, and rule according to some cleric’s conception of god’s will.
| 19 May 2008, 8:42 pm |
Hey Prof! What is it we didn’t understand about Archbishop Of Canterbury’s speech? I wonder, as an academic yourself, you are really telling us that the almost incomprehensible academic argument he made was easy for you to understand and we (mere GCSE students (you lot not me!)) just didn’t get it.
Now, learn a great concept from the field of NLP and Cognitive Psychology “The meaning of a communication is the effect it elicits”. Meaning? I don’t care what you mean I care what I believe you mean. Come down off your high academic horse and speak to the level of the audience.
| 19 May 2008, 8:50 pm |
I also love this bit:
“Importantly, a principle of voluntarism is retained. Fully civil courts are available for those who wish to use them”
Yeah, right. You legitimise a religious court and make Sharia law binding. Now, how many muslim women for example will be able to resist “community pressure” and go to the civil courts? How many plaintiffs (especially those muslim men with something to gain from Sharia law) are not going to invoke this pressure to get a better deal?
INtroducing special courts and laws will strengthen tribal forces and tribalism is a powerful force against voluntarism.
Finally, the eminent prof has missed out the obvious example of a “pragmatic secular” society- Lebanon. That worked didn’t it?
HarryG- OK, fair comment. I should have said: “Get rid of their legally binding powers” (which were, I believe, introduced in 2002?
http://www.theus.org.uk/the_united_synagogue/the_london_beth_din/litigation/).
Having said that, I think there is room for a law against bodies impersonating a court (analogous to impersonating a policeman). The reason for this is similar- a person may be misled to their own detriment. Any body that claims to be making a binding judgment based on any law other than the law of the land should be illegal.
| 19 May 2008, 9:25 pm |
Pierrot Grenouille.
My reply is posted (by oversight) on ‘Iran’ blog at 19 May, 9.19 pm.
| 19 May 2008, 10:00 pm |
I feel I must be missing the point here.
Isn’t Islam by self definition a colonising religion? One that insists civil, political and religious responsibilities and belief are indivisible?
Why should the advocates of such an all encompassing belief set, suddenly accept a division between the religious and the civic or political realms?
This is just as daft as the Archbishop saying we should accommodate sharia elements in our legal system, provided of course they enshrine equality for women. Oh yeah, was that a pig just flew past my window?
| 19 May 2008, 10:22 pm |
The fact that this debate attracted over a hundred people from the local community should be a clear indication of its significance to the community.
Very little?
There’s probably more Muslims in pubs at the same time.
I mean, if the SWP gather 100 people in a City the size of Birmingham are we to take that as an indication of the importance of the SWP to the people of Birmingham? The good Prof is easily impressed.
| 19 May 2008, 10:36 pm |
This post is excrutiating pseudo intellectual tosh. I have wasted minutes of my life reading this.
| 19 May 2008, 11:01 pm |
Maven and belljar are right. Turgid introductory paragraph preceded by an oblique quote- my attention was slipping already so that I had to reread it with deliberation- so I can imagine it must have drifted right past when delivered orally. And I think I am not altogether a stranger to dense texts what with degrees in Eng lit and law. Sometimes I have to persevere with tracts by such as mettaculture, but they usually yield worthwhile, even rich, rewards if you do so. Unlike alas, Prof Holmwood.
| 19 May 2008, 11:02 pm |
I agree with the thrust of Prof Holmwood’s article but not his conclusions. The Archbishop was wrong about the need to grant Shari’a concessions that would elevate it’s position above common law. This would contradict the whole point of the separation of religion from legislation since Shari’a is regarded as the religion itself by and large.
I don’t think Shari’a is anywhere near having universal acceptance in terms of interpretation and implementation on matters concerning inheritance and family law. It is nowhere near as developed as the Beth Din as a legal system to exist within a secular framework. There seem to be no institutions which have codified the Shari’a that are accepted universally by the various madhabs and their myriad vernacular interpretations. This is where the whole idea of an ummah, though good in theory and sentiment, has no basis in reality.
Saying to the Hizbis “Forget the Islamic state, come down and accept the community of Muslims” is counter-intuitive since they regard the community as a political entity with the needs of a nation state. It’s like saying to an American, you can’t have a Union but you can have 50 states. To the Hizbi, the Ummah is the Khilafah.
