Since I recently wrote an article on Osama Bin Laden, I thought I'd follow it up with a talk on Mustapha Cherif and Jacques Derrida and their perspectives on Islam and the West.
Derrida (1930-2004) is responsible for radically transforming our ideas about writing, reading, and philosophy, and his huge archive of work has challenged many prevailing philosophical theories on topics ranging from politics, ethics, literary theory, legal theory, and psychoanalysis. He's one of the most important philosophers of the later 20th century, but also one of the most elusive. In the spring of 2003, Derrida went to a hospital and learned that he had pancreatic cancer. This disease tragically killed him 15 months later. But on the day he learned of his illness, he went straight from the doctor to the Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris to meet with Mustapha Cherif for a public debate on Islam and the West, an important topic given the 9/11 tragedy the year before.
Mustapha Cherif is a leading Islamic academic who's made a career of battling religious hatred. He's a professor of philosophy and Islamic studies at the University of Algiers. He famously met with Pope Benedict XVI after the Pope made an unfavorable remark about Islam in his Regensburg Lecture. This article is written to elucidate their ideas with regard to Islam and the West.
Cherif identifies early on in his book, "Islam and the West: A Conversation with Jacques Derrida", a "noble moral dimension" in the thoughts of Derrida: a concern for the future of human dignity (7). This means thinking critically about the dilemmas of our era and acting with respect to our fellow human beings and human experience. We'll find this dimension woven in and out of his thoughts on Islam and the West. It's from this basis that Cherif and Derrida argue against the compartmentalization we've placed on secularization and spirituality. Secularization, in modern culture, has come to mean a Eurocentric humanism riding on the 'death of God'. Spirituality, for many in the West, has come to indicate the fundamentalist religious groups and their intolerance. Just consider the modern Athiest movement, led by the likes of Sam Harris. "The End of Faith" reduces religion down to violence, intolerance, and naivety, as if a world rid of religious faith would become peaceful. So does Greg Graffin's "Anarchy Evolution" (which I wrote a book review on). While their critiques of fundamentalism are admirable, the picture these authors paint is that secularity is not at all possible within religious systems, and religion should therefore be eliminated in favor of scientific testability. Secularity, then, is set out against spirituality.
Cherif disagrees, arguing that such projects do not encourage a peaceful world. They rather promote violence and intolerance. "The secularization of the political and of the public spheres, Derrida rightly tells us, is the fundamental condition, the necessary passage to freedom, democracy, and progress. For the field that I know relatively well, Islamology, I will say with modesty that, without a shadow of a doubt, the principle of secularity is, despite appearances, intrinsic to Islam, and this has been true since its origins. And yet, the uniqueness of the third monotheistic religion resides in the fact that the different dimensions of life - religion and politics, the spiritual and the temporal, nature and culture, the public and the private - if they must naturally be separated in order to avoid confusion and to prevent all totalitarianisms, must not be placed in opposition. Their extreme separation can create a void, which reason cannot be counted on to fill" (13).
Given these circumstances, Cherif asks, "How then, can a rational and rigorous thinker, who is also an authentic believer, reconsider the question of secularization, its meaning and its object, other than by simply separating the one from the other and by eliminating, as legitimately as possible, the claims of the theocratic power to govern?" To understand what Cherif is saying here, consider Western philosophical concepts, which of course govern politics, economics, and the day to day lived experience of western citizens. Despite all rhetoric and claims to an authentic secularization (Harris and Graffin), modern Western thought is still born out of a Christian tradition. This is not an attack of to reduce the truth of such philosophical concepts. Born out of a Christian tradition are noble philosophical notions regarding human autonomy and responsibility. Cherif, a Muslim, is bringing it to our attention, arguing that such notions are not the result of a conspiracy against spirituality, but an environment in which difference was appreciated to give rise to developments in political thought. To respect the dignity of human beings is not to pit the secularization of Muslims against the spiritualization of Muslims. It's to respect Islam's unique domain. It requires that the West greet 'the other' with "unconditional acceptance... beyond all differences" and to encourage "the infinite exercise of reason". This approach will lead towards secularization and what Derrida calls "a democracy to come".
Western secularization has not come about through an antagonism between rationality and religion. It's development started with a respect for difference - a respect for the particular domains inhabited by domains such as Lutheranism and Catholicism. Coinciding with such respect was a continued debate, at times friendly (as with speeches and university coursework) and at times violent (as with marches and protests). The secularization of Islam will likewise develop not in spite of Islam, but within it, accompanied by a continued debate.
The West's current approach towards Islam has been one of hostility, naivete, and intolerance, and that's very much based on the division we've created between reason and religion. Cherif writes, "The closing of the horizon, the negative trends and difficulties in reason and religion, the new historical monstrosities assailing us are perhaps not definitive, insurmountable, nor invincible, if we at least understand that we mustn't either idolize reason as opposed to faith, or vice versa, or simply tolerate one while preferring the other. Rather, our mission should be to open them up, raise them, carry them along, each in its own unique domain, lift them up to the heights of that which is worth living for: the free search for the beautiful, the just, and the true" (16).
