Exporting Fundamentalist Religion to the Middle East, (or How long have we been attacking Iran, anyway?)


“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Nice quote, T.J. Who’s going to argue with that? Though people across the Western world might have different interpretations of that line, everyone from Dick Cheney to Michael Moore would claim to believe it. In fact, criticism from both ends of the political spectrum is usually aimed at those who have somehow failed to preserve these "unalienable Rights".

Two proponents of Western Humanism

For example, one of Bush’s purported reasons for invading Iraq was to “liberate” the Iraqi people. Saddam Hussein committed crimes against humanity and therefore needed to be ousted from power. Whether or not you believe that this was the actual reason for invading Iraq, the point is that an appeal was made to “human rights” and “liberty” as justification for, well, nearly anything.

Then you’ve got the other side. Bush is criticized, and rightly so, for violating basic the human rights of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay.

Both sides—left and right—are throwing around “human rights,” and “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” as justifications for their arguments for or against a particular policy or action. And in both cases, I believe, the use of these terms is genuine. What differs between left and right is often the means used to achieve these rather abstract goals. Thus, the interpretation of these ideals is often questioned, but rarely do any “Westerners” ask themselves why they believe so uncritically in these particular notions.

What do we believe? Arguably, we believe in what journalist William Pfaff calls “Western secular humanism.” Pfaff is referring to things that the Western world generally takes for granted: individualism (in both its positive and negative senses), an attachment to various kinds of freedom, a democratic form of government, etc. These notions are inextricably related to human rights; they rely on the same fundamental principles. There’s also a general belief in progress: we are improving and increasing the length and facility of human life.

Let’s go back to T.J. for a moment and take a look at the rough draft of the Declaration of Independence. Originally, Jefferson wanted to use the phrase, “we hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable.” There’s a bit of a religious tinge there. Yet T.J. was no Bible-beater. His views on religion were not easily defined, neither atheist, nor aligned with a particular Christian denomination. (Late in life, he wrote in a letter to Ezra Stiles, "I am of a sect by myself, as far as I know.")

So here’s a question (one that Pfaff has raised often during his impressive career): is our “western secular humanism” simply a form of religion, even fundamentalist religion? It has certainly been noted that “civic religion” has taken the place of traditional religion in many Western countries. But there’s a missionary component to our beliefs, too: we believe that all countries must convert to democracy and make a commitment to technological and material progress. How that happens is subject to turbulent debate. Do we invade Iraq and forcibly construct a democracy? Or do we hope that it will happen on its own through inclusion in the world community?

Yet, in a sense, the debates we have amongst ourselves do not address the real issue at hand, which is how the imposition of such beliefs has affected the large portions of the world that do not share this world-view. Pfaff’s writings include a plethora of examples, but given the Bush administration’s focus on Iran, let’s look at that particular example:

After World War II, the Shah of Iran, Mohammed Reza Shah Pahlavi, tried forcibly and violently to impose the Western worldview on a peasant people whose understanding of the world and of themselves had derived for many centuries from a different religion, Islam. (Incidentally, the military coup that established a "democratic" government in 1953 was backed with the full support of the CIA). The psychological effect this had on many Third world nations is difficult to appreciate in an era of hyper-fast communication in which we feel connected to individuals, via the media and the Internet, on the other side of the globe.

In illustration, I’ll quote part of an email sent to me by a friend: “Imagine what sort of impact would it have on the typical American if creatures landed from outer space and told us that our way of life is backward and that we must change as quickly as possible. What if the invaders had a clearly superior technology and powerful weapons to threaten us with or to use in imposing their ways on us? Beyond imagining the terrible psychological and 'spiritual' consequences of such a scenario, we should try to imagine just how many of us would readily embrace the invaders' worldview and program, even if at some level we were able to view it as 'superior' (the technology, etc.)."

Aliens attacking us with superior technology. They think democracy is backwards.

According to Pfaff, “Modern Western civilization is the product of its own history. It is what it is because of its past. Nobody imposed foreign ideas on the West; it assimilated what it chose.” In other words, democracy and human rights seem to be the natural, even inevitable results of progress to those born into “modern,” Western societies, precisely because these ideas have evolved along with the rest of our culture, our art, our religions and our political organization.

I cannot claim to be immune to the beliefs of “Western secular humanism”; I am a child of my times and my environment. But I do wonder what effects thre will be for us, collectively, as human beings, as the result of these treasured values.