Analogies Between Islam and Pacifism

Below is another guest essay sent to us by Dimitri K., our Russian correspondent.

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Analogies Between Islam and Pacifism
by Dimitri K.

Recently we have observed an unexpected convergence of the Left-pacifists with Islamists on many issues. However, if one looks critically at the Pacifist movement, one will find many resemblances between that and Islam. Those resemblances may point at intrinsic ideological similarities between both movements.

However, the important difference between the two political movements is that Islamism has its principles in writing, whereas Pacifism has not developed any final version of its principles. UN declarations can be thought of as rough drafts, but they haven’t achieved their final form yet.

Below I have listed some of those similarities:

1.		Islam requires Jihad, which is the struggle to spread Islam all over the world. Pacifism requires struggle for Peace all over the world.
2.		Islam does not respect borders between the countries. “Peace” is also a “movement for eliminating borders”.
3.		Islam implies there be no conflicts between Muslims will but conflicts with non-believers are required. Peace means stopping conflicts between those who “believe in Peace”, but continuing the struggle with those who “do not want peace”.
4.		Muslims are “peaceful people”, but their struggle is accompanied by and always leads to the destruction of the attributes and institutions of a secular state. The Peace movement by its definition targets the attributes of state, first of all the military, symbols such as flags, and deliberately involves a conflict with police.
5.		Islam calls for creation of the Caliphate, the one and only state for all, where conflicts will be solved on the basis of Islamic teachings. Pacifism also calls for creation of the “World Government”, which would wisely solve all conflicts basing on the principles of Peace and Justice.
6.		One of the often-cited meanings of the word “Islam” is “peace”. [Actually, for peace stands Arabic world “salaam”, but vowels in Semitic languages are not parts of the root and are not grammatically significant.]
7.		The primary meaning of “Islam” is submission. Islam requires everybody to submit to some written rules, which are final and cannot be discussed. Peace, in its Western usage, means a (written) treaty with the enemy, to which both sides submit. However, Pacifism is not as much about some specific peace treaty with any particular enemy, as it is for some abstract Peace, without even a specified enemy. So, it calls for submission to some implied treaty with unspecified enemy. Since that enemy is not named, the treaty actually requires only our submission.

By the way, who could that Enemy, the abstract Enemy of all people, be?


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