Okiya Omtatah Okoiti
22 June 2009
opinion
Nairobi — BEYOND THE TERROR THREAT and instability in the region, the other concern that must strengthen the international community's determination to intervene in Somalia is that democracy and fundamentalism cannot mix.
The fact that the modern world has become a global village where people of all creeds, cultures and backgrounds must interact closely, makes it imperative to establish democratic societies.
Democracy is an ideal in the modern global world because it, alone, is based on the belief that people with radically different beliefs and cultures can live together in peace, if they respect each other's right to be different.
Democracy grounds its legitimacy in the people because the people "are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights", and institute governments to secure these rights.
They require the effective rule of just law, equality, protection of minority rights, freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, and the right to freely practice religion.
ISLAMISM, AN EFFORT TO TURN Islam, a religion and civilisation, into an ideology of domination and exploitation, has nothing good to offer humanity. Islamism, being an "-ism" like "Christianism", kills religion by reducing it to a systematic programme of acquiring and controlling State power.
Whether Christian, Islamic, or whatever, religious fundamentalism is dedicated to cultural homogeneity, and rejects other perspectives on God and faith. Hence, fundamentalism is incompatible even with freedom of religion.
Fundamentalism of any shade, anything that converts partial points of view into absolute guides, goes against the foundational doctrines of human dignity and human rights and, therefore, has no room in the modern world, where the ideas of justice, freedom and technological rationality form the pillars of society.
The notion of an Islamic, Christian, or whatever religious State is anathema in today's plural global society. It's only within the construct of a democratic, secular State that humanity can thrive.
That is not to argue that the strict separation of religion and the State is a condition conceptually precedent to, and necessary for, democracy. Nor does the separation of religion and State mean the exclusion of religious believers and religious reasons from democracy.
Separating religion and the State does not mean discrediting religion as a source of public values.
To argue that democracy conceptually requires religious arguments and believers to be artificially excluded from political or constitutional discourse is secular fundamentalism that is closed to religion, an equally absolutist doctrine that is inconsistent with the ideal of democratic participation.
Secular fundamentalism is not the same as State neutrality in matters religious. It is neutral only to the extent that it is equally hostile to all religions, but it clearly gives preference to atheist values over those of the religious.
And it responds to religious pluralism by demanding the outright exclusion of religion from the public arena as the only legitimate institutional solution. Ironically, it is religious fundamentalism that fuels secular fundamentalism.
Democratic religion-State relations must avoid any form of fundamentalism. The State and religion must tolerate each other.
Thus, as it happens in many secular Western democracies today, believers may legitimately critique state policy on religious grounds, lobby for change relying on religious authority, and argue for State action to enforce their beliefs.
THERE IS NO COMPREHENSIVE EXCLUSION of religion from the public sphere. This is consistent with the freedom that every citizen is entitled to. But believers must tolerate the religious freedom of others, as well as respect the legitimacy of the State and its autonomy to act unfettered by religious veto.
Religious groups must also stop seeking to fuse civil and religious authority so that they can impose their views on others. Faith is good, but using the State to force it on others is undemocratic.
Those who hold weird ideologies that are radically at odds with the dignity of the human person should not be allowed to acquire state power so they can advance their discriminative agenda.
Mr Okoiti is a playwright and businessman.
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