Islam is Incompatible with a Peaceful Democracy

In the wake of the first ever Tunisian elections, it is worth reflecting upon the Athenians of the fifth century BC who first conceived of a system of governance where the many would rule the few, and worth considering that it was the Romans who refined the concept of democracy with the construction of their republic. But it was the democratic republic of America’s founders which was further refined and profoundly influenced by Judeo/Christian principles. As David Goldman writes in How Civilizations Die,“The American Founding notion of “inalienable rights” stems from the Hebrew covenant: a grant of rights implies a Grantor which irreversibly grants rights to every human being.”

While westerners hope that the elections in Tunisia are a harbinger of a great new Islamic awakening, the notions that an all-powerful Allah would constrain his powers and extend inalienable rights to mankind, including women and especially non Muslims, are antithetical to Muslim orthodoxy. Tunisia’s new majority party, Nahda, proclaims that it is both democratic and Islamist and that it will enact laws inspired by Sharia law. But Islam does not provide for individual or minority rights. Moreover, where Muslim culture predominates, freedoms of worship and expression do not exist.

The great worry for the West is that the pledge made by the new Islamist majority in Tunisia is the perpetual double game, based on taqiyya, a core tenant of Islam, which proscribes lying to the infidel in order to advance Islamic world domination. The Wall Street Journal’s, Mathew Kaminski quotes Sami Kallel, a Tunisian 50-year-old orthopedic surgeon, “But the fear is the double discourse.” By this Dr. Kallel means that he fears that the new Tunisian power brokers will be no different than the terrorist running Hamas in Gaza who were democratically elected but who are not giving up power through elections any time soon. The fear is that new Arab democracy sweeping the Middle East may only mean—one vote for man one time. It may mean that we have watched secular dictators with whom America had learned to negotiate overthrown by Islamist regimes which will soon be bristling for war with our only ally in the region, Israel.

As it pertains to installing a democracy now that Islamists have gained control of Egypt, Tunisia and Libya, the problem is the Koran. Their revealed word of God proscribes the execution of apostates (those who leave Islam) and homosexuals and wife beating for disobedient spouses. These and other troubling tenants of Islam cause the self-described Islamists to crash up against a modern democracy which is now inextricably defined by Judeo/Christian values. The capacity of western civilization to extend freedoms and dignity to all its citizens, expose Islam for what it is—the pitiless creed of a primitive warrior cult.

Islamists have wrested control of three North Africa nations. Yet they cannot escape the realization that they have lost the ideological war with the West. And it is this that makes them so dangerous. Islamists fill their ranks with lone suicide bombers who attack Iraqi police stations, Egyptian mobs who are now free to burn down Coptic Christian churches, and Iranian officials who threaten Israel with nuclear attack. Despite the Islamist revolutions, Islam may nevertheless coalesce in an all out suicide attack on the West for no other reason than to avoid further humiliation as their once great religious civilization disintegrates in the face of superior western values.