I'm at my office, so apologies for the scattershot response. But a lot of what you say isn't objectionable, so I'll try to focus on where I'm suspicious.
Just wanted to address this specifically; I agree, but as you say, much of the turmoil in the Islamo-sphere (is that a term? It is now lol) is due to Western foreign policy and military molestation of the regions. We probably all agree on that here, both left and right, but what I don't get is why you would believe that while simultaneously believing that Islam is compatible.
I think (hope) I can respond to this and it gives a sense of what I'd say to the rest of this post.
"what I don't get is why you would believe that while simultaneously believing that Islam is compatible."
In short, I don't perceive what's incompatible to actually be Islam. It's true that these countries practice Islamic law and policies of religious persecution; but I see that less as being Islam
tout court (i.e. Islam at its core, pure Islam, essential Islam, etc.) and more as a result of Western foreign policy and intervention in the region. I don't lay the blame at Islam's feet, is what I'm saying.
I don't think the history of Western intervention in the Middle East and other Islamic regions somehow extracts the purest form of Islam, or some such. I think it fuels political rivalry and disparity, and that the ensuing unrest gives rise to religiously motivated violence. I separate that from any concept of Islam "as such."
Also, building on that point, I don't believe Islam "as such" or
tout court actually exists, same as I don't believe Christianity
tout court exists. There is no original version of any religious system.
Regarding your thought experiment, again I don't think it's religion that's to blame for the lack of Westerners emigrating to Islamic countries. It has far more to do with economic opportunity as a result of cultural development beyond religion than it has to do with the inability of Christians and Muslims to coexist.
For me personally, looking at modern representations of Islam and coming to the conclusion that Islam, broadly speaking, is incompatible with modern Western values isn't a justification of ethnic cleansing, massacres or anything else that falls entirely outside of the realm of civilized politics but is rather a means to try and convince the powers that be to moderate the intake of Islam both culturally and in the form of people who bring it with them so as to better ensure that they integrate into our societies.
The problem of pragmatic policy vs. deterministic imposition. I understand.
What we see a lot of the time is that the most incompatible elements germinate in non-integrated communities, this is a big part of why American Muslims are more moderate than European and British Muslims, because when you take in large amounts of immigration they're all shoved into areas where they don't have to learn English, respect the rights of their women, engage in the practice of child brides etc because they essentially self-govern. This is also why Sharia courts are growing in popularity in the U.K.
I agree, immigration policies that end at "let them in" are shortsighted and problematic. If societies don't make room for those they admit, except in isolated areas, then you won't have integration.
Integration cannot happen entirely peacefully, but it can happen. It does happen. But it's not an easy process.
Muslims usually flee other Muslims, whether in the form of radicalist groups or established Islamic governments. I agree about the disgusting irony of the Christchurch Massacre, New Zealand practice fairly sane immigration and have avoided these problems that places like the U.K. haven't. It's the same case here in Australia, where the shooter was actually from, our Muslims are integrated and therefore we manage to avoid some of the worst elements the "nation within a nation" phenomenon can create.
This however doesn't mean Islam is compatible with modern Western values, it's simply that individual Muslims have integrated with non-Muslims and this tends to mitigate Quranic literalism. We do have no-go zones though, unfortunately.
To return to my first point, I don't see this as meaning that Islam is incompatible. By this logic, no Abrahamic religion is compatible with modern values; it's all just individuals who have adapted and integrated. The West is predominantly Judeo-Christian in form, but the practices and values of these religions had to adapt to other cultural developments. If Islam is incompatible with modernity, then so are the other Abrahamic religions; they've just had the benefit of evolving gradually away from their more archaic practices.
Islam evolved perfectly fine with Western values in the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries. It wasn't until political destabilization sent Muslim countries spiraling into disarray. Again, I don't see Islam as responsible for this.
But I specifically talked about Indonesia which is widely considered to be one of the more if not the most moderate and successful majority-Muslim countries. They're hardly a radical country relatively speaking. I question how you could point to pockets of Islam within our societies, or point to rather anomalous periods of historical Islamic rule, and say these examples supersede what is the rule rather than the exception in the 21st century when it comes to Islamic countries.
The rule we're arguing over isn't whether Islamic countries and legal systems in the twenty-first century are incompatible with modern Western values--they certainly are incompatible in many ways. The rule we're discussing is whether Islam as such,
in itself, is incompatible; and that means not just Islam as it appears today, but as it's existed in the past and as it might exist in the future. So in my perspective, contemporary examples from regions with highly charged political histories, whose governmental structures and organizations directly result from Western occupation and intervention, aren't exemplary of Islam as such--i.e. that Islam is incompatible with Western values. They're exemplary that modern Islamic law and governance is largely incompatible with Western ethics and values.
But if we're discussing a rule that Islam as such is incompatible with Western ethics and values--a claim to Islamic universality--then I point to the exceptions as proof that this rule isn't actually a rule.