Muslims can accept political secularism but not the Shari’a must be relegated and divested of it’s paramount position. Unfortunately this is not what the Prof is saying, even though it can be done.
| 19 May 2008, 11:24 pm |
Neil
There’s probably more Muslims in pubs at the same time.
Well, put it this way. This was a Hizb event. Therefore, I’d expect a three line whip on Hizb members. If all they got was 100 or so attendees, the size of the audience suggests to me that - even if made up almost entirely of Hizbies and near-Hizbies, as it probably was - Hizb is not really that strong in Brum.
Muslims can accept political secularism but not the Shari’a must be relegated and divested of it’s paramount position. Unfortunately this is not what the Prof is saying, even though it can be done.
Can it? Not if Sharia has a paramount position. The only ways in which if Sharia can be accomodated in a manner which preserves its paramouncy is if:
- it is interpreted in a manner which achieves consistency with the equality of persons, and fundamental human rights, as conventionally understood; or
- it is treated as effectively a personal code of ethics, rather than a system of government to be imposed on those who do not accept it.
Both require a pretty fundamental rethinking of the concept of “Sharia”.
But, anyhow, what do you mean by “Muslims will accept…”? Muslims are not a homogenous bloc - I don’t think you’re saying that, but still…
| 19 May 2008, 11:43 pm |
David T
Yes, agreed. Althoughm I still can be Sharia’s paramouncy can be dealt with. There are Muslim countries which were formed which have been formed with the cornerstone of a secular constitution and the separation of religion from state. Unfortunately, the problem today is best expressed by the Prof: “there is now a higher proportion of the world’s population expressing religious faith despite increased globalisation and modernisation.”
| 19 May 2008, 11:47 pm |
ahem, sorry badly expressed with lots of typos. It’s late.
| 20 May 2008, 6:30 am |
A recent example is the Archbishop of Canterbury’s discussion of how Sharia law can be accommodated within secular civil and family law.
I rather seem to remember he described it as “unavoidable”.
In my view the castigation he received from accross the board, was more than justified.
| 20 May 2008, 6:43 am |
I want to propose to you that secularism and Islam are not mutually exclusive
True.
….and, more strongly, that secularism is the condition for Islam to flourish in the modern world.
Why on earth would anyone, who is not a Muslim want Islam to flourish; it’s a thoughroghly nasty, intolerant, opressive, totalitarian ideology?
What a trite argument. Islam is predicated on seeking a religious monopoly; to pretend otherwise, is to call night, day. The fact that secularism, as practiced in liberal democracies, is tolerant; does NOT mean we should be arguing to supporters of fascist ideologies that secular liberal democracies are the best environment for them to ‘flourish’.
What a silly argument!
Rather the fact that such fascist ideologies are tolerated is an inevitable by product of tolarance.
| 20 May 2008, 8:00 am |
David T Islam is no more incompatible with a secular state than any other religion.
Er in a word …bollocks!
Sam Harris puts it in more measurd terms:
Mainstream Islam itself represents an extremist rejection of intellectual honesty, gender equality, secular politics and genuine pluralism. The truth about Islam is as politically incorrect as it is terrifying: Islam is all fringe and no center. In Islam, we confront a civilization with an arrested history. It is as though a portal in time has opened, and the Christians of the 14th century are pouring into our world.
| 20 May 2008, 9:09 am |
David T-
“The Prof was also absolutely right to seek to establish the case for secularism by debating Hizb. ”
Except that isn’t what he did. His “pragmatic secularism” is nothing of the kind. It isn’t secular because it *introduces* religious law where no religious law existed before. It isn’t even “pragmatic” because there is no groundswell of support for such courts and so no large group of people to compromise (i.e. be pragmatic) with.
Another classic quote from the prof:
“Pragmatic secularism is also a position that has roots within religious traditions, too, in the sense that all religions have traditions of thought that recognise their self-limitation in terms of their relation to others of different faiths – a recognition that other faiths find their space because all religions are mediated by fallible human belief in their relation to their God.”
In other words religions have an innate tendency to be tolerant of each other. This is so obviously drivel that no comment is needed.
| 20 May 2008, 9:48 am |
The fact that the Professor posted the whole text of his speech, as if he was in a fair fight for the allegiance and support of the audience, shows that he had (and still has) no understanding of what the event was, or why he was there.
| 20 May 2008, 9:49 am |
John claims that his “pragmatic secularism” will have the effects historically identified with “militant secularism”. These being the separation of church and state and thereby a lack of persecution for religion that allows diverse faiths to flourish. But it has none of the capacity of “militant secularism” to ensure that these effects are actually caused.
