Paul Belien of the Brussels Journal argues that the Manifesto released by 12 international authors, which appeared yesterday in an English version on the website of the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, is rife with defects that he believes undercuts its impact. As an example, he points to the anti-religious beliefs (and in Belian’s opinion, these are beliefs that would necessary destroy educational freedom) of one of its signataries, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a member of the Dutch parliament—beliefs he then extrapolates out to the language of the Manifesto itself, particularly, it’s mention of the promotion of secular values (on which more in a moment).
I think Belien is misreading (or perhaps better, ideologically loading) the piece in a way that its authors did not intend—and in fact, one of the reasons I was so supportive of the Manifesto was precisely because it was drawn up by many on the intellectual left, who, it seemed to me, were finally ready to eschew, philosophically, the kind of cultural relativism that results in the the advocacy multiculturalism as a sociopolitical philosophy, a system that necessarily devolves into identity politics—itself the antithesis of individualism.
Belien is particularly upset with the promotion of “secular values” as universal as articulated in this sentence from the Manifesto: “We, writers, journalists, intellectuals, call for resistance to religious totalitarianism and for the promotion of freedom, equal opportunity and secular values for all.”
Belien writes, “man is a religious being. Secularism destroyed the Christian roots of Europe and, in doing so, created the religious vacuum that is now being filled by Islam—a position that, though it may have some historical merit, does not, I don’t think, point out a causal effect, and it that sense, it widely overstates the case, even were we to accept Mr Belien’s notion of secularism as necessarily anti-religious.
But I read the Manifesto differently. And in my reading, “secular,” in the sense I believe the authors were using it, was meant to convey the sense of “not specifically relating to a religion”; that is, it was simply a way of making a distinction between theocracy (which necessarily joins the religious to the civil) and a system of beliefs that allows for either belief or non belief in some religion, and for separation by government from an official religion (in this sense, much like our Establishment Clause).
Mr Belien’s opening criticism, too, misses the mark, I think, because it betrays a desire to read into the concept of secularism a necessary anti-religious (rather than religion neutral) bias:
[…] While Islamism can be considered the perversion of religion, the three scourges of the 20th century—Fascism, Nazism (National-Socialism) and Stalinism—were secular ideologies. Neither Adolf Hitler nor Joseph Stalin were theocrats. It takes “French intellectuals†to use mankind’s experience with National-Socialism and Stalinism as motivation for a rallying cry to oppose “religious totalitarianism†and a call for “secular values,†which they hold to be “universal values.â€Â
Here, Belien simply misreads the modifiers in the original sentence from the Manifesto.
Here it that sentence again:
After having overcome fascism, Nazism, and Stalinism, the world now faces a new totalitarian global threat: Islamism. We, writers, journalists, intellectuals, call for resistance to religious totalitarianism and for the promotion of freedom, equal opportunity and secular values for all.
The sentence, parsed, says simply that we have overcome previous TOTALITARIAN threats. Islamism being the newest totalitarian threat, the writers are calling for a resistance to a religious strain of totalitarianism—not equating religion with totalitarianism. The rest: promotion of freedom, equal opportunity [note: nothing is said of equality of outcome], and secular values—is perfectly in keeping with western liberalism, though one may quibble with any secular values that would preclude the choice of an individual to a given follow faith. But had the authors meant such, the idea that they were promoting “freedom” would itself be suspect.
The term “egalitarian,” which also disturbs Mr Belien (and there is reason to be suspicious of the term as it has come to be used) is potentially problematic, but only when it is used by groups advocating for equality of outcome and proportional-based systems that use a given physical trait (like sex or race) as the salient identity point.
But again, this seems not to fit with the earlier pronouncement of a wish for equality of opportunity, so it is possible to conclude, kindly, that the authors are using the term in its strict (non-ideologically loaded) sense of “affirming, promoting, or characterized by belief in equal political, economic, social, and civil RIGHTS for all”—which, again, speaks to the conditions under which equality of opportunity would be operable and possible.
In short, I think the Manifesto says exactly what Mr Belien wishes it says, but fears it does not.
One of the signatories, Salman Rushdie, was featured in a Reason interview a few months back. And to me at least, it is clear from that interview that he is a great believer in western liberal values—which I discussed and expanded on at the time. You can revisit that interview and my comment here.
(h/t STACLU; see also, Michelle Malkin)
I hope that you are right in reading the authors’ intention, but when I hear words like secularist being used, I wonder if the authors are guilty of slopping thinking—they really mean secular—or if Brussels Journal is right–these people like the egalitarian socially engineered equality of outcome model that would put any dissidents in front of human rights tribunals.
There is a difference between the secular and wanting a secular state and secularism, which is has its own virulent fundamentalist forms.
Good critique, Jeff, but I think he spells his name “Belien”, not “Belian”.
