Category: Asia and Pacific

Turkey will sign protocols if Armenia surrenders 2 regions

Turkey-Armenia protocols can still be brought forward to the Turkish Parliament and be voted on, European Program Director at the International Crisis Group Sabine Freizer told Armenian News-NEWS.am.

In an e-mail letter she commented on recent statement by Turkish President Abdullah Gul that the protocols cannot be considered dead.

The expert considers Turkish parliament is unlikely to vote until there is some positive movement on the resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

In October 2009 Armenia and Turkey signed protocols in Zurich to normalize diplomatic relations between the states. The documents had to be ratified in both countries’ parliaments. However, in 2010 the Armenian president suspended the process due to Turkey’s non-constructive stance.

Ankara set preconditions and linked the reconciliation process to resolution of the Karabakh conflict.Turkey decided to remove the protocols from parliament’s agenda this August.

“Even though there is no legal link between the two issues, in practice and for political reasons Turkey has linked them. Ankara has not clearly defined what it means by ‘progress’ however, it could possibly mean the signature of an agreement on basic principles or the start of withdrawal by Armenian forces of one or two of the occupied territories surrounding Nagorno-Karabakh,” she said.

According to Freizer, such a withdrawal would indeed change the whole dynamic in the region towards peace and development. “Neither Armenia nor Nagorno-Karabakh have ever claimed sovereignty over territories like Fizuli,” she said.

Commenting on the protocols, she stressed that even if they are not yet signed, “normalization between Armenia and Turkey is moving forward with regards to contacts in many fields.”

via Turkey will sign protocols if Armenia surrenders 2 regions – Sabine Freizer | Armenia News – NEWS.am.

December 4, 2011
From Dictatorship to Democracy

This book is a great work in its own right. In terms of real-world impact, it measures above Thomas Paine’s writings, having been used by non-violent movements in dictatorships around the world.

It is also a good introduction to study of nonviolent movements, before diving into all 902 pages of “Politics of Nonviolent Action”

Excerpts below are from an article in the Wall Street Journal, 13.09.2008:

Mr. Sharp’s writings on nonviolent resistance have been studied by opposition activists in Zimbabwe, Burma, Russia, Venezuela and Iran, among others. His 1993 guide to unseating despots, “From Dictatorship to Democracy,” has been translated into at least 28 languages and was used by movements that toppled governments in Serbia, Ukraine, Georgia and Kyrgyzstan.

Although nonviolent struggle has played a major role throughout history, Mr. Sharp was among the first modern scholars to take a comprehensive look at all the various movements, from the civil-rights struggle in the U.S. to uprisings in Eastern Europe.

In his writings, Mr. Sharp teased out common principles that make nonviolent resistance successful, creating a broad road map for activists looking to destabilize authoritarian regimes. Mr. Sharp’s magnum opus, the 902-page “Politics of Nonviolent Action,” was published in 1973. But the main source of his success is his 90-page “From Dictatorship to Democracy.”

This slim volume offers concise advice on how to plan a successful opposition campaign, along with a list of historically tested tactics for rattling a dictatorial regime. Aimed at no particular country, and easily downloadable from the Internet, the booklet has found universal appeal among opposition activists around the globe.

Though he warns readers that resistance may provoke violent crackdowns and will take careful planning to succeed, Mr. Sharp writes that any dictatorship will eventually collapse if its subjects refuse to obey.

November 27, 2011
Discussions on Achieving Millennium Development Goals (MDG) at Global-Local Approach Level and “Uzbek Model”: “Historical Experience, Contemporary Implementations and the Common Future”

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Mehmet Seyfettin EROL, Gazi University, Deputy Head of International Relations Department

The “Millennium Development Goals” (MDG) project which is being implemented under the leadership of the United Nations (UN) focusing
to solve the eight fundamental issues facing the human beings at the global level, regarded as a courageous step for the future. The realization of the goals
will be a historical turning point in terms of the great philosopher Immanuel Kant’s “Perpetual Peace” which is still regarded to be a utopia today without any
doubt. In other words, the UN has undertaken a mission issued by the leaders in the Millennium Summit 11 years ago and targeting a more prosperous, just and
peaceful world.

