Agora

This piece was published in today’s edition of Jyllands-Posten. It was written by Poul Højlund of Pia Causa. It’s good, conservative reasoning about this thing called Islam. Please notice, by the way, that Muhammed is depicted once again in this infidel newspaper from the North.

Update: Poul has a post about this article. If you want to praise or comment on the article, go here.

Democracy before Religion

By Poul Højlund

Islam is an unbreakable monolith of religion and politics. Islam as traditionally interpreted is not compatible with democracy, the author of today’s feature article writes.

“Freedom of Religion is included in the UN Declaration of Human Rights and the Danish Constitution. This means that I am free to be a Christian and my neighbor can be a Moslem without this interfering with our basic rights or our recognition by society at large. And our neighbor another door over is allowed to believe in absolutely nothing while remaining a co-equal member of our common society.

Freedom of Religion means that if someone by words or deeds attacks my two non-Christian neighbors on account of their beliefs or lack thereof, I’ll be there to defend their rights. In the same manner, I can count on them - if things get to that.”

That is what I wrote in Jyllands-Posten in November of 2002 in the feature article titled “Freedom of Beliefs and Belief in Freedom”, and I still hold it to be true - indeed I don’t see how I could believe otherwise. But in that article I also wrote of the real and present danger of oppression of Democracy.

“…We must, tooth and nail, combat any initiative - irregardless of its initiator and religiousity - which aims to lead us astray from our road towards a better Democracy. And we must confront all schools of thought which question the validity of the Human Rights that are the basis for Democracy.

Democracy is the guarantor of Freedom of Religion - not the other way around. Presently, the threat is Islamic Fundamentalism. This threat is serious and therefore, this is where we will do battle. Not Christianity versus Islam, but Democracy and Human Rights versus Feudalism; Freedom of Religion against Totalitarianism; Modernity pitted against the Endarkenment and the regress that wants to subdue our liberties.”

That those paragraphs are still relevant was grotesquely underlined by the Battle of Khartoon.

Apparently a lot of people in high places in our Democracy have a hard time understanding the simple fact that Islam as traditionally interpreted is not compatible with Democracy. In a reversal of priorities, they are defending Islam’s Freedom of Oppression by referring to the Freedom of Religion. Some even manage to bring the immigration debate into play: distancing oneself from the lack of Freedom in Islam is the same as discrimination or even racism.

Why is diminished Freedom acceptable when Religion is involved? Did not the Boers of South Africa call apartheid part of their faith? The Ku Klux Klan maintain their right to lynch black people as part of their faith - are they suddenly sacrosanct? No. None can be allowed to justify violations of Human Rights by invoking ‘Religious Beliefs’.

Only when it comes to Islam do some get all respectful and considerate of the intolerable. Where are the wrathful demonstrations against the massive oppression of free thought in the Moslem world? Against the grotesque oppression of women? Against the ongoing human rights violations? The standards by which we judge the Islamic world are obviously lower than the standards we apply to the rest of the world. To me, this seems like some kind of reverse racism, a twisted version of Kipling’s old say about ‘The White Man’s Burden‘.

Helle Thorning Schmidt said it succinctly: Democracy comes before Religion. That is necessarily the order of things in the part of the world that fancies itself Democratic. A prerequisite for Democracy is that all men and women have their spiritual freedom and the corresponding uncensored Freedom of Speech, answerable only to the courts; it presupposes that no power is above the Democratic power of the state and that all exercise of religion takes place within this framework.

Islam has, alone among the great religions of the world, a problem with these demands. Or to be more precise: These demands are incompatible with Islam in the current official version. This is not about racism or xenophobia, nor is it about offending beliefs or ridiculing Moslems. That is not what this is about - notwithstanding that one of the Moslems’ religious taboos has been broken. This is solely about Democracy and its prerequisite, Freedom of Speech.

Islam won’t be democratised before it has had its reformation. There is no “Political Islam” contra a “Religious Islam”, even though it would be nice to think so. Islam is an unbreakable monolith of religion and politics where the Koran is the source of all legislation, a fact which constitutions in many Moslem countries make no secret of.

Maybe a better illustration is the Islamic Republic of Iran which has democratic plebiscites to elect members of Parliament and the President, but the candidates are expressly limited to those approved by the Council of Guardians. The Mullahs must approve of each candidate in this so-called democracy. That Iran, furthermore, often publicly hangs teenagers for acts explicitly covered by the UN Human Rights Declaration only serves to illustrate that the more legislation is based on Islam, the greater is the bloody oppression of the citizens’ Human Rights.

