Who's to stop them?
Vigilance of democrats against shades of theocracy
is the only protection against
the erosion of secularism
March 4, 2005
iranian.com
There is concern, much consternation and some hyperventilation
about the prospects of an Islamic Republic in Iraq. The throne
of the new theocracy, some pundits worry, will not be carried on
the shoulders of the revolutionary masses. "Beware," their
tremulous voices intone, "it will be crafted in the chambers
of Iraq's emerging democratic process." The quiet giant
of a Shiite majority led by reclusive Grand Ayatollahs has stirred
in Iraq and the world remembers what happened the last time that
happened in Iran.
Most of these fears are unfounded. Not only because the same
theology does not necessarily create the same polity -- as Dilip
Hiro comparing the Wahabism of Qatar and Saudi Arabia has shown
in his recent editorial in New York Times. History will
not repeat itself because we are not dealing with the same theology
in Iraq
and Iran. Shiites of Iraq will not push for an Islamic Republic
because the political philosophy of the Qum is anathema to that
of Najaf.
The prestigious seminary of Najaf was never impressed by the
clever alchemy of Ayatollah Khomeini that transformed an obscure
legal provision for the guardianship of the insane and the infirm
into "The Mandate of the Jurist" and the basis for
an Islamic state. Khomeini's "aberration" was
condemned by the provost of the Najaf theological and legal school
of the time, the Grand Ayatollah Al-Khouie.
In fact, Al-Khouie,
went out of his way to write a detailed treatise in rejection of
"The Mandate of the Jurist." "Even during the heady
seventies when the new theocracy in Iran would have
lesser
dissident
Ayatollahs for breakfast, none dared revile the Grand Ayatollah
Al-Khouie for his conspicuous silence about -- and scholarly rejection
of -- the Islamic Republic. Frantic commentators darkly guessing
at the theocratic ambitions of the Iraqi Shiite Ayatollahs will
be
comforted to know that the present provost of Najaf, Ayatollah
Sistani, is the intellectual heir of Al-Khouie.
Indeed the mainstream
of the Shiite political philosophy with the exception of Khomeini's
maverick interpretation has always been quietist, millenarian and
categorically opposed to the "establishment" of an
Islamic State in absence of the infallible and occulted, Imam.
Of course, if Iraq goes up in flames (for instance in a religious
war) its Shiites will be radicalized. Then a theocratic counter
elite might rise from the Shiite slums to challenge the quietist
clerical hierarchy. For the time being, however, such theocratic
ambitions (as
expressed in Mughtada Al Sadr's brief reign of terror) have been
nipped in the bud by the decisive leadership
of Sistani.
 How about a theocracy not in form but in content? Can Shiite
and Sunni clergy and their lieutenants use the proxy of democratic
processes of Iraq to establish the "Shariah" as the
law of the land? Can the evolving, democracy of Iraq be used to
Islamize that country on the cheap? Can the faithful form Islamic
parties, push their agendas via democratic participation without
the trappings of a theocracy? I am afraid all this is possible.
There is no silver-bullet solution to this problem in democratic
Iraq or in democratic anywhere. Every liberal democracy, constitutional
provisions for separation of church and state not withstanding,
is as secular as its constituents wish to be. Yes, Shariah could
come to increasingly dominate the public sphere of Iraq in the
same invidious vein that the agenda of the Christian Right has
come to dominate the foreign and domestic platform of the ruling
Republican Party's in the United States.
The problem is universal and it runs deep. We live in a world
where enlightenment plans to either liquidate or privatize religion
have failed. Realistically speaking, religion is here not only
to stay but also to play a public role. This is not necessarily
a bad thing because the mainstreams of Western religions have adapted
themselves to the challenge of enlightenment and some have even
played a constructive role in the modern world.
One can imagine
religion performing a crucial function as the immanent critic of
the modern state. Modernity's record after all, is not unblemished
in its political or economic tracks. Aggressive nationalism and
amoral capitalism have wrecked havoc on the lives of billions.
Modern states and international order deserve an occasional chastising
sermon and some grass roots mobilization in the public square.
Religion can play the role of the Socratic gadfly in keeping
alert the magnificent steed of the modern State. Liberation Theology
in Central America, Civil Rights Movement in the United States
and the People's Church in Brazil are examples of the continuing
significance of religion as a counterweight to hegemonic modern
states.
But such activities are best limited to dialogue in the
sphere of "civil society." I would not like to see
any church establish hyphenated religious parties or infiltrate
the nominally non-religious ones in Iraq or in the United States.
I would not like to see any church push religious legislation
in Qatar or in Norway.
But the problem remains. The trouble is that in modern liberal
democracies (unlike systems that impose secularism from above such
as the Kemalist Turkey, the Positivist, 19th century Latin American
countries and the former Soviet Block) that decision is up to the
church. It is the church that must stay within the sphere of "civil
society" and resist the temptation of meddling in "political
society."
This is a decision that the post-Vatican II Catholic
Church has (much to its credit) made in places like Spain and
Brazil. Otherwise there is no democratic procedure to prevent the
faithful,
from mobilizing under a thousand guises of democratic process
to bend the secular law and mold the secular politics. Yes, the
Shariah
could be legally enshrined through completely kosher constitutional
and electoral participation of the faithful in Iraq. For same
reasons, access to legal abortion could soon be a thing of the
past in the
United States.
 In both cases only the vigilance of democrats (faithful
and faith-challenged alike) against shades of theocracy is the
only protection against
the erosion of secularism. Vigilance of democrats is immanently
needed not only in Iraq but also in the United States where the
same Baptists who once petitioned Thomas Jefferson demanding a
"wall of separation between church and state" are hard at work
dismantling that wall brick by brick. There is no cure to this
universal malaise of modern democracies except, to paraphrase Max
Weber, "the will of a nation not be led like sheep" by
those who wear the deceptive mantel of religious/political shepherds.
About
Ahmad Sadri is Professor and Chairman of the Department of
Sociology and Anthropology at Lake Forest College, IL, USA. See
Features.
See homepage.
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