Cause for Hope

Yesterday's post about my classroom interview/interrogation/propaganda session generated quite a bit of interest among my readers. I wrote about it because need people to understand that yes, a lot of ugly problems exist in this part of the world--like anti-Semitism and a refusal to admit any wrongdoing on their own side of the conflict with Israel. These problems are real, and we shouldn't gloss over them in the name of tolerance or peace.

At the same time, these experiences are hardly the entire story. My experience with this professor has been an extraordinary exception to my time in Jordan. A lot of people compile these anecdotes and use them to construct an entire framework for understanding the Muslim/Arab world. The truth is so much more complex. The Muslim and Arab worlds--like any human society--are incredibly diverse. I see a lot of discouraging things that make me worry about the region's future, but I also see a lot of good things that give me reason for optimism.

Although Wednesday night's class was one of my worst experiences since moving to Jordan, Thursday's class was one of the best. The university hosted a Canadian Muslim guest lecturer who is a professor of international human rights, civic society, and ethics. He is a gifted instructor and brilliant thinker, and his subject material was fascinating. He compared and contrasted the legal framework that embodies secular notions of human rights, and the moral framework that embodies religious notions of human rights. He then explored some possibilities for how these two frameworks might complement each other and interact. He was really touching on something much broader than human rights: the very different social contracts that underlie Western secularism and Islamic political theory.

This is a topic that sometimes keeps me awake at night. Can Western liberalism and Islam ever be compatible? The foundations are totally different. From the time of Jesus until Constantine's conversion, Christians believed that the "Kingdom of God" was something totally different from political authority. Early Christians were comfortable living within two distinct spheres. Although church and state became deeply entwined after that, centuries of religious war and persecution taught the West that religion and politics both functioned better if they were institutionally separated. Our modern liberal institutions, which largely rest on this understanding, enable pluralism and religious freedom. In Islam, on the other hand, religion and state are inseparable. Islam is meant to be lived out as a political community. Whereas Christianity's "golden age" considered of small, persecuted communities worshiping as a minority in the Roman Empire, Islam's golden age was the establishment of an Islamic empire under the stewardship of the first four caliphs. Most Muslims I have met want to live under some form of Islamic governance, although their definitions of this idea vary greatly. Can the political systems of the West and Islam ever be reconciled?

This professor has been doing some pretty groundbreaking research on the topic. Even as a Christian, I found myself absorbed in his ideas about how secularism and religion can complement each other and should be balanced. This is exactly the kind of dialog I think the Muslim world needs to have, so I found the lecture tremendously encouraging -- especially after my bad experience the day prior.

The professor had a lot to say about how we define secularism and why it is so hotly contested. Secularism has come to mean two distinct things. First, it can mean the institutional separation of political and religious organizations, which he believes is something to be embraced. It is secularism, he said, that allows him to live and worship freely as a Muslim in Canada. Second, the word secularism can refer to an ideology that amounts to the total erosion of moral and religious values in a culture, which is most definitely a bad thing. A lot of anger and confusion results when these two definitions of secularism get blurred.

Muslims face another problem when discussing secularism, because it comes with so much baggage; the vehicle that brought secularism to the Middle East was colonialism. If Muslims could see and understand "secularism" without any preconceptions, the professor said, they would likely embrace it. The problem is that the colonial experience poisoned the concept, and it is very difficult to reclaim it. When I spoke to the professor after the lecture, he told me that many Muslim-majority countries already practice de facto secularism, and most Muslims are happy to go along. The problem comes when you actually describe what you're doing. As soon as you talk about implementing "secularism", everybody gets angry.

If I understood him right, the professor believes that Muslim majority countries can and should be built on a foundation of secularism--that is, the institutional separation of mosque and state. However, there needs to be a much larger role for religion within the society than we experience in the West. The space where government and religion should interact, he says, is in "civic society"--essentially a safe domain, free from coercion and violence, where the relationship between government and religion is continually negotiated.

His lecture was only an hour long, which was not nearly enough time to describe a model that he has put years of thought into. I have a lot of questions about what his model would actually mean in practice, whether or not it would work, and whether or not most Muslims would actually subscribe to it. Whatever the strengths or weaknesses of his model, this professor has clearly done some visionary work to bring Islam and the best parts of Western liberalism closer together, and he is wrapping up a speaking tour across the Middle East in which he has been sharing his passion with the younger generation.

A lot of my Jordanian classmates wrestle with these same questions, and are earnestly seeking a better way forward. In a previous class my colleagues wrote research papers about such varied topics as reconciling Islam with democracy, reforming Jordanian prisons, and overcoming the "wasta" patronage system that breeds so much corruption and bureaucratic dysfunction in Jordan. These students know their government and society can do better, and they want to figure out how.

This is where I find hope, my friends. I don't look to local governments. I don't look to Western development programs. I look to the creative, passionate, and noble things that ordinary people can do when they are set free. That's as true in the Muslim and Arab worlds as it is anywhere else. I enjoyed this lecture so much because it reminded me that most Muslims are trying to build a better future. We in the West need to do everything we can to help them succeed.