Islam and/or Democracy

Abstract

Historically, Islam and democracy have been juxtaposed as militant already by virtue of their successful socially engaged ideologies, and in post-Soviet states the problem has been whether they have been able to begin a dialogue as systems of spiritual and sociocultural values. Such dialogues have most often taken place in circumstances in which one side lacked political culture and the other lacked political tolerance, and the experience of interaction and mutual understanding has tended to be overshadowed by negative emotions rather than an awareness of the real divergence of their values. Interpretations of the historical relationship between Muslim and Christian civilizations that corresponded to such emotions, refusing to recognize their Abrahamic kinship, further aggravated the situation of exclusion multiplied by unconscious motives of mutual distrust. Christian culture and civilization eventually recognized its connection with Judaism, but continued to deny it to Islam.