{written for a geography in the middle east class, our apologies for the academic references}
Trying to make sense of history can be a difficult process. Here, I would like to sketch the outlines of a peculiarly feasible future-history of the world, as modulated by a sort of Islamic enlightenment arising out of the current sets of youth movements originating in the Middle East.
As Reza Aslan diligently points out, “. . . religion is the foundation of America's political system.” (Aslan, 262) If we take also his point that “. . . religion is to this day an integral part of the American national identity and patently the moral foundation for its Constitution . . .” (Aslan, 262), what we are left with in a strange sense of non-terror about the prospect of an Islamic democratic system. In fact, we can begin to construct a narrative: if American democracy, arising during the western Enlightenment period and, as per Aslan, couched in the moral presuppositions of Protestant Christianity, can rise to become the prime example of effective democratic systems, ostensibly the model for all other modern democratic nations, then what of an organic, Islamic-normalized democratic system? Such a thing would be a distinctly 'fresh' reorganization of democratic principles, alive with contemporary knowledge and potentially healthy tendencies.
Key here is “Islam's quintessentially communal character . . .” (Aslan 264), which may be contrasted with the contemporary marriage of American right-wing conservative individualism with American right-wing conservative (Protestant) Christianity. While both scriptures involved place great value in communal effort and collectivization, contemporary Christian political discourse has become thoroughly Capitalist in nature, conveniently forgetting virtually all of the recorded words of the Christ. In Islam, there is a sense that it has strayed less far from its collectivist origins. Even in images, it is easy to conjure the groups of the faithful, moving in unison during prayer or the Haj. Perhaps it is because it is the youngest of the three Abrahamic traditions. More likely, like most other things, it is simply the way things have happened, due to any number of individually discernible historical mechanics. Regardless, if Aslan is correct that an Islamic bill of rights would primarily “. . . take into consideration the protection of the community over the autonomy of the individual,” (Aslan, 264) then Islamic democracy may be precisely the jump-start that our globe's decaying political systems need!
Visualize, please, the notion of American democracy arising from a hegemonically Christian background. Indeed, as Aslan points out, “[a] democratic state can be established upon any normative framework . . .” (Aslan, 262). And so we may posit that the America-centric, Christian-normalized democracy that is taken for granted in the West is in fact the 'democratized' version of a Christian morality. Over time, the pluralistic and secularizing “. . . process that develops naturally within a democracy,” (Aslan, 264) has digested this system into the quasi-secular, mostly-pluralistic America-type we see today. Thus, a system that arises organically within Islamic hegemony and given time (which is always occurs faster and faster throughout history) to similarly digest its theocratic underpinnings may well be the next grand set of governing ideas that revolutionize the world. We would do well to look to Tunisia's soon-to-be-hammered-out new constitution for the inklings. If this is indeed the path that lies ahead, it seems that those communal instincts of Islam could end up being the perfect antithesis to the sick, dilapidated, corporate state of Late Capitalism we in the West and across the globe are newly and correctly seeing as the oppressor.
There are new shapes on the horizon!