I don’t expect much from the sociology department, but some kind of grasp on how society works really shouldn’t be too much to ask.
| 20 May 2008, 9:54 am |
I’d hate to accuse anyone of living up to a stereotype, but the
Flesch/Flesch–Kincaid Readability score for this article was 23, while recent HP articles have been in the range 45 - 60. Reader’s Digest magazine has a readability index of about 65, Time magazine scores about 52, and the Harvard Law Review has a general readability score in the low 30s, so the article is even more inpenetrable than the latter.
If you’re wondering why I bothered checking, well, I had MS Word open and after three attempts to finish the article late last night, I was curious. Is writing in this way mandatory in Sociology?
P.
| 20 May 2008, 10:42 am |
OT but this is outrageous…
| 20 May 2008, 10:55 am |
But, anyhow, what do you mean by “Muslims will accept…”? Muslims are not a homogenous bloc - I don’t think you’re saying that, but still…
I don’t think “Muslims will accept secularism” is a statement which regards Muslims as homogeneous bloc anymore than the Prof’s statement “Secularism, in the pragmatic sense I have outlined, might be the very condition for religious faith to flourish in the modern world, not its antagonist.” is.
If we’re going to talk about Secularism and Islam we have to talk about Islam’s adherents as an, erm, bloc.
This is not the same as regarding Islam as an anthromorphic entity as in “Islam is predicated on seeking a religious monopoly and likes eating jam donuts”. We’ll leave that to Morgoth and Nick (South Africa).
| 20 May 2008, 10:58 am |
Alex, that’s incredible. Why have police decided it is their job to prosecute those who “insult” groups? I can only include that the cult in question has infiltrated the police.
P.
| 20 May 2008, 11:02 am |
You would have thought police would have learned some lessons from the “Undercover Mosque” debacle.
| 20 May 2008, 11:05 am |
More germane stuff from the Same Sam Harris Link…
there is a direct link between the doctrine of Islam and Muslim violence. Acknowledging this link remains especially taboo among political liberals. While liberals are leery of religious fundamentalism in general, they consistently imagine that all religions at their core teach the same thing and teach it equally well. This is one of the many delusions borne of political correctness. Rather than continue to squander precious time, energy, and good will by denying the role that Islam now plays in perpetuating Muslim violence, we should urge Muslim communities, East and West, to reform the ideology of their religion. This will not be easy, as the Koran and hadith offer precious little basis for a Muslim Enlightenment, but it is necessary. The truth that we must finally confront is that Islam contains specific notions of martyrdom and jihad that fully explain the character of Muslim violence. Unless the world’s Muslims can find some way of expunging the metaphysics that is fast turning their religion into a cult of death, we will ultimately face the same perversely destructive behavior throughout much of the world. It should be clear that I am not speaking about a race or an ethnicity here; I am speaking about the logical consequences of specific ideas.
Anyone who imagines that terrestrial concerns account for Muslim terrorism must answer questions of the following sort: Where are the Tibetan Buddhist suicide bombers? The Tibetans have suffered an occupation far more brutal, and far more cynical, than any that Britain, the United States, or Israel have ever imposed upon the Muslim world. Where are the throngs of Tibetans ready to perpetrate suicidal atrocities against Chinese noncombatants? They do not exist. What is the difference that makes the difference? The difference lies in the specific tenets of Islam.
| 20 May 2008, 11:08 am |
“The difference lies in the specific tenets of Islam.”
Um, Tamil Tigers? Kamikaze?
P.
| 20 May 2008, 11:18 am |
‘The Archbishop of Canterbury’s views on Sharia, then, are entirely consistent with pragmatic secularism ‘.