One of Derrida's important arguments with regard to Middle-East/West relations comes in the form of a critique of the concept of Democracy. Democracy is often talked about as though it's understood, or realizable - as though it's a project that's been finished and can therefore be exported. For Derrida, it's never actualized. What makes a democracy identifiable are not particular characteristics that have been realized, but a general attitude among the citizenry. For Derrida, democracy is always to come. The attitude among the citizenry is one of self-criticism. He argues, "To exist in a democracy is to agree to challenge, to be challenged, to challenge the status quo, which is called democratic, in the name of a democracy to come" (42). The occurrence and promise of democracy is never, therefore, upon us. It's always before us. What we have upon us is always a so-called democracy ('We are supposed to be free, but I'm gay and I can't marry my partner!'). What we have before us is a democracy to come ('One day we will be able to marry, but first we must open people's minds and hearts!'). Derrida says, "This is how one recognizes a democracy: the right to say everything, the right to criticize the allegation, or the so-called democracy, in the name of a democracy to come" (43).
The obvious critique of Middle-East/West relations is that the West claims to have achieved a democracy to come (they've made the future present), and it is transportable in the form of a nation-state (Iraq will be free when, at last, it becomes like the UNITED STATES). If there is to be peace and respect between Islamic nations and the United States, Derrida argues that it will need to be grounded in the concept of a democracy to come, not in terms of a realized political institution belonging to a particular nation-state. Derrida says, "I believe that if a dialogue is to be opened between what you call the West and the East, between the different cultural regions and the different religious regions of the world, if such an exchange is possible through words, through thoughts, and not through force, if such a dialogue and exchange are possible without resorting to force, they must occur on the horizon of that democracy to come, which is not connected to a nation-state, which is not connected to citizenship, to territoriality" (44). It's on this basis that Derrida argues for a new international law with respected international institutions that can impose their decisions. Such law must respect the sovereignty of small States and protect from them from the abuse of the sovereignty of powerful States.
With regard to secularization and spirituality, Derrida finds the need for both, agreeing with Cherif that they must not be pitted against each other. With respect to the challenge issued by a democracy to come, we must continue to accumulate knowledge. We must have critical awareness. This means we must not stand against science and its discoveries. We must resist scientism (the idea that natural science is the authoritative worldview or aspect of human education), but not scientific inquiry. But we must also recognize the importance of faith. The faith Derrida is talking about is not fundamentalism, which does not honor a democracy to come, but a relationship with the Mystery of Life (defined by Cherif as "everything that involves that which in life is still unknown to us, both in the sense that science still has discoveries to make, that science has progress to make, in its knowledge of life, genetics, biology, and also in the sense of life as existence" - he also says, "This faith is the condition of the social bond itself" meaning that to relate to another is to relate to an unknown). Faith is revealed, for Derrida, in every act of opening up to the other. This always involves a risk, because to open up to the other is to say "yes" to them, and to extend your hand. It's an inherent affirmation of life, not given from the outside. Saying yes means making possible a reconciliation, a negotiation, and possibly establishing peace. It involves great risk because of the hostilities involved, and it therefore involves a leap of faith - something that accompanies knowledge, but is not knowledge. It's something that falls outside the domain of the knowable. Derrida argued, "Knowledge guarantees neither democracy nor moral responsibility nor justice. Thus we must have knowledge, one must reject neither knowledge nor critical awareness, but there are also moments of faith, in which a leap is made, the leap of opening up, toward that new alliance that I mentioned earlier" (76). If peace is to be realized in Middle-East/West relations, it will involve such an opening up - it will involve faith.
Derrida wrote, "Nothing essential will be done if one doesn't allow oneself to be called forth by the other" (99). What can we gather from this? If the West is to live peacefully with the Islamic Nations, we must allow ourselves to be called forth by them. We must say yes, and extend our hand. We must not demand their secularization or impose our particular way of life. We must not consider our political institutions as Democracy Realized. We must understand ourselves in a similar struggle as our Middle Eastern sisters and brothers - fighting for justice, fighting for a democracy to come. We must remain connected to the Mystery of Life, as our search for common understanding, respect, and peace requires it. We must remain self-critical and working to improve international law. We must respect Islam's particular domain and not seek to change it, but rather to understand it and engage it in critical discourse (not so as to defeat it, but to be called forth by it and to stand in front of it). These enlightened thoughts, well put by two enlightened philosophers, should guide our studies and protests of US/Middle-East politics. It's with reference to these ideas that we should criticize a hitherto failed foreign policy that's resulted in perpetual war.
Cherif, Mustapha. Islam and the West: A Conversation with Jacques Derrida. Trans. Teresa Lavender Fagan. Chicago: University of Chicago, 2008.
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