Well, how much is it possible to implement this project which is almost challenging the next millennium in the name of improving the welfare and quality of life of
the humanity? Especially, how will this issue be solved when materialistic perception of globalism that is being made dominate the world and subsequent
problem of evaluating moral-subjective values are considered? Will the UN be able to get over this paradox in an atmosphere in which quantity forestalls
quality and, with regard to this, “imposing” proposed solutions are put on the market as “standard” packages under
different names and an atmosphere in which all these “standard” packages cause more problems?

No doubt neither at present nor in the medium-term it is easy to answer these questions. Especially approaching to the issue in this way and seeking for
“yes-no” answers to the said questions will mean dynamiting the way to the solution. Anyhow, such an approach will go against both the spirit of social
sciences and the methodological understanding. Our goal here is, through this kind of questions, to bring up the matters that should have been asked and
raised in the first place and to ensure the development of possible solutions, may be by saying “the Emperor is bare.” For this reason, there is no need to
enter into philosophical discussions and very complex methods. Even putting the reality of the world and the statements in the published declaration will be enough
to depict a certain number of challenges in front of the process. Accordingly, although the MDG are launched as a project to find a common solution to the
problems of the humanity at the global level, in practice they are open to be attributed different meanings as long as a common road map cannot be introduced.

Especially after the post-Cold War era within a context where some local issues which could be solved locally are globalized over the concepts are brought into intervention tools,                                                                                                                     so it is inevitable for some nation-states to consider this type of UN based projects cautiously. Therefore, it seems that it wouldn’t be so easy for our world experiencing ebbs and                                                                                                                 flows between the globalization and nation-state process to realize the targets set in the MDG in terms of the implementing developments and practices
about “human rights-democracy- governance” understandings on national, regional and global basis. In other words, this cautious approach will endure unless the
mentality does not change and an objective viewpoint considering the local in many respects and in this context balancing the local-global with collaboration
is not put forth instead of top-down approaches and interventions. On the other hand, as it is partially mentioned above, this is not a problem that
cannot be overcome. The key to overcome it lies in listening the local, trying to grasp its realities, and taking its journey, experience, values and
sensibility into consideration. Hence, it is time to recognize the local as a solution partner rather than taking it only as the source and field of
problems. After all, the locals are global in total and today goals stated with regard to the MDG are predicated on the solution of the problem that grows out
of the locals within the pioneering powers of the globalization. Additionally, it should be accepted that the problems formed with regard to the MDG are not
belong just to the century or millennium we live and that their roots originates in centuries before.

As of today, it cannot be a coincidence that almost the whole of the problems which are on the spotlight of the world agenda and tried to be solved in the
context of the MDG are seen in the former colonial countries, too. As a matter of fact, the said problems’ moving away from their limited and local image,
spreading, deepening, gaining a global character and, at the end, turning into threats to and elements of instability for the future of the whole humanity
have their roots in the centuries before.

In such an environment how can geographical discoveries, colonialism and, as an inevitable outcome of these, imperialism together with the globalization be
kept out of all these? What can be said for materialism that tramples all moral values-beliefs by making material forestall meaning and what can be said for
distorted understanding of modernization that turns people into consumption slaves? Today how many of the problems emerging in the context of the MDG                                                                                                                                                        has followed a development process independent from these mentioned points?

We know that projects are represented as they are very much humanistic in the global manner. However, since they are kept limited to certain regions for
certain reasons and are launched as peculiar to these regions, they can face some challenges in practice. As a result, in resolution of such kind of
problems it is necessary first to have a clear and well-intentioned position and second to take steps accordingly. Then, what can be done at this point?

There is no need to go so far to find an answer to this question. To find an answer, it will be enough to look at successful approaches and practices that this
region contains within and implements in line with its realities and values, that have their roots in centuries before, that maintain their existence today,
and that take human as its base. In this context, two leading practices of civil society perception and solidarity in Uzbekistan are noteworthy. Focusing
on these practices shows that indeed they are successful models for a significant part of the problems drawn out of the MDG.

As a result of the historical practices and experiments, the civil approach understanding in Uzbekistan is based on the protecting the people from many
difficulties and threats and aiming social justice, equality and healthy social structure in such an unstable region like Central Asia. It is known that these
human based practices have the capacity to solve many interdependent social-individual problems with on time interventions. This nongovernmental
approach which is taking the family as the base and the woman and the children in the family as the focus and   imposing the necessity of all types of good education                                                                                                                                             is a successful practice within the power of the local completely. These practices are called “Makhalla System” and “Kamalat Youth Movement” and as mentioned above briefly                                                                                                                     they have got human based nongovernmental understanding, a deep history and tradition in the country.