Oh no they are not. The whole point about the furore was that the AB sought constantly to enlarge the role of Sharia BEYOND the voluntaryist, civil society model. He constantly confused civil society with civil law. I don’t have any problem with people seeking sharia judgements out of private, personal piety. Or the Beth Din courts for that matter. It’s no more different than if I was to ask David T here, as a personal favour, to sort out a neighbour dispute I was having, and out of good faith, and confidence in him, I’d stick to what he decided. That is the secularist model, the ‘pragmatic secularism’ of Holmwood’s categories; what sociologists of religion refer to as the ‘privitisation of religion’, i.e. it sticks to the private sphere as a voluntaryist movement, and keeps out of the religiously neutral public sphere. I DO have a problem with Sharia having more beef than as a private voluntary code, which was precisely what the AB was arguing for, if you read his speech closely critically. ‘A chain is only as strong as its weakest link’ and though in other parts of his speech he wafted over to a less emphatic stance, he did in fact argue at certain key points for some kind of greater LEGAL recognition of Sharia. Civil law is enforced by the state. This is the boundary between it and voluntaryism.
Anyway, we’ve been here before.
I can’t agree with David T’s assertion that Islam is capable of becoming a ‘privatised’ religion in a secular society. Dissidents such as Walid Shoebat refute this: he says Islam is a political ideology dressed up as a religion. But that western liberals, used to a toothless, pacifist Christianity, are unable to comprehend this.
Ibn Warraq says the same: ‘There may be moderate Muslims, but there is no moderate Islam’. I.e., Islam, if you study its main text, the Qu’ran, and its theology, is not moderate. The fact that individual Muslims like Yasmin Alibhai Brown (Muslims for a Secular Democracy) may be trying to privatise Islam, see it as a private, personal religion, is one thing; what 1400 years of doctrines and canonical texts actually teach, is quite another.
Of course, if there are enough Muslims like her, then surely Islam will change… how many Catholics believe in original sin these days, and don’t practice contraception? Good luck to Yasmin, but what religion can survive such a fundamental dissonance between such toothless private observation and the militancy of its canonical texts and doctrines?
I agree with Mrs Ben that his sociology specialism is all over the place. He is certainly no sociologist of religion.
| 20 May 2008, 11:44 am |
I was interested to read in the paper the other day that the jihadi groups in Iraq are falling out among themselves. Some of them want to declare a Caliphate and have indeed suggested a putative Caliph. Any Caliph must have the right ancestry, it can’t be any old Mustapha, Hassan or Ibrahim. He must come from one particular family, I forget which, and one of the groups believes that their candidate fulfills the criteria. Another group disagrees, and argues that you cannot declare a Caliphate just like that. Doesn’t this show the impossibility of Islam as a workable political system (as if we needed any further proof)? I expect this is also what is behind Bin Laden’s message to switch attention to Palestine, knowing that it is unravelling in Iraq, he wants to get out of there fast and recreate himself and his murderous organisation somewhere else. (Sorry about the lack of hard details, but I’ve recycled the newspaper already).
| 20 May 2008, 11:45 am |
Devorgilla,
In as much as anyone can understand what the Archbishop of Canterbury meant, I agree with what you say. What he suggested is completely unacceptable. I do not agree with the argument in the post…if we were to follow these ideas we will find ourselves on a very slippery slope.
| 20 May 2008, 12:14 pm |
Can anyone explain the results of this poll, which I find curious:
The results are neither in the direct or inverse proportion I would expect.
Jews are far more likely than Christians or Muslims in the UK to believe that religions, including their own, discriminate against women.
Seventy-three per cent of Jews feel that faiths are discriminatory, compared with 50 per cent of Christians and 29 per cent of Muslims, according to a new poll by Populus.
| 20 May 2008, 12:54 pm |
ami
‘Sometimes I have to persevere with tracts by such as mettaculture, but they usually yield worthwhile, even rich, rewards if you do so’
I actually did just really laugh out loud, as opposed to writing it.
Fortunately I read your comment a second or two before I was about to post my considered response to professor Holmwoods encounter with Hizb ut Tahrir!
Now I will go out and attend to some chores and a slow mindful walk upon my thoughts before coming back and posting, with two audiences, rightfully, equally centrally in mind;
The Professor (out of respect for his contribution and his decision to ‘debate’ HUT)
The readers and commenters of HP (out of respect for their role as the participants in a deliberative democracy).
It’s interesting that you echo a common frustration with sociological language and Social Theory.
As you say you are skilled in interrogating language as graduate of both English Literature and the Law;
One uses the English language (at its richest) as the tool of its own investigation,
The other Law uses a jargon (mostly of Latin through Norman French (secondarily directly from Roman Law) or from Norman French directly (especially in Land, Trusts and Contract law).
