Are Political Islam and Liberal Democracy Compatible?
We've a choice: reduce immigration significantly and end the importation of Islamic politics immediately, or see our democratic system replaced by an Islamic theocracy and sectarianism.
Democracy is a global thing.
Electoral democratic systems exist in 120 of the 192 countries of the world and impact 58.2 per cent of the world's population. Few major leaders, political theorists or activists argue against democracy. However, I think most of us would agree with Churchill who said, “No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time…”
Democracy enables the people who are governed to participate, to an extent at least, in deciding how they are governed. It also those who govern with the legitimacy to do so, if only sometimes as a veneer. Even President Putin feels the need to hold elections in order to be able to claim legitimacy, however tightly the results are controlled. The point is that democracy is based on the principle of government of the people by the people, and it is that principle that is so important.
But in the Muslim world, things are Different
Islam is a religious way of life that insists that people follow a theological doctrine based on the teachings and interpretation of the Quran. Far more so than Christianity, it is a code by which its adherents live. That code governs all human affairs and relations and provides a set of rules and principles for governing a people. Islam.
Until relatively recently, the islands of the United Kingdom have been largely insulated from any direct ideological conflict between our own democratic principles and the theocratic beliefs of the Muslim world. But now large-scale immigration of Muslims has resulted in the liberal democracies of Europe increasingly finding themselves confronted by tension between the two approaches to government.
The Holy Quran proposes the establishment of the Caliphate, with a Caliph appointed as the steward of God on Earth. The primary responsibility of the Caliph himself is to establish the sovereignty of God throughout the Caliphate (Caliph was also the title given to Abu-bekr, the first Islamic leader after the death of Mohammed). Furthermore, the Caliph doesn’t have to make it up as he goes along, because The Quran provides complete guidance on how to conduct government and political affairs.
Government in the form of caliphate is the highest and supreme government in the name of Allah’s sovereignty. It is, in practice, the vehicle by which the sovereignty – interpreted as the will of God – may be enacted; government is seen as the representative of Allah, not of the people. This, I believe, is at odds with a liberal democratic basis for government of the people by the people.
It must be said that The Quran does state that government should be conducted in consultation with the community. Of course, many Muslim clerics and intellectuals argue that this is the point at which Islam and democracy meet and are compatible. None the less, it’s easy to see where the concept of sovereignty of the people, as enacted by a parliament of democratically elected representatives carrying out the will of the people might be incompatible with government based on the interpretation and enaction of the sovereignty of God in accordance with the Caliph’s interpretation of guidance contained in the Quran.
Now, here’s the question, if government represents the sovereignty of God on Earth, where does sovereignty of the people come into it?
With mass immigration, we have imported – and continue to import – people who believe in a system of governing society that is at very much at odds with our own parliamentary democracy. They may not be particularly politically active, or even particularly interested in politics, however, they are fundamentally and socially used to a theocratic approach to running affairs. We permit this without taking any steps to protect our own way of life or explaining to them how our system is fundamentally different. Let’s face it, we don’t even teach our own children how are constitutional monarchy works, so, even they aren’t aware of the differences.
The Problem
As the number of Muslims in the UK increases, so our democratic system, naturally, allows them a say and therefore enables them to gain increasing influence over how we are all, Muslim and non-Muslim, governed. If immigration at present rates continues, that influence will inevitably grow and, inevitably, reach a point at which decisions as to how we are governed, decisions that will impact upon the day to day lives of us all, will be made not in accordance with the interests or wishes of the people, but in accordance with the interpretation of guidance contained in the Quran. Perhaps we have already reached that point in some local government areas.
We have also to be aware that an inevitable implication of what we might call ‘Political Islam’ is sectarianism. You are either an adherent of the system, or you are not. Because government is the vehicle for the sovereignty of God on Earth there is only supplication. Criticism or rejection of the government becomes criticism of God – it is heresy. There is no voice of opposition because opposition is dissent and dissent of God is not tolerated. If you want an example of what happens in a theocracy, you need not only look at the Muslim world, but look too at the Catholic Inquisition from the 12th to the 19th centuries.
Surely, the introduction, by degrees, whether locally or more widely, must be a serious cause for concern amongst non-Muslim communities who value the right to freedom of opinion, expression and speech.
The point I am trying to make, is that whether Muslims realise it or not – and I believe some do and some don’t – political Islam and Islamic sectarianism conflict with the principles of liberalism, equality and human rights, including the principles of freedom of opinion expression and of speech, on which European society and our political and constitutional systems are founded.
We should perhaps take heed of the words of Elie Kedourie, an Iraqi born historian of the Middle East, who wrote:
“The idea of representation, of elections, of popular suffrage, of political institutions being regulated by laws laid down by parliamentary assembly, of those laws being guarded and upheld by an independent judiciary, the ideas of the secularity of the state . . . all these are profoundly alien to the Muslim political tradition.”