Editorial Rule 1: Words and phrases flagged in red are, in my opinion, vague, ambiguous, subject to dispute, or otherwise problematic.  But for that they are not inadmissible in political discourse.  As you may surmise, they are the lifeblood of such discourse. 

This is part two of a blog entitled “Reasoned Response to Unreason.”  The “unreason” refers to the jihad confronting America and its allies.  The jihad is aimed not only at the West: it is global.  It is directed to Islamic regimes such as Jordan, Turkey, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia.  It has reached deep into Africa and is trying to make inroads in Latin America.  It has infiltrated Europe to such an extent that some have taken to refer to that noble continent as “Eurabia.”  Nor is the jihad of recent origin.  It has been underway for at least thirty years.  And, lastly, it is not limited to terrorism.  The mujhadeen are waging a “war of ideas” within Islam to bend it to their whim.  This war of ideas goes unnoticed in the West, but, ultimately, it is where the jihad will stand in absolute triumph or fall to ignominious defeat.     

The “reasoned response” in my title is not a reference to yours truly.  (Though, if you estimate some of his product to be reasonable, he has your gratitude.)  It is a tribute to those who fight the mujhadeen on the battlefields of the war of ideas.  I had mentioned two of these warriors, and they deserve mention again: Dr. Hillel Fradkin and his team at the Center on Islam, Democracy, and the Future of the Muslim World at the Hudson Institute (www.futureofmuslimworld.com) and Dr. Joshua Parens at the University of Dallas (http://www.udallas.edu/philosophy/faculty.cfm?ID=62). 

In part one of this blog I argued that America at the very least needed to take an interest in the intra-Islamic war of ideas.  The conviction of yours truly is that we go further, namely, that we take an active part in this war to the extent it would be prudent for us and equitable to our Muslim allies.  By taking an active part in this war, we would be helping to "reshape" or "reconstitute” Islam, and I outlined what I meant by these terms.  The next step in my argument, which I will now undertake, is to explain why this project would be compatible with a regime dedicated to the proposition set forth in the Declaration of Independence.    

The proposition enshrined in the Declaration is the animating, or first, principle of America.  Such a principle is not a principle if it forbids its own defense or forbids the seeking of a just peace in which it would be vindicated over and against competing principles.  So, I am reasonably well persuaded there is no contradiction in fighting the jihad to a just peace in which our first principle prevails over theirs.  And, as I expressed in part one, there is latitude in how we envision that just peace. 

Similarly, there is latitude under our first principle regarding the means towards that just peace.  It would not be tenable if I insisted that the first principle of our regime mandated a reshaping or reconstituting of Islam.  Nor would it be tenable, however, to argue that one necessarily deduces from our first principle a mandate to leave Islam untouched.  The only means I would contend that our first principle forbids—and this is by no means a trivial limitation—is the killing of Muslims solely because they are Muslims.  Our first principle would not forbid the conversion of Muslims as a means, but forcible conversion (for example, under pain of death) would be tantamount, in my opinion, to the killing of Muslims solely because they are Muslims.  (I am leery of the conversion of Muslims as an official American policy, but I advocate it wholeheartedly as an essential mission for Christianity in the 21^st century.)             

A reshaping or reconstituting of Islam, if carried out unilaterally by us and opposed by our Muslim allies, might be considered as analogous to the forcible conversion of Muslims.  But how close does the analogy run?  Islam is not the sole property of its adherents.  By its own terms, it is meant for all of humankind: it is shared by Muslims and is potentially sharable by non-Muslims.  It is thus a field open to disputation and suasion.  If we non-Muslims sought the reshaping of Islam through disputation and suasion, even against the wishes of our Muslim allies, we would be acting consistent with Islam’s own inner logic.  Moreover, we would be acting consistent with our first principle, because disputation and suasion are methods based on obtaining consent.  In this context, we would need to win over our allies first, and that might be slow in coming and perhaps not at all.  We might be accused of not having the best interest of Islam in mind; we might even be accused of being categorically incapable of acting in its best interest.  And true, we would not be intending to convert to Islam.  Also true, the end result we envisioned for Islam might not resemble the result envisioned by our Muslim allies.  The difference would not be fundamental, however, provided we acted through disputation and suasion, using resources already present within Islam or fairly introduced into it. 

Of course, acting unilaterally in the reshaping of Islam would be imprudent if there were Muslim allies already doing so.  And, fortunately, we have allies such as the Jordanian regime presently in the trenches of the intra-Islamic war of ideas.  Further, if, as I have argued in the paragraph above, we could justifiably undertake the reshaping of Islam without ally support, so much stronger is the case for us to pursue this project with their support.  The case is stronger because the matter of consent is reconciled to a significant extent before our entering the fray.  Our Muslim allies will have already consented to the reshaping of Islam: their consent is presupposed in the fact that they have initiated the reshaping of Islam.  Indeed, they have commenced the change because they view it as indispensable to their own interest.  In this instance, we would be joining the good fight in their support.               

I will add a third part to this blog in which I will share some thoughts on "The Jordanian Regime Fights the War of Ideas" by Yair Minzili, published May 2007 under the aegis of the Center on Islam, Democracy, and the Future of the Muslim World at the Hudson Institute (www.futureofmuslimworld.com/research/pubID.69/pub_detail.asp). 

Editorial Rule 1: Words and phrases flagged in red are, in my opinion, vague, ambiguous, or otherwise problematic.  But for that they are not inadmissible in political discourse.  As you may surmise, they are the lifeblood of such discourse. 

