Rawls’ Theory of Justice (1999) is a modern classic which is read, at least partially, by anyone that studied or interested in political philosophy. In this book he works primarily on distributive justice, but also briefly answers the extremely important and problematic question, “how should we deal with the intolerant” (§35). His answer is what’s repeated by many in various forms and ways: So long that there’s “no immediate danger to the equal liberties of others”, “just citizens should strive to preserve the constitution with all its equal liberties as long as liberty itself and their own freedom are not in danger” (pp. 191-192). This is in line with many other liberal authors – starting with, maybe interestingly for some, Popper himself who famously wrote “we should claim the right to suppress them [intolerants] if necessary even by force”, but only after saying “as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be most unwise” (2013, p. 581). Why? Because “they may learn tolerance; more likely, they will learn to live as if they possessed this virtue” (Walzer, 1999, p. 81).
The same ideas are found in a book I recently read (The Struggle for Inclusion: Muslim Minorities and the Democratic Ethos by Ivarsflaten and Sniderman, 2022). The authors, one from University of Bergen and the other from Stanford, if I may caricature it a bit, “try to find a way” to make already tolerant even more so towards Muslims. Why? Because it’s not these Muslims but the-intolerant-who-affect-the-tolerant that causes more problems in blending Muslims in Norwegian society.
Maybe I’d be a liberal like these thinkers had life been fairer – but it wasn’t. I’ve watched my country, Turkey, turn into ashes and dust precisely because of “liberal values” in the hands of Muslims. For this reason I’ll tell some stories, present some facts, and look a bit in the literature to see if these five I already mentioned (and more below) are right with their argument, that we should tolerate the intolerant when there’s no immediate danger, or not.
Islam vs Christianity
When Martin Luther wrote his Ninety-Five Theses, he didn’t “attack” God, neither did he stand against Jesus. Nothing in the Bible said a word about his enemy: the Church and to a large extent the Pope. Look at the following, for example:
#10: Ignorant and wicked are the doings of those priests who, in the case of the dying, reserve canonical penances for purgatory.
#48: Christians are to be taught that the pope, in granting pardons, needs, and therefore desires, their devout prayer for him more than the money they bring.
#52: The assurance of salvation by letters of pardon is vain, even though the commissary, nay, even though the pope himself, were to stake his soul upon it (Luther, 1995).
A clear stand against the organized religion, but not to the holy scripture or Jesus himself.
In Islam there’s no church to blame for the bad. The moment you say a word about it, you find Allah in front of you. The message of Quran is clear: You either take it as a whole or leave it totally. There’s no 99%, it’s either 100% or 0. You could try to forget some stuff but it’s not easy for many things are carefully detailed – so much so that you find the foot with which you should enter the toilet, what prayer to recite when you’re afraid, or how and how much to beat your wife as a man. And, I should repeat, you cannot take one, leave another and claim to be a Muslim. Islam is a closed pack. You either take it or leave it. You may not be following it all, it’s okay. The moment you deny a thing, you’re damned.
This difference, Christianity being more spiritual thanks to its Gnostic origins while Islam having a say on everything in life, causes Christian-majority countries’ liberals not to understand what Islam is and how it works. Speech and knowledge don’t go hand in hand in this case.
Sadly.
A Hypothetical Scenario
Modern liberalism strikes me with its inability to cope with the truth, the facts, the reality. A Minister of Immigration and Integration in Norway wrote the following on her Facebook page, for example, which is totally unacceptable for the authors (Ivarsflaten and Sniderman, 2022, p. 133):
I think that those who come to Norway have to adjust to our society. Here we eat pork, drink alcohol, and show our faces. One has to adapt to the values, laws, and rules of Norway when coming here.
