Michael Vlahos suggests an alternative at Tech Station Central, arguing that Muslims and Christians could work together to create a new culture which derives pieces from both heritages. Vlahos uses as his model Ottoman civilization in the 14th and 15th centuries where Christians and Muslims worked together as equals:
Moderate Islamists like Ramadan have been saying that Islam will reform and reconcile itself with Western modernity -- but outside of traditional Muslim lands. Change in Islam will emerge out of Muslim minorities in America and Europe. But why must such change necessarily mean merely a narrow reinterpretation of Islam? Why not something that, while recognizably Islamic, is also something wholly new? Why not a new synthesis? A Muslim minority with dominant numbers will not only advance deep into European societies: it will do so with increasing confidence. And with confidence will come openness to cultural experimentation and a willingness to leave old ways behind. Ramadan himself speaks glowingly of this, but assumes that such Islamic adaptation will remain unimpeachably Islamic. But why should it?
Islamic reinterpretation (ijtihad) in the European context will happen against a backdrop of social breakthroughs. Dominant minority numbers will finally open all doors, meaning that more and more Muslims will enter the middle classes and leadership elites. Thus they will also actively intermarry. Remember, the Ottoman motivation to create a mélange civilization was in part the product of strategic necessity, but it was also something that just happened -- because Turks and Greeks in Western Asia Minor were mixing and living together after the fighting was over. Thus, to borrow Lowry’s words, a “religio-social hybrid Islamochristian” Europe -- at least its Western Mediterranean core -- would also, in part, just happen.
Vlahos even speculates that a new religion could develop out of a syncretic combination of Islam and Christianity. It may not be very likely, but there is also no one around with power and authority to ensure that it doesn’t happen. I don’t know if he is right, but his ideas suggest some interesting possibilities. The current options which people focus on are the only ones they have immediate experience with: assimilation, subjugation, and marginalization. Something radical and new is too far outside people’s experiences to expect.
If we look through history, though, we will find new and radical developments all of the time — developments which don’t seem so radical and new to us now, looking backwards, but which were radical and new enough that they wouldn’t have been expected by people living in earlier ages. Who expected the Renaissance? Who expected the Enlightenment? Human societies often move in new and unexpected ways — we can’t assume that the particulars of past developments will always be the precise models of how society will develop in the future.
There is one thing in Vlahos’ article which I think needs to be emphasized: “with confidence will come openness to cultural experimentation and a willingness to leave old ways behind.” Fear and feelings of inferiority are never the basis for serious change — when people fear for their own future and experience inferiority in comparison with other cultural models, this is almost always the basis for turning inward, for fundamentalism, and for violent reactions against the sources of perceived threats.
On the other hand, when people are confident in their own self-worth and in the value of their own cultural models, they are more willing to experiment. This may seem a bit paradoxical at first because if a person is confident that they are right, why would they experiment with something that must therefore be wrong? The key is to realize that we aren’t talking about an either/or, right/wrong situation. A person who is confident in the value of their culture is like a child who is raised in an environment where they are loved and given repeated assurances that they are valued — such children have been shown in studies to be much more likely to explore and move outward in the world, rather than be withdrawn and feel inadequate.
A person who feels confident in the value of their culture (which includes religion, race, ethnicity, background, etc.) knows that they always have something solid to fall back upon — they know that if an experiment turns out badly, they won’t be cast adrift and lost in a foreign culture. A person who lacks such self-confidence won’t “know” this and, therefore, won’t be as likely to take chances — they will instead emphasize what little they think they have.
Muslims in the Middle East generally don’t have self-confidence — they loudly proclaim the superiority of their religion, but they know very well that they have fallen behind the rest of the world in terms of science, technology, and standards of living. They are certain that their religion is what God wants, but how can people do what God wants and still be under the thumbs of infidels? This sort of contradiction is what leads people to conclude that they must return to their roots, that they must eliminate dissent, that they must lash out against the infidels, etc.
In the past, Muslims have been self-confident enough to experiment with reforms and other cultural ideals — but generally speaking, that self-confidence has only occurred when Muslims ruled over non-Muslims and were in political ascendancy. Is there any way for Muslims to achieve enough self-confidence without also subjugating non-Muslims? Vlahos and others seem to believe that the best chance for this exists outside the Middle East — and perhaps in Europe. There is something to this and, ironically, the reason may be Europe’s thorough-going secularism.
In a secular state, Muslims can experience equal rights and dignity with Christians and Jews. In a secular state or society, Muslims aren’t told that they are second-class citizens because of their beliefs. If this happens alongside political and social equality, then Muslims can be fully integrated in a larger, multi-cultural and multi-religious society and his, in turn, may allow them to contribute on a equal basis, making the society as much their own as it is anyone else’s — even if they are relatively recent immigrants. In the long run, the cultural, political, and social mixing may even lead to religious mixing as Vlahos predicts.
More About Islam:
- What is Islam? Islam Basics
- Muslim Holy Sites, Texts
- Islamism, Islam, and Politics
- Islam and the Koran
Separation of Church & State:
Islam has three option for us infidels.
1) Convert
2) Poll tax and repress
3) Kill
Muslims, specifically Turks and Moroccans are out breeding the native Germans and in a generation or so will become the numerical majority. With such power i doubt they will want to share. Poorer germans will become increasingly agitated and there will be more neonazism and violence. Look no further than what happened in the south.
i’m not predicting total doom and gloom, but there will be conflict, the thesis and anti-thesis will create a synthesis. i fear this will be a bad thing, but hope it won’t.
Unfortunately muslims are taking over Europe. Europe will be an Islamic republic ruled by sharia law.