The governing idea of the “Makhalla System” that has been implemented after the independence of Uzbekistan as one of the most concrete examples of participationary and direct
democracy is making the system, in which the basis of social structure is formed, the ground which prepares the youth for the future. With another words, “Makhalla is a big family”,                                                                                                        “Makhalla is the cradle of education” idea and together with “Economic development starts from the Makhalla” understanding constitutes the core of this model.

Constituting the first stage of the participatory administration, “Makhalla Foundations” started their activities in small Makhalla with 5000-7000 residents in which everyone knows each other.                                                                                         They have a spiritual, educational, informative and ability improving attitude. In this context, education, social assistance, environmental health and development; solution to social problems of                                                                                      the residents; help for the ill, aged and needy; employment and construction of social facilities for the youth; attachment of importance to women and their problems; and                                                                                                                             “Women Affairs Commission” working on a voluntary basis are outcomes of the “on-site and on time solution” perception of this model.

Moreower, “Kamalat Youth Movement”, formed in 2001, accepts young people aged between 14 and 28 as members and prepares them for the future with the necessary facilities.                                                                                                                     It is a civil society movement working actively on the issues such as unity of the youth, protection of their interests, improvement of their abilities, solutions to their problems, teaching them                                                                                                their social rights and guiding them in the way of entrepreneurship, and sport.

Therefore, as it is seen in this study primarily some problems emerged at the local-global basis from the aims put forth in the MDG and some concerns carried
by the local and ignored realities will be considered, firstly. Then, the importance and role of Uzbekistan will try to be emphasized in order to understand the
local very well and adaptation of successful practices of it into the global process. At this point, the contributions of “Uzbek Model” and its NGO understanding with “Mahalla System”                                                                                                        and “Kamalat Youth Movement” which are based on their historical depths, strong tradition, experience and human based dimensions can be considered as a
successful example and experience in terms of challenging with the fundamental issues facing the human beings at the global level.

November 22, 2011
Japanese doctor Miyazaki’s name given to park in İstanbul

Mayor Osman Develioğlu said the municipality decided to name of the park, previously called the “Trafik Eğitim ve Sivil Savunma Parkı” (Traffic Training and Civil Defense Park) for Miyazaki as a sign of respect for the humanitarian doctor’s memory. (Photo: Cihan)

A park in İstanbul’s Bahçelievler district has been named for Japanese doctor Atsushi Miyazaki, who was killed when his hotel collapsed in a magnitude 5.6 earthquake last week in Turkey’s eastern province of Van, where he had come with Japan’s Association for Aid and Relief to help victims of an earlier earthquake that occurred on Oct. 23.

Talking to reporters at a ceremony held by Bahçelievler Municipality, Mayor Osman Develioğlu said the municipality decided to name of the park, previously called the “Trafik Eğitim ve Sivil Savunma Parkı” (Traffic Training and Civil Defense Park) for Miyazaki as a sign of respect for the humanitarian doctor’s memory.

Pointing out that many people came to Turkey from foreign countries to help victims of the quake, Develioğlu said that Azerbaijani and Japanese citizens worked especially hard in the earthquake zone, rescuing victims from the rubble. Offering his condolences to Miyazaki’s family, Develioğlu added “Miyazaki was one of [the international rescuers], and was killed in the earthquake zone, for which we are very sorry. I want to thank all the people who rushed to Turkey to help the victims of the quake.”

via Japanese doctor Miyazaki’s name given to park in İstanbul.

November 15, 2011
Can Turkey Save Afghanistan?

A trilateral conference this month highlighted the possibilities – and limits – to Turkey’s new Central Asia diplomacy drive.

The recent Istanbul Security and Cooperation in the Heart of Asia conference has prompted a great deal of discussion, hardly surprising with media outlets running headlines like: “As NATO withdraws, Afghanistan’s neighbors make security pact.”

The only problem with this is that participants didn’t agree a pact with binding commitments, but rather a “vision” document with no means of ensuring that any of the principles and projects will actually come to pass.

Still, the issue is of significant interest, especially with the Obama administration having increased the number of diplomatic initiatives aimed at creating a favorable environment for an Afghan-led peace process. In her first appearance before Congress since returning from a week-long trip to Afghanistan, Pakistan and Central Asia last week, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton told the House Foreign Affairs Committee that the Obama administration’s Afghan-Pakistan war strategy is pursuing three mutually reinforcing tracks: “fight, talk, and build.”