The problem with Social Theory and its related ‘ologies’ is that it does both and simultaneously neither, very well at all.
Perhaps if the social sciences had developed a unique lexicon as in medicine or law, that required a formal period of language acquisition, it would paradoxically appear less riddled with jargon, wilful obfuscation and florid hyperbole in stating the blindingly obvious.
The social sciences instead deploy both terms that are commonly found in other disciplines but with a unique technical meaning or words that have a set of commonly understood meanings in spoken English (and other vernaculars) and its literary canons but give them a wholly distinct meaning.
Worse the habit in the social sciences is for different but related disciplines (e.g. anthropology vs. sociology vs. social psychology) to use the same terms with wholly different meanings or for essentially identical concepts to have an entirely different technical description.
Different schools and scholars compound this phenomenon so that the vocabulary of social scientists may end up more closely resembling the eccentric meanings of poetry or the conversations of schizophrenics.
A classical or specialist lexicon has its strengths as well as drawbacks, as no doubt you encounter with the plain English proscriptions of the l Wolfe reforms to the procedural law of England.
Sometimes this has resulted in greater clarity, at other times as the uniqueness of concepts requires a precise rendition it has led to utter confusion (always a rich source of potential revenue for lawyers) simply replacing one jargon with populist plain English nonsense.
The dangers of specialist language are different but can be equally pernicious.
A friend of mine who suffered from a, not uncommon, but rarely diagnosed (as a distinct entity with a clear medical specialism claiming it as their own) and extremely disabling disappearance of saliva production such that he could barely swallow or speak.
He spent months seeking diagnosis and treatment, endlessly being referred to specialists from surgeons, to oncologists, pharmacologists, to endocrinologists, ENT specialists etc etc.
Eventually he came before a consultant Physician with a gleam of diagnostic ‘eureka’ in his eyes who said ‘ell I can tell you what your problem is it’s called…’
‘Wait’ said my friend ‘let me see, you are going to tell me it’s something like ‘Xero-stoma’.
‘Why yes said the rather deflated looking consultant’ (I was there, at times of troublesome diagnostic encounters it always helps to have someone else present)
‘Do you have a medical science background then?’
‘No’ replied my friend ‘I am a Classicist, its Greek for dry mouth’.
The consultation though a success from one person’s point of view did not result in treatment, this seemed unnecessary for the absence of something caused by the presence of (some unknown causative) thing.
A couple of weeks later my friend flew to the US and strolled into a Wallgreens Pharmacy where he found a little section called the ‘mouth and lip care center’ where he bought several kinds of artificial saliva so allowing him to swallow his food without gallons of water and to speak other than in a gagging croak.
So as not to give the appearance of bamboozle or waffle or pifflingness, and acknowledging both the importance of this topic and the limits of tolerance that the educated and well adjusted mind has for such things, I shall recompose my post so that it is not even half Greek.
| 20 May 2008, 1:17 pm |
What Ami, belljar, Maven, devogilla said. Reduced, the writer is a pseud basically saying that the UK status quo is secular and this is good but fails to understand that that was exactly what the druid-tosspost delberately undermined or was too dumb to understand himself.
He was ’submitting’ and since this incident is being used by others of his ilk to ‘prove’ what an Islamophobic society we are the Bish, et al should be ridiculed and/or cut-off at every opportunity not given legitimacy by some patronising and an inherantly counter-productive engagement by some niaf.
| 20 May 2008, 1:30 pm |
An excellent summary by S. Harris.
The truth that we must finally confront is that Islam contains specific notions of martyrdom and jihad that fully explain the character of Muslim violence. Unless the world’s Muslims can find some way of expunging the metaphysics that is fast turning their religion into a cult of death, we will ultimately face the same perversely destructive behavior throughout much of the world. It should be clear that I am not speaking about a race or an ethnicity here; I am speaking about the logical consequences of specific ideas.<i
And then the common, rote response:
Um, Tamil Tigers? Kamikaze? P. Moloney
There is a world of difference between a movement that restricts its goals to narrow national interests, and another that seeks to impose its will on the entire planet.
The Tamil Tigers don’t even want to impose their rule on the Indian sub-continent, let alone the whole world.