Why unacceptable? Because we have no right to tell people how they should live. A liberal value I keep close to my heart. But it’s not about eating pork or drinking alcohol as such. A man, by accepting Islam and believing that it’s the word of Allah also accepts that women, the inferior creatures, can be beaten by their husbands. Okay, one doesn’t have to adapt to eating pork. I’ve been living in Christendom for many years and still don’t like, hence don’t consume pork. But I adapt to the values (so long that they’re not against my norms and principles, based on some other liberal values), I respect and obey the laws, I follow the rules. Islam does not allow it. You don’t believe me? “Believers should not take disbelievers as guardians instead of the believers” is an ayah in Quran (3:28).
Now let’s change the scene a little bit. Let’s say that there’s a religion, of which the followers are many in numbers in Norway. In this religion every year on 15 June a girl, preferably virgin but surely over 18, hence a legal adult, should be sacrificed to the gods, with her full and written consent, to have a prosperous crop. Are we, as liberal and tolerant people, supposed to sit and watch them kill a girl, again, who has given her full consent both orally and by signing a document, or are we supposed to oppose this ritual and oppress the minority group and act against religious liberty?
Who will be the liberal in such case? One that opposes the practice or who argues that we’re not in a position to question what the people should believe in?
An extreme and unlikely scenario it might sound, but Islam allows way worse than that. Remember the history: many people were killed to defend the honor of Allah and the prophet. They weren’t brainwashed, neither they were extremists. It was the prophet himself who ordered the murder of a poet who wrote poems insulting him and this is well known among all Muslims. Quran, the holy book which is the word of Allah, not an epistle or book by a mere mortal but the words directly coming from the Almighty himself, not only allows but also encourages such murders.
Is Quran an immediate threat or not? Are we to deny its content simply because Muslims aren’t killing people in Norway nowadays?
But, what if they’ll start tomorrow?
The Steps of a Threat
You got my point, now I may elaborate it a bit further: what makes a threat immediate? When will I pose a threat to the community?
- By the time I think of blowing a place up with a bomb.
- By the time I gather the ingredients for a bomb.
- By the time I mix the ingredients and produce the bomb.
- By the time I make my research about where to plant the bomb to make the most impact it possibly can.
- By the time I set/plant the bomb.
- By the time the bomb explodes.
- After the bomb explodes.
There are at least seven steps from a threat’s emergence to post-realization. When should we act? The answer, rather strangely for me, (at least to a large extent) depends on your political views: one inclined towards the right demands more security, hence an earlier response to the threat while on the other side liberty matters and later response is preferred. Even a clear and obvious terrorist needs to enjoy the rights he aims to take from some others for the left, and hence the liberals – but not many of leftists and liberals are left out there. How otherwise Theresa May would find such large-scale support after claiming her desire to change human rights laws for the worse?
This perception of threat isn’t necessarily about the identity of the threat even though it’s impossible to deny the fact that minorities are more prone to be defined this way. Still the question is there for us to answer: when should we act? When isn’t early but late neither? Should we stick to the left and let some people harm before we can harm him, or should we go towards the right and eliminate harm?
A Note on Authoritarianism
We know two things:
- Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel (and religiousness is no different) and those claiming the one and only patriot in the country are all authoritarian, regardless of their political orientation. Add to that the fact that all governments that assume the office for a long time “become” patriots towards the end of their tenure and we can easily conclude that patriotism (or nationalism if you will, I see no difference between the two in most senses) and religiousness are extremes of the spectrum.
- The more towards the edge of the political spectrum one is, the less flexibility he has. War is “an act of violence meant to force the enemy to do our will” (von Clausewitz, 2006, p. 31), and politics is what prevents us from bloodshed and the last step before it. “Extremists” hence are more ready for war than the milder ones, and see political world more like Schmitt, that the political is “between friend and enemy” (2007, p. 45), forgetting that this then easily turns into civil war (p. 49, p. 59).
These two support the idea that nativism (again, I see it no different than patriotism or nationalism) is inherently and naturally authoritarian – and I agree with this. What’s problematic for me is elsewhere: Does an argument become wrong if it’s defended or supported by authoritarians? If the country is declared war by another, for example, shouldn’t the citizens grab arms to defend their own because it’s what the authoritarians will and urge for in the first place?