But the United States is far from the only country boosting its diplomacy in the region. Turkey has also been complementing its longstanding military and economic contributions to Afghanistan with some regional maneuvering. Many of Turkey’s diplomatic initiatives have concentrated on improving relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan—or at least keeping their lines of communication open during their frequent bilateral disputes. Like the Obama administration (and other NATO governments), Turkish officials argue that any enduring solution to the conflict will require better relations between the governments of Afghanistan and Pakistan. In particular, Pakistani support is needed for inducing the Afghan Taliban to end its insurgency, since the insurgents use Pakistani territory as a base of operations.

Turkish officials say that their country has distinct advantages in this mediation role, including historically good relations with both countries, a shared Islamic faith, and a lack of local proxies or other incentives to interfere in their internal affairs.

Certainly, Turkey has provided extensive assistance to Afghanistan’s security – it has twice led the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and currently heads ISAF’s command for the Kabul region. On November 1, Turkey extended its command of the ISAF’s Kabul region for another year. And, while the Turkish government has refused to deploy its troops on explicit counterinsurgency or counterterrorist operations in Afghanistan, its military forces within ISAF have helped train members of the Afghan National Army and the Afghan National Police in these tactics. The Turkish government and Turkish non-governmental organizations have, for their part, supported many humanitarian and economic reconstruction projects in Afghanistan, including education, health, housing, and infrastructure improvement projects.

Turkey is helped in its regional efforts by its long-established good ties with Pakistan, dating from their alignment with the Western camp during the Cold War and their common moderate Muslim governments. Their military-to-military exchanges, which include a diverse range of bilateral and multilateral exercises, have continued to this day. In turn, Pakistan may have helped Turkey improve its relations with China and discouraged its Afghan Taliban allies from attacking Turkish troops in ISAF.

Since April 2007, Turkey has hosted six Turkey-Afghanistan-Pakistan Trilateral Forum meetings involving senior Turkish, Afghan, and Pakistani government officials. But it is determined to move beyond mere declarations. As part of the trilateral process, Turkey earlier this year organized a joint military exercise (on urban warfare) involving all three armies. A trilateral direct video-telephone conference line among the three presidents has also been established, and Turkish officials are now even considering initiating contact with the Afghan Taliban in support of peace mediation efforts.

The latest tripartite summit occurred on November 1, when Turkish President Abdullah Gul hosted Karzai and Pakistani President Asif Zardari in Istanbul. This was a useful step forward after the Taliban’s September 20 assassination of former Afghan President Burhanuddin Rabbani, which prompted an outraged Karzai to announce he was abandoning attempts to open talks with the Taliban and would instead deal with their Pakistani sponsors.

Through their engagement with the parties, Turkish officials concluded that the two governments were looking for a mechanism to resume their direct dialogue rather than “talking to each other via the media” and other indirect means. “We sense that they have a genuine wish to talk to each other because they realize this trend isn’t helping either of them,” one Turkish official told the press before the trilateral presidential summit in Istanbul.

But was there any substantive progress? The three governments signed agreements to cooperate in education, banking, and other areas, and also agreed to conduct more joint military exercises. Most notably, the three governments agreed to conduct a joint investigation into the Rabbani assassination to complement their individual efforts. Police, intelligence, military, and other representatives from the three governments will participate in this joint mechanism, and will be able to present and review evidence collectively.

Still, comments Afghan Deputy Foreign Minister Jawed Ludin’s made to the media after the event make it clear that while the meeting may have ended their public feuding for now, only genuine progress on concrete issues will generate enduring forward momentum in their relations: “So we are at a stage where we need to move beyond words, beyond expressions of commitments. We need to get to a stage where we actually do concrete things that will address our concerns with regard to our security.”

The multinational summit that met in Istanbul the following day was aimed to do just that. Formally entitled the Security and Cooperation in the Heart of Asia conference, the meeting was held at the Ottoman-era Ciragan Palace in Istanbul. Representatives from Afghanistan, China, India, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Tajikistan, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and the United Arab Emirates attended the event as full participants and wrote the collective conference communique. These self-designated “Heart of Asia” countries were joined by senior officials from other supporting countries and international institutions, including the United States, many EU countries, and the United Nations.

