"Toleration is a Two-Way Street"

An interesting essay by David Foster at Claremont, Sep. 8 (quoted ellipsis in original):

After 9/11, some American Muslims searched their souls and publicly reflected that they had been too careless in their speech. Apparently it had never crossed their minds that constant fiery condemnations of godless, immoral America might prompt some to wish the destruction of so great an evil. But if American Muslims seem sobered, in parts of the western world others are actually emboldened. In England, for example, the radical Sheikh Omar Bakri Mohammed recently defended the terrorists who murdered more than 300 women and children in a school in Beslan, Russia, and argued that a similar hostage-taking in Britain would be justified. The same Sheikh organizes a gathering every September 11 to celebrate the "magnificent 19" hijackers. He has even issued a fatwa justifying the assassination of Prime Minister Tony Blair and is reportedly working for the day when "Our Muslim brothers from abroad will come… and conquer here and then we will live under Islam in dignity."

Such talk used to be called sedition, and the good Sheikh's brazenness is breathtaking and very troubling. Perhaps even more troubling is the flaccid response to it. British authorities, we are told, are reduced to "mouse-trapping" men like Bakri with "immigration violations in hopes of making a deportation case stick." The United States has adopted tougher measures, but even here powerful currents press in the other direction. Our ideas of religious freedom, due process, freedom of the press, and the legitimacy of dissent, among other things, all work to protect speech, especially when it is made in the name of religion. Add multiculturalism, with its almost absolute love of diversity, and it begins to seem that nothing can be done about the Sheikh Bakris in our midst.

But in the face of a resolute and audacious enemy doing its utmost to destroy the West, "mouse-trapping" may be a fatal half-measure. Nor can we afford to hide behind habitual standards of free speech in the hope that bad things won't happen. Fortunately, the great western arguments for religious toleration suggest a more muscular response. For while defending religious freedom those arguments also show us how to protect it from those who would use freedom in order to destroy it. They worked in the seventeenth century when Catholics and Protestants sought converts by the sword. There is no reason why they can't work now when the West faces a similar threat....

In the past lovers of liberty in the West had to listen carefully to what various Christian sects were saying about religion and politics. That is still important. But in the modern world, most Christian churches have reconciled themselves with toleration and contort themselves to be ecumenical, and it is what some Islamic clerics are saying that most demands our vigilance. That, at least, is what toleration requires. The real question is not so much whether Muslims in the West are willing to accept and teach the duties of toleration — if the wider society expects it, they will probably comply — but whether the West itself still understands and has the will to defend its own principles.

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Thu. 10/07/04 07:25:37 PM
Categorized as Social/Cultural.