Occasionally, yours truly will recommend materials he believes will profit your deliberations on the ends and means commensurate with a regime "dedicated to the proposition" enshrined in our beloved Declaration of Independence.  You might even find him rummaging these materials from little-known, forgotten, neglected, or discarded places.  A case in point could be: The Center on Islam, Democracy, and the Future of the Muslim World at the Hudson Institute (www.futureofmuslimworld.com).  Its four-fold mission can be summarized as an attempt to understand contemporary Islam, especially its radicalism, as it understands itself in an attempt to formulate antidotes that will help restore contemporary Islam to health, thus rendering it safe and beneficial for humankind.       

It helps that one Hillel Fradkin is the Center's founder and director.  He is best known as a scholar of medieval Islamic and Judaic philosophy.  From his biography on the Center's website and his trenchant analyses of contemporary Islam the picture forms of a hard-knuckled scholar-warrior with the spark of equity and strategic insight.  He has coalesced around him a group of specialists likewise unafraid to peer coldly and rationally into the soul of contemporary radical Islam.  While it is virtually impossible to generalize about Islam without becoming entangled in briar patches of exceptions and qualifications, Mr. Fradkin and his team navigate the terrain with nary a cut or bruise.  If contemporary radical Islam is a threat not before seen on the stage of history, the Center is a potent counter-threat with deep, familiar roots in the Enlightenment: unreason is met with a fusillade of reason.                      

I am especially anxious for you to read "The Jordanian Regime Fights the War of Ideas" by Yair Minzili, published May 2007 on the Center's website (www.futureofmuslimworld.com/research/pubID.69/pub_detail.asp). I have some thoughts on this article that I will save for my next post.  For the moment, I would like to answer a question that may be crossing your mind: what does Jordan's "war of ideas" have to do with "deliberations on the ends and means commensurate to a regime 'dedicated to the proposition' enshrined in our beloved Declaration of Independence"?  Proximate threats from without (and I daresay the threat is proximate, too, from within) must always be in the purview of such deliberations---particularly when the enemy repudiates the proposition we so earnestly aim to perpetuate.  For such an enemy, genocide is his most obvious, but by no means ultimate, mode of combat.  His ultimate and final mode of combat is the eradicating of all evidence that a regime like ours ever existed or ever could exist.  We Americans sometimes lack clarity in the prosecution of our wars.  In losing this clarity, we have drifted from allies.  We cannot afford to drift from allies like Jordan in the face of an enemy categorically opposed to the proposition upon which we live.  Nor can we afford to forgo an examination of Jordan's "war of ideas" and its implications for how we might be able to help reshape or reconstitute contemporary Islam. 

Again, you may be wondering: Reshape or reconstitute Islam?  Is this the business of a regime "dedicated to the proposition enshrined in our beloved Declaration of Independence"?  I dearly wish this did not have to be our business, and perhaps by some miracle it will not have to be our concern.  It is true that Islam as practiced in the US is "reshaped" to an extent due to (a) the constitutional prohibition against the establishment of religion and (b) the pervasive, prosaic influence of the proposition enshrined in the Declaration.  Beyond this, I will not elaborate on how we should otherwise deal with Islam in America, for that raises constitutional matters that are best discussed separately.  I will outline below what I mean by "reshaping" or "reconstituting" Islam, and in my next post I will explain why this project ought to be a concern of a regime dedicated to the principle enshrined in the Declaration of Independence. 

Reshaping or reconstituting Islam must produce the conditions of a just peace for humankind.  Most likely it would have to entail, for example, the pacification of Islam and, where feasible and equitable, Islam's accommodation to, or harmonization with, modernity.  Minzili's article indicates what might be possible at the present time in Jordan.  But, overall, the change probably would have to go deeper.  My impression (or hope) is that Islam, thanks to certain of its classical philosophers, has at its disposal resources for accommodating itself to modernity.  And I further hope that, if the resources do exist, then somewhere within Islam is the wherewithal to carry through such an accommodation.  Dr. Fradkin has done important work on Islamic philosophy and Dr. Joshua Parens at the University of Dallas has recently published a closely-interpreted introduction to the Islamic philosopher Afarabi (visit Dr. Parens’ webpage at: http://www.udallas.edu/philosophy/faculty.cfm?ID=62).  

The absence of philosophia, or the love of wisdom, from contemporary Islam appears to me as an anomaly in that religion's history.  Yet, this anomalous condition has been the breeding-ground of contemporary radical Islam, and thus, stands as a central obstacle to a just peace.  We in the West must be careful in how we wish to see Islam reconstituted, for it was a reckless or thoughtless introduction of modernity that led to this anomalous condition.  Modernity and philosophia are not synonymous.  A modernity balanced by philosophia would be easier to harmonize with Islam than the modernity that currently reigns in the West.  Therefore, we should not view this harmonization or accommodation as a process leading inexorably to a homogenous, global modernity.  We should view it instead as a project to be managed prudently for generations to come in which the various Islamic regimes are accommodated more or less to modernity.         

This means that an Islam accommodated to modernity might be hard to recognize, because modernity itself might have to be accommodated to Islam in certain places in differing ways and to differing extents.  For example, must an Islamic regime be a representative democracy in order to secure the unalienable rights of its citizens?  If so, must it be based on the stricture of "one person, one vote"?  Just as a plant cannot be transplanted into soil unsuited to its physiology, we cannot expect the procedures of a regime like ours to be transplanted into Islamic jurisdictions if the proper basis is lacking.  Must an Islamic regime recognize its citizens' unalienable rights in the same formulation as our beloved Declaration of Independence?  Ideally, we might want to insist they adopt our formulation, but out of prudence we might want to accept practices consistent with, but not explicitly flowing from, our formulation.  These considerations do not exhaust the case-by-case analysis we would have to undergo in encouraging and monitoring the harmonizing of Islam and modernity.