N.B. I am not Davy
Over on the forums, Kit asks how should libertarians deal with the problem of Islamic law:
Geert Wilders, the Dutch politician being prosecuted for the crime of insulting Islam, put it this way
”Islam is merely not a religion, it is mainly a totalitarian ideology. Islam wants to dominate all aspects of life, from the cradle to the grave. Shariah law is a law that controls every detail of life in a Islamic society. From civic- and family law to criminal law. It determines how one should eat, dress and even use the toilet. Oppression of women is good, drinking alcohol is bad.”
http://www.dianawest.net/Home/tabid/36/ … Lords.aspx
In Britain we are seeing no-go areas for Non Muslims. People being forced to submit to Sharia courts under threat of violence. Muslims not only refusing to adapt to our way of life, but insisting that we adapt to theirs!
How, as Libertarians, do we face the threat to liberty from a totalitarian religious ideology? Respecting an individuals right to religious freedom is important, but when that religion is engaged in a deliberate and large scale assault on our values of liberty then how can we respond
I have a thought on this topic. Firstly I want to say that I am of course in favour of freedom in all areas, but I do have problems with religion in general. My problems are both philosophical and practical, for example when it comes to issue of indoctrinating children. However I will agree that Islam is typically worse and far more totalitarian than say Christianity, at least in the modern age of enlightenment.
I think this is because the so-called ‘Islamic countries’ are not secular countries. Islam is violently enforced by governments and indoctrination is so rife it is just commonplace. The very reason they are called ‘Islamic countries’ is precisely because they are not secular. For example, Christianity is the most popular religion in the USA, but we would not call it a ‘Christian country’. It is a secular country because freedom to practice any religion (or none at all) is recognised as inherent. Islamic states have simply not progressed through an enlightenment stage, which is why they remain so backwards.
It follows, therefore, that a large number of Muslims who emigrate to Britain simply don’t understand the ideas of freedom and secularism or have never even considered the ideas in any great depth. From their experience it is considered valid to spread the practice of Islam with force; such is the basis of their entire legal system! Of course I’m not talking about all Muslims here, but enough to have a significant effect.
I have no problem with anybody proselytizing to spread ideas (in-fact I openly welcome it), but using violence to do so is just wrong and that includes using the power of government. Muslim children * growing up in Britain also suffer from the same lack of understanding as their parents, but thankfully to a much lesser degree due to their greater exposure to western culture. However I must stress that I believe in judging everybody on an individual basis.
I find this topic interesting because it brings up an intriguing thought experiment. Imagine a small democratic island where there is a native population of 1000 people. What if 2000 Muslims were to emigrate to the island over the course of the next few years? I can see why people who believe in the democratic process would begin to feel threatened by this. The Muslims would soon have a majority stranglehold with which they can use to adopt strict Sharia Law. It would therefore be in the natives’ best interests to become massive nationalists in order to limit immigration, just like the BNP, using violence and sweeping generalisations of people to limit their freedom to travel through arbitrary borders.
For somebody like me, who thinks that the democratic process is illegitimate anyway, this really isn’t a problem. The issue of immigration is rendered moot, for if this situation were to occur it is simply due to the problem of government having too much power. That is, the problem of the government having the ‘authority’ to implement Sharia Law in the first place. Authority that is supposedly granted by the people, but how can we defer authority that we don’t even have ourselves? It is magical thinking, no better than religious dogma itself.
So no I don’t see Islam as the challenge, but government. As always seems to be the case, the solution isn’t more government but far less. Religion will all but vanish on its own with the pervasive spread of freedom and secularism.
— Jack Whitehead
* Sorry Dawkins