But the most important development, missed by much of the press, was that the Istanbul conference saw a major behind-the-scenes dispute between Turkey and Pakistan. The result was to limit the conference’s role to that of offering a vision of harmonious regional security architecture. And, although the conference communiqué is an improvement over the even vaguer 2002 Kabul Declaration on Good Neighborly Relations, it’s still primarily a statement of principles and projects without a means to finance them.

The problems Turkey faces in trying to secure a breakthrough are similar to those encountered by the U.S. and other third-party facilitators, including the region’s porous borders, which facilitates the flow of fighters and drugs; poor governance; transnational organized criminal groups that have an interest in sustaining the conflict; week national governments and security forces have facing major Islamist insurgents; and limited and declining commitments by external powers to support regionally driven peace programs.

In addition, the Afghan-Pakistan conflict has elements of a civil war in which the Taliban enjoys some support among the large Pashtun community that straddles the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. For this reason, regionally based peace efforts will invariably struggle unless accompanied by complementary developments in Afghanistan and Pakistan such as more effective governance, better counterinsurgency operations, and a greater desire on the part of the insurgents to lay down their arms and reenter their civilian societies.

And regional rivalries have also impeded Turkey’s peace efforts. While Russia, China, and the West now generally support the same goals, Turkey has found it just as difficult as other countries to manage the India-Pakistan rivalry. The Indians complained when they weren’t invited to the trilateral summits between Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Turkey, as well as other Turkey-hosted gatherings on Afghanistan. Indians interpreted their exclusion as a sign that Turkey doesn’t respect India’s legitimate national security interest in Afghanistan.

This past year, Turkish diplomats addressed these concerns by including India in more of Turkey’s diplomatic initiatives regarding Afghanistan, but the shift has irritated Pakistan. Indeed, some Pakistani analysts accuse Turkish officials of distancing themselves from Islamabad’s interests in Afghanistan in order to please Washington “at Pakistan’s expense.” Meanwhile, the main Turkish opposition party, the Republican People’s Party, has attacked the Turkish government for seeking to cooperate with the Taliban (which they denounce as a terrorist group) by considering establishing a Taliban representation bureau on Turkish territory.

Still, the first Istanbul meeting appears to have at least stabilized relations between the Afghan and Pakistani governments. Their leaders have ceased denouncing one another in public. But the impact of the second larger meeting will only become evident during the next few months, when a number of major international conferences regarding Afghanistan will occur in Bonn, Chicago, and then in Kabul in June 2012.

The problem is that although there have been dozens of major international conferences during the past decade, their impact on Afghanistan has remained less than that of the actions of certain individual key actors, especially the governments of Pakistan and the United States as well as the Taliban. Perhaps the impending NATO military withdrawal will galvanize greater efforts to avert a transnational civil war in Afghanistan as the neighboring states wage proxy conflicts—using local Afghan actors as well as their preferred international institutions—among themselves at Afghanistan’s expense.

Another question is whether Turkey’s diplomatic ambitions extend beyond the Afghan issue? There’s growing talk that Turkey may try to formalize ties with the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in order to expand its diplomatic toolkit regarding Afghanistan. In June, Chinese Assistant Foreign Minister Cheng Guoping told a Beijing news conference that the Turkish government had indicated through diplomatic channels that it wanted to become a “dialogue partner” of the SCO. In itself, that status would give Ankara a very circumscribed role within the SCO, but it could provide a springboard from which Turkey could then transition to become a formal observer or a full member of the SCO.

Earlier this year, Kazakh officials and the Russian press discussed Turkey’s acquiring some kind of formal affiliation with the SCO, but the Turkish diplomats I met last month in Ankara disclaimed any interest in obtaining some kind of official affiliation with the SCO. I remarked at several meetings in Turkey that some in Washington might see Turkey’s entry as a means to help keep the SCO from moving in an anti-Western direction by diluting Moscow’s and Beijing’s domination of the organization. But they seemed unenthusiastic about Turkey’s playing that role within the organization.

Yet Turkey’s ambitions to influence developments regarding Afghanistan may be leading Ankara to change its position. The SCO has been seeking to expand its role in the Afghan conflict and, for example, plans to hold a large Regional Economic Cooperation Conference on Afghanistan next year. Washington should therefore use its newfound influence in Ankara to encourage such a development.

