Warren presents a real "Clash of Civilizations" concept. I hope it is not going to be this bad.
>>>>> We wrestle with questions of Mosque and Church and State in this triple context; each party entirely uncomprehending of the basic assumptions that animate the other. We, on the Christian aside, assume that Islam must accommodate itself to a mutually respectful tolerance, that it must find a way within its own traditions, or alternatively by abandoning them, to politely dissociate itself from everything it has ever stood for. A religion that has never made the distinction between civil and religious order is asked to reconstruct itself as a purely religious entity; to discard all its claims to civil ambitions, and take its place at a very Christian-looking high table.
And Islam, for its part, extends its ancient offer of "dhimmitude" -- of dhimmi, or servile, protected status to Christian and Jew, who may, if we wish, apply for this status only within a universal order that must necessarily be Islamic. Our ultimate fate, in their eyes, can only be surrender, or ignoble death; our only life a life of servility; for there is no place in the Islamic order for anything resembling a free external state
How can we reconcile these two positions, now that the world has grown so small that they must be reconciled? There is no possible compromise between different versions of reality, between entire worldviews that have from their beginnings excluded each other.<<<<<< |
