TOLERANT, BUT NOT WITH THE INTOLERANT

Should we really have towards Islam, at this point in history, a tolerance that in the West we have not had even towards Christianity? The Church of the Crusades, of the Inquisition, of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation, of religious wars, of book burnings and burnings at the stake, was as “fundamentalist,” as they would say today, as the Muslims we complain about so much and with such reason. The Church of Rome was fundamentalist in particular, because it had the desire, both in ancient and medieval times, to impose itself on the state, to determine as well civil law,---in short, to base all life and the lives of all on Sacred Scripture and successive theological interpretations.

In the West, the Christian religions were forced to give up similar claims after harsh cultural, political and military conflicts and after a series of great events: the birth of modern science, which the Church judged incompatible with religion; the Industrial Revolution, with the enormous social changes that it brought; the Enlightenment, with its critique against faiths; the French Revolution, which for the first time applied a religious model to politics rather than the hereafter; the loss of temporal power on the part of the Papacy. Concerning this last event---that is, the Italian Risorgimento, so opposed by Pius IX—in 1961 John XXIII thanked Providence because it had liberated the Church from an earthly weight that was polluting its religious message, but the other referenced events as well had had the effect of separating the paths of the State from those of faith. Nothing similar has happened in the Muslim world, or it has happened in a much smaller and incomplete way. As a consequence moreover even when great reformers---like Ataturk in Turkey---tried to Europeanize in a secular sense their country, Islamic fundamentalism never ceased to recur; and it was in bringing down a modernizing monarchy that that fundamentalism was vindicated in Iran which from there has gained vigor in all of the Muslim world.

Islam in other words is not so much simply a religion which is “different” from ours. It is above all a religion which has been in a state of arrested development for centuries, compared to Christian religions, in its relations with the State, with citizens of the State, and with its own adherents. The Western world can perceive a similar situation when it observes, more or less seriously, the Muslim states alone. On the other hand, the West cannot and must not tolerate it when the faith of a considerable number of individuals and some States tries to transport the West back half a millennium with assaults that, however expressed politically or economically, always derive from religion.

For this reason the coming attack of the West on terrorist fundamentalism will have meaning and results only if it succeeds as much as possible in taking political power from that of religion, separating civil law from Koranic law. It will be an act of violence, to be sure, but as necessary as when Napoleon took the crown from the hands of the Pope---nay, even more necessary. The tolerance we have attained after centuries of tragic struggles between secularism and religion must not render us tolerant of the intolerant.

Although published over a month ago, this article from the "Italiani Liberi" (Free Italians) site is still topical, and one of the best treatments of the issue of tolerance and Islam I've seen to date. I've translated the original article from Italian, so if any of you find fault with the style or diction, blame it on my pedestrian translation skills, not the author.

Very good article, and thank you for your translation! This is an example of why FR is such a dynamic and educational forum. Where else can the great unwashed cube dwellers be exposed to perspectives as diverse and thoughtful? Surely that exposure is nowhere else to be found. Surely you will not find this kind of caliber at DUh, or other left leaning sites. It has been said that serious intellectual consideration of socialism ended some 30 years ago or longer. What is left (no pun intended) are the little minds who only squawk and twist with no original contribution of their own.

Well, it's a bit too much in the triumphalist Enlightenment vein. Science and the modern world did not simply conquer or disprove Christianity. Rather, after a lengthy struggle, they both changed and accomodated--although there are still parties on both sides who hate and repudiate the other.

Christianity and modernism--or at least the beneficial aspects of modernism--CAN be reconciled. It seems as if Islam and modernism cannot coexist. Somehow or other Islam is going to have to reconcile itself to the positive developments that have taken place throughout the world in the past 500 years. But it is unlikely that it will do so without massive struggle and bloodshed. At least, that was the lesson that unfolded here in the Christian west in such events as the wars of religion and in the French, American, Napoleonic, and industrial revolutions.

It seems as if Islam and modernism cannot coexist. Somehow or other Islam is going to have to reconcile itself to the positive developments that have taken place throughout the world in the past 500 years. But it is unlikely that it will do so without massive struggle and bloodshed.

Salve! Say, friend, you start out taking issue with Signor Guerri's thesis, but in the passage above you elegantly sum it up. Vale!

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