Islam will become dominant in Europe in just 20 years. Right now, at lest 25% of babies born in Europe are Islamic, and even British-born Pakistanis are prone to suicide bombings, as we saw on 7/7/05.
This is what makes anti-Americanism the second superpower. Read why here.
Kartik
You think it doens’t mention communism because one of its singers is a ‘worker-communist’ party member? (also secularist of the year!)
I’m willing to cheer for the Manifesto, but damn, I’ve heard left-wing students say that a Professor’s offhand mention in class of a Biblical story is akin to “academic religious totalitarianism.” You’d think a bunch of fucking writers could use the language with precision.
Or maybe they did? It’s like a zit on Grace Kelley’s nose.
This is probably the dumbest thing I’ve read this week, doubly so since he’s European. There is no religious vacuum in Europe. Swedes and Frenchmen haven’t exactly been sitting around pining for a new religion to take the place of the old one. He might have a decent point if Europeans were converting to Islam, but they really, really are not.
There is a population vacuum in Europe and that’s why Muslims are basically replacing Europeans. That’s because European social and economic systems constantly discourage having children. It’s got nothing to do with religion. Unless denying women their rights to education, careers, and birth control are the Christian roots he’s talking about, anyway.
Reforming the Islamic faith is a daunting task. John Calvin lamented years following the Protestant Reformation that the Christian Church had splintered so rapidly and lacked any coherent central methodology. At least with the Catholic Church, the buck stopped at the Pope. Regardless of the many avenues of thought that could occur, ultimately there was one individual who steered the final interpretation of the doctrine. The Catholic Church has an identifiable hierarchy.
As I see it, the Islamic faith lacks a structure and is in fact splintered. The doctrine is muddled because each scholar and Iman is not held to any specific standard. Much like the Bible, the Koran is subject to vast interpretation. The message varies per individual.
I believe that the key to fruitfully reforming the Islamic faith is to create a hierarchy that ultimately relies on a small group of elected scholars and Imans to steer their faith for the world. Obviously this is easier said than done, but at least those radical groups who defect from the core are identifiable.
I believe that a very minute portion of the Islamic community is homicidal. The vast majority would like to live in peace. With a hierarchy in place, the radicals who preach poison will be reprimanded and cast out. Perhaps the Shia and Sunni populations can coexist within this system.
Perhaps I’m just as loony as your average smelly hippie. Perhaps.
Salman Rushdie’s a great writer.
I’m still in the middle of Satanic Verses, but I read Shalimar the Clown.
I recommend both.
Secular values… In other words, values that are validated by a secular approach, i.e., by reason rather than faith. Is this even possible anymore? Weren’t we told by 20th century philosophers that logic could not validate values? That one could not possibly get from an is to an ought? If that is the case, then there cannot be any such thing as values based on reason, which means that there cannot be any such thing as secular values. Yet, politics must be based on some sort of moral code in order for us to know how we ought to order our society. So if there are no secular values, then all politics must be based on religion–or some sort of extra-rational revelation.
That’s where 20th century philosophy has left us, and that’s why true liberals are caught between two sets of religious fanatics. (Make that three sets of religious fanatics, since the Left also pulls its values out of thin air. They might as well be religious, given their fanaticism, and their blind faith in a set of unvalidated dictums.)
TW: college…
I find his critic’ a bit mockish, and his arguments, not at all convincing. Particularly his ideas of what “destroyed European Christianity”. That premise begs so many issues of culturalism, war, industrialization, demographics, immigrative feedback, Theocratic backlash ect ect., it sounds more like the hopeful efforts of a trial balloon transcript from a 4th year history major.
I find the dialog, and point underlying the spirit of the manifest refreshingly reminisent of what “Liberal” used to represent at one time. Maybe Belein is looking at things through a perspective of the maministic coddlerism of what passes for Liberal these days.
– actus. Communism and its many variations, is covered as a subset, albeit very sloppy, of Stalinism.
What helped create the so-called religous vacum in Europe was having the state massively interfere with religion through the established churches. So that these churches suffered many of the ills endemic to government bureacracies as well as those ills experienced by large churches. Namely a changing of church teachings to appear more politically correct, being sucked into moral relativism, and becoming to some degree tools of the state.
These ills sucked the passion and fevor out of the European churches, leaving them open to attacks from outside forces. What we see with these radical muslims in Europe wasn’t directly caused by these forces, it’s just them exploiting the environment found there.
Of course, for this to be true as Mr Belien intends it, then the population that existed in Europe would have turned to Islam, which is not what happened. What happened is that Islam came with those immigrating there. A fairly easy thing to figure out, if truth is what you seek.
I would think its the other way around, specially since a commie is signing the thing.
No, I think Actus might have a point. Stalinism is viewed as a perversion of communism. I’m sure the language was intended to save someone’s feelings.
Actus, which of the signers is a worker-communist party member?