An extreme example again, yet is a natural conclusion following the two premises I presented. Now let’s go back to the topic and I may try to show that it actually isn’t that extreme.
The Two Islams
Islam isn’t compatible with modern (or European, or Western) values almost at all. Of course one can try to argue the opposite like Mustafa Akyol (Islam without Extremes, 2011) but not only history but also the holy scripture itself opposes him – and others like him. Islam argues, for example, that everyone’s responsible for their own sin, which is a good argument if you try to convince people that it’s compatible with (modern) liberalism. But what is Banu Qurayza, then? All men were slaughtered and all women and children were taken as slaves. Did the children fight or plot against the Muslims too?
History of Islam is full of such hypocrisies. Quran says both don’t kill an innocent and you can kill them infidels. Its prophet’s actions were in accordance with the first at times, and with the second in others. According to which should Muslims act? Both are the orders of Allah himself, both are the sunnah, the acts of the prophet. Muslims find the best example in the prophet himself. In which one of these should they find the best example? In taking the children slaves or not killing the innocent, as killing such one is the same with killing humanity?
There’s no one answer to the question. Jihad is not one of the five pillars of Islam, hence is easy to ignore its existence – but denial is a whole different thing. History is there, as are the ayahs and hadiths. It’s a part of Islam and not like Crusades or sectarian wars. It’s another order of Allah and his prophet, hence should be approached accordingly.
Immediate Threat
Is a doctrine, ideology, religion, teaching, or call it whatever you will, an immediate threat if it preaches norms and values that not only aren’t coherent and compatible with liberal values or not?
For me it is, which is why I not only prefer limiting Islam’s (hence Muslims’) actions but also of any extremist’s. I agree with Schmitt (2007) in a different way: anyone who tries to claim being the defender or the owner of nationalism/patriotism and/or religiousness has to, not only should but has to be excluded not only from the social but also the political arena. Politics is a playground. We give up on something to gain another. Extremists have little to give up on, their stance already limits the(ir) options and all they can do is forcing others, not only other side’s extremists but also the milder and wider masses to take what they have to offer. Don’t they? Well, “you’re enemies of the state anyway. It’s us and only us that care about these values”.
An immediate threat is that which has or can offer little to no compensation. They already have made all the compensations by being into politics rather than directly taking arms. They’re (so-called?) realists which have no ethical and moral values. There’s only black and white, and for the color they choose, everything is permitted. If everything is permitted, then there’s threat – waiting for its realization and harm only allows such ideas and people to gain legitimization which they didn’t have in the beginning at all.
The Main Problem of Liberalism Revisited
Rawls, Popper, Walzer… don’t deny that there is (or can be) threat and that sometime can be needed to be dealt with. They offer and suggest us to be good citizens, not to be charmed with such authoritarians, and act against them only when harm is made. Yes, theoretically they don’t wait for harm – but only theoretically. Real world is different, as are the practices.
In Turkey, in 2017 a referendum was made. Probably the first questionless referendum in history in which, as a result, not individual articles but the whole pack is voted. The result was a change in the country’s regime: once a lame republic was destroyed and a sultanate was established. This new regime gave rights to the sultan which weren’t enjoyed even by the absolute monarchs of history. The result? Turkey and Turkish people became even more schizophrenic.
Erdogan was supported by liberals for many years. Ordinary folk like me were deemed fascists and authoritarians and illiberals simply because we told what was to come. Today no liberal supports him but what’s done is done. Society is deeply divided and is at the verge of civil war, economy collapsed, corruption skyrocketed, judicial system works just as Benavides once said: for my friends, everything. For my enemies, the law.
If Turkey was more authoritarian, today it’d be less authoritarian. If the US was less liberal, today it’d be more liberal. The same can be said about the UK, and soon will be said about the Scandinavian countries which triumph in democracy and liberalism. This is not my will, neither it is my hope. It is just the natural way.
