Clicking on banner ads enables JWR to constantly improve
Jewish World Review June 17, 2003 / 17 Sivan, 5763

Amitai Etzioni

Amitai Etzioni
JWR's Pundits
World Editorial
Cartoon Showcase

Mallard Fillmore

Michael Barone
Mona Charen
Linda Chavez
Ann Coulter
Greg Crosby
Larry Elder
Don Feder
Suzanne Fields
James Glassman
Paul Greenberg
Bob Greene
Betsy Hart
Nat Hentoff
David Horowitz
Marianne Jennings
Michael Kelly
Mort Kondracke
Ch. Krauthammer
Lawrence Kudlow
Dr. Laura
John Leo
David Limbaugh
Michelle Malkin
Jackie Mason
Chris Matthews
Michael Medved
MUGGER
Kathleen Parker
Wes Pruden
Sam Schulman
Amity Shlaes
Roger Simon
Tony Snow
Thomas Sowell
Cal Thomas
Jonathan S. Tobin
Ben Wattenberg
George Will
Bruce Williams
Walter Williams
Mort Zuckerman

Consumer Reports


Don't Separate Mosque and State: U.S. should stop trying to export its secular system to Iraq


http://www.NewsAndOpinion.com | The United States should cease promoting a secular civil society as the only alternative to a Taliban-like theocracy in Iraq. We cannot quell the religious yearnings of millions of Iraqis merely by fostering democracy and capitalism.

The most effective way to counter a theocracy is to promote moderate, liberal religious institutions.

The 1st Amendment's separation of church and state is not a foreign policy tool; it's a peculiar American conception. Just because the American government is banned from promoting religion within the U.S. does not mean that it cannot promote it as part of a civil society in Iraq or Afghanistan.

I know a bit about how receptive Shiites (and arguably also Sunnis) are to moderate Islam because they laid out their position during a three-day meeting in Iran that I attended a year ago. It was organized by reformers, but hard-liners also participated. The main point, repeatedly stressed during the meeting, was that both camps want to live in an Islamic society. The hard-liners are committed to enforcing the religious code by the use of moral squads, secret police and jails, while the reformers favor encouraging people to be devout. "If you do not force people to come, they will want to come," they said.

Liberal Islam is spiritual and social rather than political.

Instead of demanding that the current madrasas be replaced by wholly secular schools, as Sen. Joseph Biden has suggested, we might favor the inclusion of religious electives in public schools (as long as the teachers are qualified, which entails tolerance for a diversity of viewpoints). We could allow the funding of social services through religious organizations, as long as the funds are used for social and not political or religious purposes (call them faith-based institutions). And we could allow the state to pay the salaries of clergy and for the maintenance of places of worship, as do most democracies (other than the U.S. and France).

One may ask, "What about Christians and those who do not wish to adhere to any religion?" A religious society, as opposed to a religious state, can tolerate nonbelievers. It is the difference between enforcing adherence to a religious code and merely supporting it as one alternative. If this sounds abstract, consider that in the U.S. you can be legally married by religious authorities or government authorities, despite our insistence on the separation of church and state.

Favoring liberal Islam as an antidote to fundamentalist Islam is not to be confused with a related but different issue, whether Islam is compatible with democracy. I take it for granted that Iraq can and should have a democratic form of government. However, it should not treat religion as a threat but, potentially, as one mainstay. The current U.S. position ignores that potential.

The 13 points released by U.S. Central Command — that the rule of law be paramount, for instance, or that the role of women be respected — are fine, but they all speak only to secular issues. Whether deliberately or unwittingly, they reflect the concept of the "end of history" — that all ideologies are on their last legs as the world embraces the American version of democracy, human rights and the free market.

This idea, in turn, is an extension of the Enlightenment conceit that modernity is based on rational thinking. Irrational religion, then, belongs to history, and secularism — reason and science — will govern the future.

However, as we are learning all over the world, people have spiritual needs that cannot be addressed, let alone satisfied, by Enlightenment ideas. We see the explosive growth of Christianity in East Asia and Africa, a resurgence of religion in Russia and other former communist nations in Eastern Europe and a rise in Islam even in countries that had extensive secular, modern periods — most tellingly, in Turkey. People ask: Why are we cast into this world? Why are we born to die? What do we owe our children, our elderly parents and our friends and community?

Neither democracy nor capitalism speaks to these issues. Hence for the many millions of people there is religion, hard-line or moderate. Which one we should favor is clear, as long as we can get off our Enlightenment horse.

Enjoy this writer's work? Why not sign-up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.


JWR contributor Amitai Etzioni, of George Washington University, is the author of, most recently, "My Brother's Keeper: A Memoir and a Message", from where this essay was adapted. Comment by clicking here.

05/15/03: Patriot Act is needed, but so are revisions
05/06/03: Aliens are not part of the club yet
02/13/03: To NASA: Bring in the drones
01/08/03: Values, not pay, provide best incentive to donate organs
12/12/02: Iran may present greater threat than Iraq
11/12/02: Killing Christians: The underreported story of Islamist violence around the world
10/16/02: Seeking middle ground on privacy vs. security
10/08/02: "In and out"
09/24/02: Treat driver's licenses as what they are: Domestic passports
08/27/02: How democracy is preserved
08/21/02: Why Martha 'needs' more
07/12/02: I was once a member of a "terrorist" group, show no mercy on civilian terrorists
03/31/02: Scandals will end when penalties fit crimes
02/03/02: A former White House staffer's plea to Congress: A presidency needs privacy
01/03/02: One nation, after all
12/27/01: Where children must write their PARENTS notes
12/20/01: American extremists
12/13/01: Homeland defense is best option for volunteerism
11/11/01: Can we force democracy on the Afghans?
11/08/01: How not to win the war
10/01/01: Problems with the new antiterrorist agenda is not that it is too grand, but that it is not grand enough
09/21/01: Either U.S. forces should strike back hard or we'll lose our freedoms
09/05/01: Communities, not the president, must enact morality
08/23/01: Economists fail as forecasters
08/09/01: Live from Washington it's …. "Everyone's a Criminal"
07/27/01: Condit case illustrates the need to rein in fast-talking lawyers playing verbal acrobatics with the truth
08/01/01: Shouting 'Big Brother' in a crowded society


© 2002, The Weekly Standard, from where this piece was reprinted