The one that is identified by:
Hmmmm …. I guess “albeit sloppy” means something different than “as a perversion”. Thus I stand corrected….
</blockquote>
Oh, that one.
Yep… looks like a commie.
That meshes with something I was reading recently about the situation in Lebanon and Syria. It seems that the “liberals” there are often leftovers from the heyday of Marxism.
Well, it’s a neocon world. If commies want to join the battle for classical liberalism, I guess we can let them.
Islam is the greatest threat to freedom and western values in the world today. We and the signers of the manifesto have a common enemy. The signers have put their lives on the line to oppose that enemy. We may well have our differences after that enemy is defeated. If the enemy is not defeated, our differences will be moot. The signers deserve our support, not our parsing.
– Parsing!….parsing?…. theres parsing going on in here….I’m shocked….. round up the usual suspects…..
– Me?… no no….thats not a parser…. thats my chalupa for lunch….
PARSIST!!!!
Bah. Belien’s screed may or may not have value for Europeans—I can’t get into European thought patterns; they might as well be Martians, once one gets away from technical matters.
But for Americans it’s just identity politics as reflex, the thoughts of a person who saw a keyword, flagged it as an identifier for a group identity he doesn’t like, and went off on a tangent. He isn’t responding to the Manifesto; he’s responding to the voices in his head that tell him what the group that uses that word would say in a Manifesto. A waste of time, in other words.
Regards,
Ric
“Mr Belien’s opening criticism, too, misses the mark, I think, because it betrays a desire to read into the concept of secularism a necessary anti-religious (rather than religion neutral) bias”
I think that history has shows that “religion-neutral” is the natural evolutionary step before “anti-religion”. It is a fanatical attempt to be “religion-neutral” that drives groups like the ACLU to crush any religious expression in the public sphere.
Just my way of saying that Mr. Belien has a very valid point. You do not combat a corrupted culture with an empty “neutral” one. Freedom is an empty value unless it is reinforced by virtue…a word that will never be found in any secularist “religion-neutral” dictionary.
“This is probably the dumbest thing I’ve read this week, doubly so since he’s European. There is no religious vacuum in Europe. Swedes and Frenchmen haven’t exactly been sitting around pining for a new religion to take the place of the old one. He might have a decent point if Europeans were converting to Islam, but they really, really are not. “
This is in turn is the dumbest bit of anlysis I have ever read of the European situation. There is an intense spiritual vacuum in Europe. The population vacuum is just the side effect of a culture long bereft of a spiritual center. (And Mr. Belien should know, especially if he lives in the Heart of the Beast aka Brussels)
Did you guys ever wonder why, besides the economic consideration, it is religion that determines the level of birth-rate? In the West, the countries with the highest birth-rates, relatively speaking, are the religious ones. The United States, for instance, has a higher birthrate than Sweden, despite Sweden’s attempts at natalist policy-making.
The reason Europe has not yet converted to Islam is because filling the vacuum takes time. This generation is already too set in its emptiness to convert, but it has nothing to offer the next generation, which will make that generation suceptible to Islam’s spiritual overtures. Already, we see how this can happen in the story of that American Taliban from an affluent Orange County family. I imagine that there are more Europeans like Johnny Taliban than we dare to imagine in our nightmares.
If you guys are looking for manifestoes, here is a much better one.
http://www.perloccidente.it/doc_english.php
As for me, I’m not a huge fan of manifestoes. Must be the anti-Commie in me.
You seem to have missed my point that if secularism weren’t meant simply as a distinction to theocracy, the promotion of “freedom” would be undercut, and the entire thing would make no sense.
My reading accounts for the promotion of freedom, which presumably includes the freedom to practice one’s religion within the boundries laid out in the social contract.
Further, you miss the point that a bunch of left-leaning intellectuals are eschewing cultural relativism, which is a HUGE step toward reinforcing classical liberal ideals.
“You seem to have missed my point that if secularism weren’t meant simply as a distinction to theocracy, the promotion of “freedom†would be undercut, and the entire thing would make no sense.”
If secularism here is merely a means of saying “non-theocracy”, then it is by all means harmless. However, I don’t think I can count on “secularism” meaning as such when it is a manifesto endorsed by a leading Communist.
“Further, you miss the point that a bunch of left-leaning intellectuals are eschewing cultural relativism, which is a HUGE step toward reinforcing classical liberal ideals. “
I’m not trying to ignore that point. Its just that, the way I see it, they did eschew cultural relativism and that is good. However, what will they replace cultural relativism with? Secularism? That same demon that ate away at the heart of Europe for the past century? Or this vague notion of “non-theocracy” that you endorse?
As I was saying, you cannot battle a corrupted and brittle culture with an empty one. Maggots know a corpse when they see one, and I fear that it is the corpse that this hardy bunch of individuals are championing against the maggots.