Sam Harris has a probleme that has been some fifty years in the making. As longs as his calls for secularism address the ‘dangers’ of Christian fundamentalism, a small probleme at best, he has a most receptive and enthusiastic audience.
But the moment he turns those same critical faculties on radical Islam, a much greater danger, the audience is gone..
One sees this numb-skulled reflex over and over and over again. And the denial always seeks succor, nourishment, by invoking locally based *liberation movements* that are mainly ethnic in nature, and which have only superficial similarities to radical Islams aims, methods and objectives.
By investing all our secularist energies in anti-Christian invective, while reserving NONE for Islam, we’ve just ended up chasing out *good* religion and replacing it with creeping theocratic fascism.
Frying pan/fire.
| 20 May 2008, 1:52 pm |
Hi all, if you want to celebrate British Islam, come to this event:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=3S9L9S6WQDo
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=BZ1JYrU9kXM&feature=related
Thanks
| 20 May 2008, 2:07 pm |
Hi all, if you want to celebrate British Islam, come to this event:
I object to the use of HP as an advertising medium for a commercial event. I also baulk at the £64 entry fee.
| 20 May 2008, 2:24 pm |
Hi all, if you want to celebrate British Islam, come to this event:
No thanks.
In any case, Islam was abundantly celebrated on 9/11.
9/11, 1683.
Celebrate this instead.
http://www.islamonline.net/English/News/2005-12/31/article04.shtml
| 20 May 2008, 6:36 pm |
“http://www.islamonline.net/English/News/2005-12/31/article04.shtml”
Worshipping one bunch of sky fairies over another, not much of an improvement.
P.
| 20 May 2008, 7:27 pm |
Worshipping one bunch of sky fairies over another, not much of an improvement.
Really?
Then attend the ‘celebrate’ Islam festivities and be sure to bring a bottle of chablis with you when you do so.
Alleigiance to one group of sky fairies over another has become of paramount importance these days.
It’s just that no one was paying attention.
Even Sam Harris now sees that, albeit his epiphany comes far too late.
Power always moves into a vacum.
Sky fairies too.
| 22 May 2008, 1:23 am |
I should say that I applaud the professor for seeking to make a defence of secularism.
The question of the probity of doing so at the invitation of Hizb ut Tahrir who are militant Islamists deeply opposed to the idea of secularism, is not only the advantage they may have gained in gaining ‘legitimacy’ through such a strategy but also what they gained from the professor as a ‘take home message’.
There is a robust defence of secularism that is in HUT interests but it is one that would make a principled defence of democratic secularism the respect for and acceptance of which is a sine qua non of their own religious, civil and political freedoms in this country.
John Holmwoods ‘pragmatic secularism’ is a weak Anglicanism, a monarchical-religious-state dispensation, that can be easily seen by the enemies of the secular (that HUT are) for the attenuated and toothless institutional compromise that it is.
HUT’s take home message from professor Holmwood, would be that the secular world is passing into a time of resurgent religion, and the more vociferous the demands made on a weak secular settlement the greater the returns in terms of the erosion of the boundaries of the civil and the political in favour of the religious.
They would have further learned the ease with which they could split the defence of secularism by the wilfull confusion and elision with atheism, and that demands for the imposition of a parallel legal system of sharia will not be resisted by weak and unprincipled secularists especially if couched in terms of the language of minority rights and cultural difference dressed up as social reform.
They will understand that the reason that they should go along with a ‘pragmatic secularism’ is not that unless they respect the freedom of conscience of all (including the right to apostasy or to no religious belief at all) they will exclude themselves from the very same rights and freedoms, but that the world, and this country, is likely to become one increasingly fertile for the flourishing of their theo-politics.
If I was a member of a vanguardist revolutionary Islamist movement like HUT I would be thinking that if such an unprincipled defence of secularism should rest on a fatalistic view of its inevitable demise then the task of creating an Islamic communal entity within such a weakly defended state must be easier than imagined.
If HUT can attract reputable social scientists who flatter HUT as a social reform movment seeking global justice (while ignoring any religious militancy)
, who refuse to consider a dialogue with those who would vigorously defend the institutional arrangements of secularism (classed as militants) against a subverting theo-politics
while eagerly seeking dialogue with those who would seek to destroy such a society in favour of a fantasised future Caliphate, then I think HUT will be considering its debate a great success and looking forward to knowing their enemy even better in the future.
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