In the Moslem world, religion is always unconditionally above democracy. In spite of all Moslem countries, Saudi-Arabia excepted, having signed the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, that declaration is simply not valid within the framework of Islam. Instead special Islamic Human Rights have been drafted, which there is pressure on the UN to recognise. They’ve been compiled in the Cairo-declaration of 1990 and they emphasise Sharia as the framework of all Human endeavors.

Freedom of Religion is completely absent from the declaration, on the contrary it starts with these words: “All human beings form one family whose members are united by submission to God and descent from Adam”. In the 25 Articles of the declaration, Shari’ah is mentioned no less than 15 times, God is mentioned 9 times and to be on the safe side, the following two closing Articles have been added:
Article 24: “All the rights and freedoms stipulated in this Declaration are subject to the Islamic Shari’ah.”
Article 25: “The Islamic Shari’ah is the only source of reference for the explanation or clarification to any of the articles of this Declaration.”

It can hardly be said clearer than that: Religion is above all else, Human Rights and Democracy included. Traditional Islam is the absolute contrast to Democracy. There is no use pretending anything else. Islam is the doctrine of the divine order on Earth, and it doesn’t tolerate any aberrations. Traditional Islam sees our Democracy as a secular competitor, an infidel adversary and an enemy of the teachings of the Prophet.

Islam is like a one-way street with no exits. If one goes down that road, there is no turning back, no possibility of reforming or renouncing one’s faith, no possibility of seeking other solutions and truths than those prescribed in the unchangeable and eternal laws of the Shari’ah. The system is self-perpetuating and completely closed. Islam was created by Muhammed with the intention of making it everlasting and universal.

It’s with this in mind that the demand for international legislation against defamation of religions must be viewed. It should be noted that both Nyrup, Elleman, Clinton and Annan support this demand and that the demand is being reviewed by the UN bureaucracy in the form of a resolution proposed by the OIC - the most significant organisation of Islamic countries - who aim to have it included in the Human Rights Declaration. It was OIC who created the special Sharia-based Islamic Human Rights.

The Battle of Khartoon is the perfect pretext for the Islamic countries. Here we have an overt example of a violation of Moslem taboo and thus of the prophet who is worshipped with intense passion - in spite of his own ban on idolatry. The cartoons weren’t the reason - this campaign was orchestrated long ago by the OIC as part of their attempt to reconstruct the Nation of Islam and the great community of the ummah. Doubters are free to check the minutes and documents available at OIC’s website.

The Islamic world is not content with minding its own affairs; it wants for its religion to spread around the world and the means to do so is the demand for respect for Islam. But respect for Islam leads to submission since all criticism of Islam is the same as disrespect, which again means defaming the prophet. It’s hard to understand this for a non-Moslem because we live in the free world. But ask the Moslem dissidents; they know what the price is for transgressing against heavenly laws. Or consider those who are murdered for offending the beloved prophet. Or ask Naser Khader who has around-the-clock protection by the police.

We will probably have, yet again, to establish a policy of containment against the Islamic countries to stop further spread of this anti-democracy - but we cannot limit ourselves to minding our own affairs. To give an example that has a slight touch of humor to it:

Muhammed has been depicted on the Supreme Court building in the US with a sword in one hand and the Koran in the other since the 1930′a as part of a friese about historic lawgivers. Within the last 10 years, big Islamic organisation in the US have demanded that the relief be removed several times, with no succes so far. They see it as offending and it is likely to be removed if the OIC is succesful with their resolution against defamation of religions.

As part of the same process, Islamic countries also want a ban on islamophobia as part of international law. Islamophobia is a neologism which directly translated means fear - clinical fear even - of Islam. I don’t see why the Danish People’s Party should have a letter of patent on this phobia; I have no problem calling myself an islamophobe and I don’t see why it should be considered derogatory.

I fear that our way of life won’t survive the clash with the medieval absolutism of Islam if we don’t resist it and gain clarity about what our values are and what principles our democracy operates by. Let’s turn around the meaning of Islamophobia and make it a positive word, on the order of “democrat”, since Islam doesn’t recognise and will not be brought to recognise that Democracy is above religion. Democracy should be Islamophobic because Islam has nothing good in store for Democracy. On the contrary.

To avoid any misunderstandings and any allegations of racism, xenophobia, bad taste, christofascism or any of the other fashionable allegations of our time, allow me to quote the aforementioned feature article from 2002:

“… I will not live in a Christian country that has no room for other religions. Because that would mean that I no longer live in a democratic country. Democracy and Human Rights are products of Christianity, it is claimed, sprung from the Christian country of France. That may be true - but they weren’t springing anywhere untill clear heads using the Force of Reason rebelled against the oppressive absolutism and Gleichschaltung of the Christian Church.”

We must now likewise unite with all Men of Democracy in a stand against the Islam that doesn’t want Democracy. It’s time for us to take the initiative.