State of Nature
Liberals, like anarchists, socialists, communists, and many authors on democracy from this or that political view somehow consider humans better than what we are. In Our Own Worst Enemy (2021), a book I recently read, Tom Nichols argues that democracy is on the decline because people aren’t acting as good as they’re supported, and they’re acting this way simply because they’re more prosperous and are bored as a result.
I’ve been working on democracy for more than a decade and half. I can claim to know about its history at least much enough. Never was democracy born because the folk were good-natured, neither it was sustained because the people became better. It’s just a “by-product of complicated history in the West involving state formation, secularization, class struggle, and revolutions” (Çiftçi, 2002, p. 30). As Moore Jr. wrote (1993), it just was a bloodless revolution in which aristocracy was reshaped for good. Evil is banal (Arendt, 2006) for humans are not angels. This is why everywhere, in almost all books strengthening institutions is recommended by experts, scholars and practitioners alike, to strengthen democracy.
Liberalism is a good idea and ideal. I honestly like it a lot but don’t want to be restricted with its attitude towards the extremes. If humans aren’t naturally good, we can’t rely on them acting good. If we need the institutions restrict many acts, if we argue that the state is necessary for order, if we have given up on our right to use force and handed it to the state, we need the state to curb not only acts but also certain ideas for liberalism to survive. Yes, this can seem paradoxical but is there a system that’s paradox-free? Isn’t allowing authoritarians be in political arena a paradox already?
Islam Again
I’m a Turk, hence culturally a Muslim. I even tried to become a Muslim when I was young, but initially failed as you can guess, and the reason is what I’ve been trying to say indirectly so far and will say directly now: for Islam the world is divided in two: dar-al Islam and dar-al harb. What these terms mean, strangely and sadly, isn’t what is found here on Brown University’s page, neither on Wikipedia.
Dar-al Islam means the land of Islam where there are Muslim rulers and Muslims not only enjoy freedom of religion but also make all laws according to sharia. Dar-al Harb, on the other hand, means land of war and is the rest of the world. Jihad means converting dar-al harb into dar-al Islam – nothing more and nothing less. Today, primarily to defend the rights of Muslims living in “the West”, these terms are tried to be given different meanings but they are what they are.
How does this work? Back in time, when the prophet was still in Mecca and Muslims were suppressed and tortured by them infidels, a bunch of Muslims sought refuge in Habeshistan (modern day Ethiopia). Later, when Islam gained power, the land was visited by Muslims once more – not to thank them but to conquer and convert it to dar-al Islam. This is one of the most striking episodes of history of Islam for me. Islam doesn’t only want freedom of religion, it needs total control. It’s to the extent that there’s Universal Islamic Declaration of Human Rights, adopted in 1981 only to say “your manmade laws don’t matter, law is only sharia”. “But it’s also made by men” you can say but you’d better not.
Islam is invasive, it has to be. It’s the order given directly by Allah, not by a Mosque or Imam. And you know what happens when sharia is the law. Saudi Arabia and Iran are two good examples.
Differentiating between Islam and Muslims
Muslims are people. They’re real. We can touch them, listen to them, can share many things with. Islam is an idea, a lifestyle, a religion. It’s like the state: you know that it exists but can see and touch it only via some other things.
Muslims don’t have to be just because Islam is problematic, you can say which reminds me of the famous “joke”: The death of one man is a tragedy. The death of millions is a statistic. Arguing against Islam is “dealing with statistics”, dealing with individual Muslims is “tragedy”. I as well feel uncomfortable, not because I’m attacking on Islam but because at the individual level it can cause harm to Muslims. But in politics we try to find an optimum, and the optimum is limiting Islam, not letting it free.