Not only does Turkey share more Western values than the other SCO members, but Turkey could specifically help keep the SCO aligned with NATO, the EU and other international institutions establish a benign regional security, economic, and diplomatic framework in which the Afghans might just be able to resolve their own differences enough to avert the impending catastrophe.

Photo Credit: NATO

November 12, 2011
Is Islam Good for Government?

By Matt Cochran | Christian Post Guest Contributor

After the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, war critics argued that neither country had the proper cultural foundations necessary for democracy to flourish. Conditions in Afghanistan, where American casualties topped 1,650 over the summer of 2011 and the prospect of a functioning, stable democracy is still remote even after a decades-long war, lends credibility to this argument. The State Department also recently left open the possibility of U.S. troops staying on in the country indefinitely. Iraq, although better off than Afghanistan, is hardly the beacon of freedom and democracy that President Bush and his fellow neoconservatives hoped it could be for the Middle East.

Although critics stopped short of singling out Islam as the reason democracy has failed to take root in both of these countries, the religion has had such a profound influence on both that its culpability for the seemingly intractable standoff between the forces of democracy and extremism should at least be open for debate. Islam could be the single most important reason that Iraq and Afghanistan provide such infertile soil for democracy. Furthermore, if Islam can be proven to undermine democratic institutions, shouldn’t the West be more critical of its encroaching influence in places such as Great Britain and the United States?Patrick Basham, senior fellow at the CATO institute, a libertarian think tank, made a compelling argument in 2003 for why democracy would prove elusive in Iraq. Despite progress since then, his argument remains instructive. Basham built his case on four critical cultural factors that he argued must be present for democracy to succeed. Among them were social tolerance, which he defined as “the acceptance of traditionally unpopular minority groups,” and secondly, acceptance of the belief that the public should be a participant in political decision-making.

Both of these factors are influenced by religion, whether Islam or Christianity.

Take Christianity and America as an example. Both of Mr. Basham’s factors are sacrosanct American values left over from the Judeo-Christian ethos that influenced the founders, even those who also looked to the Enlightenment for inspiration.

Tolerance may not be a word that a worldly 21st century person would use to describe 18th century American culture. In today’s vernacular, tolerance means accepting or embracing something. However, a truer definition would be: allowing an activity to go on despite one’s objection to it; call it coexistence. Christian teachings laid the foundation for a tolerant democratic experiment that – for its time – was very permissive.

The Pilgrims fled England because they were that “traditionally unpopular minority group” and were persecuted because of it. One could argue that the whole purpose of the American experiment was establishing a more tolerant government. Although many Pilgrims originally dreamed of establishing a Christian utopia in the New World, the American Revolution – in which Puritans fought alongside Baptists and Methodists – forced a compromise that is embodied in the First Amendment: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion…” Utopian dreams were superseded by practical considerations and Christians from every sect wanted a guarantee they would be able to live out their convictions without intervention or oversight from the national government. Of course today the U.S. tolerates far more than it did back then, but that is only because the freedom to live out one’s own convictions – within certain bounds – was embedded in the national psyche when America was formed.

In contrast, many Muslim countries utterly fail the tolerance test. The basic freedom to practice a religion of one’s own choosing is a good litmus test. More than 80 percent of Muslims in Egypt, Pakistan, and Jordan believe in executing apostates who leave Islam, according to the Pew Research Centre. Iran persecutes followers of the Baha’i faith because they are considered apostates from Shi’a Islam.

More consideration should be given to the question of how deeply rooted intolerance is in Islam itself. The Koran is used by Muslim-controlled governments to justify the oppression of minority groups. Whether or not an objective reading of the Koran would justify oppression is another matter for a different discussion; the fact remains that the text is the guiding force behind many of the world’s most oppressive regimes.

Mr. Basham’s second factor, public participation in political decision-making, is also a foundational value of American society and one that can be traced back to Christian teachings and principles.

While many Muslims – though not all – believe that the only truly legitimate government would derive its authority from Allah and enforce his commands, the Judeo-Christian view is that government itself is an institution ordained by God, whether or not it is controlled by believers or accomplishes God’s purposes. This is illustrated by Christ’s command to “render to Caesar that which is Caesar’s.” The dominant Christian view is that government is legitimate in its own right. Even Presbyterians and Catholics who subscribe to the view that civil government should move towards enacting the letter of God’s moral law recognize a distinction between civil government and the church. Democracy is still viewed as entirely legitimate. Christians worldwide have almost universally embraced the American model: a form of government that protects their right to practice their religion freely. In practice that means having a voice in public policy.

