A philosopher compares the Western and Islamic worlds The West and the Rest Globalization and the Terrorist Threat By Roger Scruton
ISI Books. 200 pp. $19.95 Reviewed by Frank Wilson British philosopher Roger Scruton's The West and the Rest does a superb job of placing into context the horrendous events of Sept. 11, 2001. His book is a marvel of clarity and concision, with an extraordinary amount of information packed into its 200 pages. "When distinguishing 'the rest' from the West," Scruton explains in his preface, "I do not mean to imply that... the world is divided into opposing camps... . However, it seems to me that there is a great difference between those parts of the world where the Western political project has taken root, and those where it has not. I focus on Islam, since it offers a clear alternative to that project... ." The difference can be traced to "the contest between the religious and the political forms of social order." In the West, thanks to the confluence of "two great institutions" - "Roman law, conceived as a universal jurisdiction, and Christianity, conceived as a universal church" - the contest has been resolved through the "separation of religious and secular authority." In the Islamic world, it simply has not been resolved. Scruton then explains how St. Paul - who was a Roman citizen - designed the early church "not as a sovereign body, but as a universal citizen, entitled to the protection of the secular... powers but with no claim to displace those powers... ." This, he points out, was not only in accord with Jesus' own teaching in the parable of the tribute money, but was made into doctrinal orthodoxy by Pope Gelasius I in the fifth century. Nothing resembling such a corporate personality exists in the Islamic world, where "there is no legal entity called 'The Mosque' to set beside the various Western churches." The goal of Western political systems, and the criterion of their legitimacy, Scruton argues, is citizenship, which "depends on pre-political loyalties of a territorial kind... rooted in the sense of the common home and of the transgenerational society that resides there. In short, citizenship as we know it depends on the nation... ." But the Koranic vision of society is "alien... to any idea of territorial jurisdiction or national loyalty." There are other complicating factors. Not only is there the dream of "another kind of citizenship... in which national loyalties would be extinguished in an all-embracing order," but there is also the postmodern repudiation of "the cultural inheritance which defines us as something distinct from the rest." "In place of the Enlightenment emphasis on reason as the path to objective truth," Scruton writes, "has come the 'view from the outside,' in which our entire tradition of learning is put in question as a preliminary to its rejection. The old appeal to reason is seen merely as an appeal to Western values." This "dethroning of reason goes hand in hand with a hostility to the belief in objective truth," which "is impossible to defend without at the same time presupposing it." Finally, there is globalization, not "merely the expansion of communications, contacts, and trade around the globe," but "the transfer of social, economic, political, and juridical power to global organizations... located in no particular sovereign jurisdiction, and governed by no particular territorial law." "With al-Qaeda... we encounter the real impact of globalization on the Islamic revival. To belong to this 'base' is to accept no territory as home, and no human law as authoritative." A single detail serves to illustrate the point: When Mohamed Atta "left his native Egypt for Hamburg to continue his studies in architecture, it was not to learn about the modernist buildings that disfigure German cities but to write a thesis on the restoration of the ancient city of Aleppo, where the philosopher al-Farabi [whose ideal state was guided by Islamic law] once resided... . When he led the attack against the World Trade Center, Atta was assaulting a symbol of economic, aesthetic, and spiritual paganism." Scruton may be a conservative, but British conservatism differs in key respects from the kind usually encountered on these shores. His call for reexamining "our... commitment to 'free trade,' conceived as the WTO [World Trade Organization] conceives it," "our easy acceptance of the multinational corporation as a legitimate legal person," and "our devotion to prosperity, and the habits of consumption that have led us to depend on raw materials... which cannot be obtained within our territory" will resonate with many who do not think of themselves as conservatives and cause others who do - including this reviewer - to fine-tune their thinking. Scruton does not pretend to solve the problems he addresses, but he has framed those problems compellingly. His arguments are nuanced, and the evidence he marshals in support of them is formidable. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Frank Wilson is The Inquirer's book editor. Contact him at [EMAIL PROTECTED] or 215-854-5616. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ � 2001 inquirer and wire service sources. 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