Today lesser and lesser people are “real” Muslims – to the extent that Turkish Islam isn’t considered Islam at all by Arabs, Afghans, or Pakistanis for example. Even inside these (and many other) countries Islam is losing ground. People want to live happily more than they want to “fully” believe. There’s alternative fashion among Muslim girls, they’re wearing headscarves and closing their bodies but they’re not even close to what Islam orders. Even in the last century didn’t calls for jihad found (wide) supporters.
What is the problem, then? Why am I arguing the same thing with them nativists?
As Islam loses ground, “real” Muslims are getting more and more extremist. In Turkey, for example, Islam, thanks to the “authoritarian oppression of Muslims”, meant more or less this: believing in Allah and him being the sole creator, hoping for him to forgive our sins, praying time after time, and fasting in Ramadan. Because of this, albeit comparably small, tariqas (Islamic sects) have always been “hard” – demanding a return to 630AD and no less.
Then an “Islamist” government seized power, allowed these tariqas to gain social, economical and political power, and slowly what once was extreme became the center. Today every politician, even those that we know are atheist, attend Friday prayer for example. Everyone’s a good Muslim, everyone is a Turk and Muslim if not only Muslim. As I said: Islam is invasive. It invaded the political arena slowly, and what once was extreme is not normal. As Aristotle said: nature abhors a vacuum. Now extreme became normal and created its own extreme. This harmed only good-willed Muslims but if in any case someone will be harmed, let it better be the ill-willed ones. Not the good-willed.
The Solution?
“Language is quite simply fascist; for fascism does not prevent speech, it compels speech” (Barthes, 2005, p. xvii). You can replace language with Islam. Muslims are a whole different story.
We’re tend to believe that suppressing religion will turn religious people into (more) zealots but Turkish case, together with the French, has shown that it’s not necessarily the case. Yes, some people aren’t happy. Yes, men who celebrated Turkey withdrawing from Istanbul Convention (The Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence) weren’t happy with the state telling them not to become “much Muslims”. Yes, groups of bearded scary men that walk the streets of Istanbul and telling people not to drink, not to wear what they wear, to believe, to pray weren’t happy when the state didn’t let them to do so.
Now those men are happy, as are the men that want to be able to beat and abuse their wives and children. But we, those who want to limit Islam precisely because otherwise Islam will limit are unhappy. Politics is about making the most people happy, that’s true – but if we talk about democracy, if we talk about liberalism, if we talk about human rights, if we talk about rule of law… we shouldn’t only count heads. We should consider some other things as well. This way only the bad guys win, as they did in Turkey.
Islam cannot be left alone, it needs to be strictly controlled. No mosque can be set totally free, no imam should be able to speak freely of the religion. This is why Atatürk established Diyanet: he didn’t want to ban Islam, he wanted to control it. It actually worked for a while – till Muslims took control of it. Today, only the extremist interpretation of Islam is valid in the country. Surprise?
Extreme ideas are not ideas. They are weapons – and should be treated accordingly. Otherwise the innocent will be harmed, not the guilty. Let tolerance paradox work against them ill-willed, not the good ones.
Works Cited
Akyol, M. (2011). Islam Without Extremes: A Muslim Case for Liberty (First). W.W. Norton.
Arendt, H. (2006). Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil. Penguin Books.
Barthes, R. (2005). The Neutral: Lecture Course at the Collège de France, 1977-1978. Columbia University Press.
Çiftçi, S. (2022). Islam, Justice, and Democracy. Temple University Press.
Ivarsflaten, E., & Sniderman, P. M. (2022). The Struggle for Inclusion: Muslim Minorities and the Democratic Ethos. The University of Chicago Press.
Moore Jr., B. (1993). Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World. Beacon Press.
Popper, K. R. (2013). The Open Society and Its Enemies. Princeton University Press.
Rawls, J. (1999). A Theory of Justice (Revised). Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
Schmitt, C. (2007). The Concept of the Political. University of Chicago Press.
von Clausewitz, C. (2006). On War. Oxford University Press.
Walzer, M. (1999). On Toleration. Yale University Press.