Islam and Islamophobia in the post-liberal world of late democracy. Neo-real-political foundations of racism

Introduction

The reflections presented below are part of a broader research project (both theoretical and “interventionist”) devoted to the reconstruction and reaffirmation of the positive social and political philosophy of liberalism, with social development (human development) as its guiding principle. The most well-known, effective, and recognized variant of this broad intellectual family, which has achieved measurable theoretical, practical, and institutional respect and success, is – represented most significantly today by Amartya Sen, Martha Nussbaum, Sabine Alkire, and Ingrid Robeyns – the concept of human capabilities, which is implemented through the development and implementation of multi-scale (micro, meso, macro) trans-, inter-, or multi-disciplinary projects that combine and integrate numerous fields of social sciences and humanities, with a distinguished role for social philosophy, political philosophy, positive psychology, philosophy of economics (meta-economics) and, increasingly, “world philosophy (humanities)” (comparative/pluralistic philosophy [humanities]). In my research, I focus on a lesser-known and less frequently discussed (and therefore less frequently applied) version of this orientation, introduced into contemporary political thought by C.B. Macpherson with his anti-possessive, developmental theory of democracy, whose decisive foundations and components are a series of normative and ontological assumptions and implications. Macpherson’s theoretical concept is rooted in the tradition of J.S. Mill’s socio-pluralistic, idealistic liberalism, which finds its current heterogeneous exemplifications in the ideas and practices of participatory/radical/deliberative democracy and in the concepts of positive freedom, human autonomy, and broadly understood “republican goods” (Carole Pateman, David Held, Carol C. Gould, John Christman, Nancy Hirschman, Philip Pettit, Elizabeth Anderson, etc.). Macpherson’s approach can also be seen as an extension of other major critiques of the “fast-paced,” Western, liberalized, laissez-faire economy and society, such as Thorstein Veblen’s analysis of the phenomenon of “conspicuous consumption,” R. H. Tawney’s egalitarian critique of the “acquisitive society,” or Karl Polanyi’s concept of “fictitious commodities.” According to the latter, land, labor, and capital should be understood primarily as factors necessary for the establishment and consolidation of economic processes in social life, without which all members of society are vulnerable and sooner or later must fall victim to selfishness, greed, and unlimited accumulation/concentration of capital. Macpherson’s concept and the entire current of developmental liberalism (which can also be described as eudaimonic liberalism) are considered in this study in a comparative dimension, in the context of world philosophy/pluralistic (de-parochial) philosophy. One of the main themes considered here are the developmental, emancipatory-egalitarian (primarily in the areas of human rights, environmental rights/environmental ethics, gender equality, and broadly understood human and social flourishing/welfare) dimensions and potentials of Muslim law and the Islamic normative system. I concentrate especially on theoretical and applied proposals developed within the methodological paradigm of maqasid al-shari’a (Jassir Auda, Adis Duderija, David Johnston, Carool Kersten, G. Hussein Rasool) or the more general framework of the “justice approach” (‘adliyya) in Muslim legal philosophy (jurisprudence) (Ramon Harvey, Ali Reza Bhojani). The problem and phenomenon of Islamophobia is considered in the context of this research in relation to ontological and epistemological injustices (exclusions, polarizations, antagonizations, self-segregated tribalism, biases and bubble-mentality/distortions, general distrust about public opinion and the value of knowledge/expertise/scientific institutions) caused by Islamophobic tendencies in contemporary societies (non-Muslim and Muslim alike).