Conference R e p o r t s The International Symposium on Islam and Democracy The Foundation for Research in Islamic Sciences, (known as ISAV in Turkish) has organized over tf.llrty academic, national, and intemational conferences on the issues facing the Muslim world today and has published the proceedings of these conferences. ISAV organized the last internation- al conference in this series on November 27-29, 1998, on “Islam and Democracy.” At the outset of the symposium, Ali Ozek, the current president of ISAV, and Ali Bardakoglu, the coordinator of the symposium, made opening speeches. The representatives of some political parties and institutions made protocol speeches on behalf of their parties and institutions. Mehmet Aydm, former Dean of the School of Religion, D o h Eyiil University, Izmir, gave the first talk, titled “Religion, Politics and Democracy,” which set the tone for the conference. He dealt with three conflicting orientations on the issue. The first orientation claims that there is an intimate relationship between religion and politics; therefore, Islam requires establishment of an Islamic state. The second orientation argues that there is no relationship between digion and politics, nor should there be one. The third orientation argues that the religious may be involved in politics, that is, they may repxtsent the moral and religious values in the political arena; analogous to the Christian Democrats in some Western countries, politics should be canied on while protecting “Muslim- Democrat” identity. According to Aydm it is not appropriate to defend the first thesis because it reflects the tendency to legitimize, as the historical experience shows, an intolerant and rigid ruling system. The existence of the social demands of Islam weakens the second thesis. Likewise, the argument that Islam is incompatible with democracy because absolute rule belongs to Allah is similarly weak, it h a r m s Islam and hinders a healthy development of democracy in Muslim societies within the framework of the rule of law because it reduced Islam to the level of secular ideologies. Similarly, it is observable that secularism has been mispemived by the two extreme 142 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 1 6 3 groups. A liberal concept of religion and the world will bring clarification to these issues and help our democratic culture to take root. Hans Koechler, professor of philosophy from Austria, gave a talk on the evolution and philosophical background of Western democracies in which he discussed the philosophical roots of the Western concept of democracy and the inconsistencies between theory and implementation in the West from an analytical point of view. He also expressed the need for a critical assessment of the Western doctrine of democracy concerning logical con- sistency, nonnative reliability, and practical applicability. Ahmet Davutoglu from Marmara University gave an analysis of the process of globalization and its impact on the philosophy and institutional mechanisms of democracy. He underlined that the philosophical questions related to the ontological conscioussness of the individual and the political questions related to the powercentric character of the international and national political systems create a tension between leading forces of this process and its passive followers. According to him, the intracivilizational and intercivilizational crisis of the individual in the process of globalization produces three major respons- es, namely, stoic, cynical, and epicurean, which manifest themselves in the attempts to reinterpret democracy. The stoic’s response is to develop a uni- versally valid set of values for democracy as a legitimizing political system of the New World Order, while the cynic’s response emphasizes the plu- ralistic character of democracy within the framework of postmodemism based on relativism of intratheoretical truth. The epicurean’s response, on the other hand, identifies the spread of democracy with the spread of a con- sumerist culture and its symbols of “McWorldism.” He concludes that the philosophical and institutional aspects of democra- cy are in a multidimensional process of transition and that Islam as a belief system based on an ontological consciousness can neither merely be reduced to nor presented in absolute contrast to a sociopolitical system. The issue of Islam and democracy should be re-evaluated from the perspective of the crisis of self-perception of the individual human being who feels a deep alienation due to the impersonal and mechanistic character of the process of globalization. On the second day of the symposium (November 28, 1998), speakers explored several aspects of democracy in the Western and Muslim worlds. For instance, Tariq al-Bishri from Egypt addressed the questions of politi- cal participation, legitimacy, and pluralism in Islamic political thought. He Conference Reports 143 focused on the possibility and method of democracy and political partici- pation using the example of Egypt. Richard Falk, who is a prominent schol- ar in the field of intemational relations, made a presentation on the ideals and realities conceming democracy in the field of international relations. Falk claimed that the West sees democracy as the sole source of legitima- cy. He also demonstrated the problems of demomtic discourse in intema- tional relations and explored how democracy is portrayed as a symbol of peace and Islam as a threat to the peace and incompatible with democracy. In his analysis, Falk claimed that the only way for actually democratic international relations to develop on peaceful soil based on dialogue is to ground them on healthy political culture and education. Lebanese scholar Wad Sahmerani and Azzam Tamimi explored the problems of democracy in the Arab world on theoretical and practical lev- els and dealt with the obstacles facing demoaatmQ . 'on. In particular, Tamimi drew attention to the attempts of democratization and the develop- ment process of free intellectual movements in North Africa and the obsta- cles to this process emerging from the structure of Arab states, their inter- national relations, and approach to religion. Mum& Ahmad, on the other hand, used the Pakistan experience to high- light the problems in the concept of politics and democracy in the Muslim world during the last century. In his speech, Ahmad demonstrakd some basic differences between Muslim and Western understandings of the con- cept of democracy. He also analyzed Pakistan's efforts to establish a more stable democracy. On the third day (November 29), speakers analyzed the Turkish experi- ence of d e m m . 'on. Atilla Yayla talked about the relationship between liberalism and democracy while HiiSeyin Hatemi emphasized the relation- ship between rule of law and democracy. Both of the speeches included sig- nificant messages, as they initiated a discussion on the theoretical founda- tion and cultural ground of the question of demomcy in Turkey. C e m i Eraslan provided a historical survey about the political transitions in Turkey since the late ottoman times from monarchy to constitutional monarchy and finally to demx>cracy. Ali Yasar Sanbay highlighted the problems of the democratic experience in Turkey since the transition to a multiparty system. A discussion by experts followed each presentation, which included con- tributions, critiques, new analyses, and questions to the presenters. 144 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 16:3 Presenters were allowed to respond to the questions and critiques which increased the usefulness of the symposium. ISAV has already planned to publish the papem along with the follow-up discussions, in Turkish and then in English. It maintains that this publica- tion will provide a significant contribution to the Muslim public and politi- cians in making further progress concerning human rights, democracy, reli- gion, and politics. Dr. Ali Bardakoglu Marmara University Istanbul, Turkey