In contrast, some sects of Islam, such as the Party of Liberation (Hizb ut-Tahrir), preach that participating in secular elections is wrong. In an Aug. 6, 2011, article, The Economist magazine acknowledged that many Muslims – among them the Muslim Brotherhood, al Qaeda, and Party of Liberation – dream of a global Islamic caliphate. In this view of government, authority is only legitimate in so far as it follows the Koran.

Historian David Fromkin addresses this issue in his book A Peace to End All Peace. He chronicles the miscalculations the British made while plotting to restore the caliphate to Arabia during World War I. The British thought they were planning the installation of a religious leader only. They didn’t realize that in Islam, according to Mr. Fromkin, “all of life, including government and politics, falls within the governance of the Holy Law; so that in the eyes of Sunni Muslims, such as the Ottoman Sultan and the Emir of Mecca, the dominion of the Caliph as upholder of the Holy Law is pervasive. What British Cairo did not see is that the Caliph is also a prince: a governor and a leader in battle as well as a leader in prayer.”

Even Turkey, which is often held up as a model Muslim democracy, is under assault from elements more committed to growing Islam’s influence on government than the secularism championed by its founding father, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who once called himself the “imam of Istanbul” when he served as Istanbul’s mayor, is moving the country closer to other Muslim dictatorships and away from its traditional allies in the West. Tellingly, Erdogan and his Islamist-leaning party, the AKP, are attacking that most democratic of institutions: the media. Reporters Without Borders, an organization dedicated to defending press freedoms and reporters, ranks Turkey 138 out of 178 in their 2010 Press Freedom Index. It has moved down from a ranking of 100 in 2002, the year the AKP took power.

Too many Muslims embrace Islamism, the belief that Islam is not just a religion, but a political system as well. Government leaders in this system of thought are also religious leaders and vice versa. Participation by the people in the decision-making process is, at best, of secondary importance to having a government that carries out rules dictated by the Koran. Islam undermines Mr. Basham’s second prerequisite for democracy in spectacular fashion.

Many troubling questions arise from even a casual consideration of the preceding arguments. If Muslims question the legitimacy of Western democratic government and harbor unspoken desires for a future global Islamic caliphate, should that be cause for concern? To put it another way, if Muslims use the liberty handed down by America’s Judeo-Christian-influenced forefathers to advance a religion that does not respect the distinction between civil and religious law, is it hypocrisy for Americans to object to their exercising freedom in that way?

This is not a scholarly exercise based on hypothetical situations. Great Britain is already wrestling with real Muslim influence, and that may be a harbinger of things to come for the U.S. The law itself is under attack by some British Muslims who want family law matters to be handled within the Muslim community. Melanie Philips, in her book Londonistan, outlines examples of this type of subversion of Western courts and law. She describes one book published by the Islamic Council of Europe called Muslim Communities in Non-Muslim States that calls for Muslims to organize themselves and build mosques and community centers with the ultimate goal of becoming the majority – and eventually govern the nation according to Islam.

The issue at hand is not whether religion should influence public policy. Christianity, as discussed previously, has had a dramatic and positive impact on the development of governmental systems that protect individual freedoms. The issue is whether Islam’s influence is good or bad for Western-style government.

The U.S. Constitution guarantees equal protection under the law. No freedom-loving person should ever undermine that principle, no matter the reason. Muslim Americans have as much a right to participate in the political process as any other religious – or non-religious – persons. Moreover, some Muslim Americans, having fled oppressive religious governments in their home country, are adamantly opposed to the idea of an Islamic caliphate or any movement in that direction, including Sharia courts for local Muslim populations. Political correctness, however, should not stop the West from asking difficult, even uncomfortable, questions of Muslims seeking elected positions or advocating for the isolation of Muslims from the majority culture, which in Britain has resulted in real movement towards a kind of community self-rule that undermines Western values.

Matt Cochran is a writer and communications consultant residing in Atlanta, Georgia. He has broad political experience as a consultant to a congressional and senate campaign, and as a former intern in the Heritage Foundation’s Asian Studies Center. He received an economics degree from Georgia State University and a graduate degree from The George Washington University’s Trachtenberg School of Public Policy and Public Administration.

November 7, 2011