Mr. Lewis, though he does a terrific job of explaining what has happened to disrupt the well-being of the Muslim community, does not really offer solutions to the current crisis. But how, we must ask, can Islam begin again?
If the analysis Mr. Lewis presents is accurate--and one would note, we've yet to hear a better explanation of what went wrong--then Islam is faced with only three possibilities :
(1) Islam can retreat into isolation and try to ignore the rest of the world--sort of the North Korea option.
(2) Islam can fight the rest of the world and try to return humankind to a kind of pre-modern status, plunge us backward
toward the point where we were when Islam was briefly regnant.
or,
(3) Islam can submit itself, at least partially, to the process of secularization, which will be rapidly abetted by the forces
of globalization, and undergo a radical Reformation.
The first option seems unrealistic based on what we know of human beings. If nothing else, the Islamic world is too geographically widespread to really isolate itself and too dependent on oil revenues to withdraw completely. The second is foolhardy, because the West will inevitably win this struggle and may then simply force option three upon a defeated and depopulated Islamic world.
That leaves the third option, certainly the most desirable from our perspective, but one which requires a series of steps which will be truly wrenching, and which have only previously occurred in the Islamic world when a pro-Western dictator controlled the countries involved and secularized against the will of the people (Turkey under Mustafa Kemal Ataturk and Iran under the Shah, laying the ground work for today's Iran which is at least groping towards some kind of secularization). This process--which can hopefully be done more democratically than in those prior instances and which we could think of as an Islamic Reformation--will involve decoupling the Muslim faith and clerisy from the political state and from the economy. It will mean that government will not always act in accord with Islamic tradition, and may not even make a pretense of trying to maintain some of those traditions. It will require the acceptance of less economic equality (egalitarianism is central to Islamic economic teachings), in exchange for greater wealth and rising living standards in the entire society. It will entail making women full participants in Islamic society. It will require accepting the existence of Israel, but will guarantee the creation of a Palestinian state. Most of all, it will require acceptance of the idea that Islam itself will decline somewhat in popularity, and in its centrality to society, and that it will suffer some significant doctrinal alterations, all of which has happened to Judaism and Christianity in the West. In turn, the culture will display certain inevitable signs of moral degradation as people are freed from strict observance of Islamic law. It is unfortunate but true that as people's material wants are sated, their spiritual needs seem to change, and their willingness to follow strict moral codes deteriorates.
The above comments were not by Lewis but by someone else. As you know, I think its a mistake to try and do regime change the way we are doing it in Iraq. I think that the ME needs to be left to their own devises.
I would prefer that we work to find alternative fuels and use conservation measures in order to wean ourselves off oil. The ME is a very unstable part of the world and will be for the foreseeable future. Its the equivalent of depending on Columbia for your primary source of food. We would never be that stupid but yet, we continue to be dependent on SA and the ME in general for oil. I am afraid that at some point we will be forced off the oil cold turkey........and that would be a disaster for our economy.
I further believe that this dependency is what has gotten us to this point in Iraq. Dependencies always lead to trouble for both people and nations. And I believe our current position [in Iraq] is very untenable and very unwinnable.
Its a difficult time........and I can understand why Lewis did not provide clear cut directions to follow. Its the kind of situation where you have to feel things out as you go forward. Something we are not good at doing. |
