http://www.metransparent.com/texts/lafif_copts_in_zurich.htm
Need a State for All Its Citizens
in the Land of Islam
Lafif Lakhdar *
Upon his return to Tehran in 1979, Ayatollah Khomeini made the highly
acclaimed declaration: "We belong not to Iran, but to Islam."
The statute of the group Hamas calls for the liberation of
Palestine "to its
last grain of sand, so that it may return to become an 'endowment' in
service of all Muslims of the world."
These are but two public declarations, Shiite and Sunni, clearly
indicative
of the politico-religious subconscious of an extremist and
traditionalist
Islam which confines Muslim identity in an exclusively religious
dimension.
It demands of its followers to define their personal identities,
values, and
indeed political persuasions solely through religion. What,
therefore, are
the detrimental effects of such confinement?
Firstly, the transformation of Islam into a nationality impels the
negation
of the very concept of nationality, i.e. the sense of belonging to a
nation-state that guarantees civil rights to all its citizens, within
the
Land (Dar) of Islam. Rather, the Dar of Islam represents but a sort of
imperial reminiscence, which requires of all its followers to be
first and
foremost Muslims, as opposed to citizens.
Secondly, it results in the fusing of the notions of the citizen (who
ought
to embrace his civil rights and enjoy the right to vote and
participate in
elections) with that of the believer, who belongs exclusively to one
religion.
Thirdly, the perpetuation of the theocratic nature of the Muslim
state, by
definition discriminatory, hinders its development into a nation-
state like
the others. The Iranian constitution, for one, defines its state as a
Shiite
and Jafarite Muslim state; hence depriving all non- Jafarite Shiites
of
equal civil rights. Similarly, most of the Sunni constitutions
declare the
Shari'a as 'the principal source of legislation' leaving non-Muslim
nationals, secularists, and women denied the advantages of guaranteed
rights.
The use of the Shari'a as a source of legislation results in denying
those
excluded from its sphere, from positions of influence and
responsibility.
Furthermore, women, particularly, do not enjoy the same rights of
their male
counterparts, having the value of 'half a man' in court testimonies
as well
as in matters of inheritance. These laws inspired by religion deny
women
even the most fundamental of human rights, including the right to
contract
marriage, to procure a passport or to travel unaccompanied without
written
authorisation from her husband or (male) guardian.
The situation is even worse for non-Muslims. Inheritance laws in
cases in
which the sole heir of a Muslim family is female stipulate that she is
granted only half of the inheritance while the rest is bestowed upon
the
nearest male relative. The non-Muslim woman, however, can neither
inherit
from her Muslim husband nor children, and is accorded no custody of
the
latter in case of a divorce. The victims of these archaic laws are
not only
non-Muslims, Muslims belonging to other sects, women, and
secularists. Also
targeted are those dubbed apostates when exercising the fundamental
human
rights of freedom of expression and thought. Many incidents testify
to this:
The banning rampage by Cairo's University of Al-Azhar of thousands of
books,
including works of the Nobel prize winner Naguib Mahfouz; the
condemnation
in 1995 by an Egyptian Court of Justice of Nasr Abou Zayed for
apostasy; and
a similar punishment a few months ago of the Iranian Professor Hashem
Aghajari for having called for a reformation of Islam.
The other victims of these laws are none other than Human Rights
themselves,
which, in their universal humanist values, constitute the fabric of
civilised societies worldwide. The Shari'a and the laws inspired by
it,
which are based on the principle of talion (eye-for eye, tooth-for-
tooth),
oppose the respect to the right to life. Corporal punishment denies
the
right to physical integrity. Apostasy (punishable by decapitation)
denies
religious freedom. The ever-present imbalance between the rights of
men and
women opposes the principles of equality of the sexes. The
distinction in
the eyes of the law between Muslims and non-Muslims denies the equal
rights
of all citizens. The arsenal of prohibitions concerning food,
clothing and
religious matters denies the freedom of thought and expression, and
the
freedom of every human being to choose his/her values and way of life.
This exclusionary Islam results inevitably in intolerance. It
banishes all
philosophical interrogation, and all artistic innovation (painting and
sculpture being forbidden). It banishes the possibility of individual
independence as well as individual freedoms, such as those found
under a
state of law in which every citizen has the right to be a voter as
well as
an electoral candidate.
Generally, non-Muslims living on Arab Muslim lands are radically
denied the
dignity of the citizen. They are excluded from the process of decision
making at all levels. Their rights are denied, or at least severely
restricted, in occupying positions of senior ('sovereign') ministries
or
prime-minister, top judiciary positions, membership in parliament,
leading
diplomatic missions, or even to high administrative positions. This
is the
case of Copts in Egypt, in particular.
Non-Muslims should become full citizens in their own right. To
achieve this,
the belonging to the national community should supplant the belonging
to the
community of believers. In other words, the nation-state should
replace the
religious state currently in place. The citizen should replace the
believer. The homeland should transcend the religion. These are
obvious
elements of political modernity needed to free the non-Muslim
minorities
from oppression and, subsequently, avoid the eventuality of religious
frictions. The nation-state knows neither Muslim nor Christian nor
Jew nor
Sunni nor Shiite nor agnostic nor atheist. It recognises only
citizens who
enjoy equal rights and duties.
How to accelerate the arrival of this secular state?
We certainly must not rely on the ruling elite and those officials who
'implement Islamism without Islamists'. Political Islam,
traditionalist
Islam, and the unenlightened portion of Muslim society, are equally
responsible: They would not willingly accept that women and non-
Muslims
leave their status of restricted citizenship to become full-fledged
members
of society. Their religious conscience still considers the inequality
of
women and men; and of non-Muslims and Muslims, as something
fundamental.
To conquer this inertia and archaism, the non-Muslim minorities must
ally
with the dynamic forces in their societies; namely modern civil
society,
emancipated women, secularist Muslims, enlightened Muslims, as well
as all
the other minorities oppressed by the Arab Islam. But these forces, as
important as they may be, are rather negligible given the imbalance of
power. This is why the non-Muslims and their allies must communicate
in a
methodical and systematic manner with the civil societies of the
world,
international media and international organisms. They must encourage
the
world to intervene by any means, including by force if need be, in
order to
give to those marginalised full citizenship rights.
Thus we inject new blood in Arab-Muslim societies.
The Arab world is a mosaic of minorities deprived of secularism, of
democracy, and of Human Rights. Their integration into modern
citizenship
would constitute a cultural and political revolution capable of
fundamentally changing this region. This is what we need to explain
internationally in order to mobilize public opinion. Without doing
so, the
archaism of the Middle East will defeat modernity.
*A leading Tunisian intellectual who lives in France
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