Home
The Middle East needs a new ideology of political dissent
Saturday, 24 January, 2015
Thugs of the Islamic State behead captives and execute civilians, promising genocide against all those whose beliefs differ from theirs. French-born Jihadis brazenly assassinate cartoonists, police officers and Jewish supermarket shoppers in downtown Paris. Boko Haram kidnaps young girls and murders its way across sub-Saharan Africa. The Taliban execute adolescent pupils at a school in Pakistan. Hamas promises no peace with the Jews and declares that “It is only possible for the members of the three religions to coexist in safety under the shadow of Islam.”
Useful idiots of the world sagely tell us that “none of this has anything to do with Islam.” Clearly it has something to do with Islam. Your humble columnist is no theologian, however he can confidently say that every religion seems to have ample ambiguity and sufficiently diverse texts for one to refer to selectively. Just like in Judaism and Christianity, Muslims can quote suras about how “there is no compulsion in religion” and passages extolling tolerance, or others, less accommodating, such as “I will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve. Therefore strike off their heads and strike off every fingertip of them.” In this way one can find justification for just about anything.
When religion is married to politics, political players will pull from this jackpot of justifications. Combining the two sullies religion and destroys the political process. Political compromise and tolerance appear that much harder to pursue when someone believes, or makes others believe, that they represent God’s will on earth. The faith is easily twisted to suit the political exigencies of the day. In other cases those invoking the faith have no theological clue. Mark Twain observed this some time ago, remarking that “In religion and politics people’s beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second-hand, and without examination, from authorities who have not themselves examined the questions at issue but have taken them at second-hand from other non-examiners, whose opinions about them were not worth a brass farthing.”
Agreeing that many political actors simply use religion as a tool, many analysts note the relatively recent rise of Islamist politics. Not so long ago, many women in Cairo, Teheran and other capitals of the Middle East wore mini-skirts and the latest hair styles. They studied and then had careers side by side with their male peers. Secular Arab socialism used to be all the rage. In Turkey Kemal Ataturk’s Western-oriented secular Turkish nationalism held sway, just as the Shah of Iran attempted to replicate a Persian version of Kemalism.
The ideologies of the 1960s and 70s promised freedom from colonialism, resistance to imperialism, dignity, security and a better life for all. The people ended up getting neo-colonialism, costly wars, humiliation at the hands of new local oppressors, dictatorship and mass poverty. As local strains of socialism and fascism failed, the Communist Party offered a different variant of political hope, and was often the largest opposition party in Arab states and Iran. With American help, communist dissidents across the Middle East were crushed, however. Once the Soviet Union collapsed, the region’s hope in socialism and communism receded as well. Around this time, the appeal of Islamism grew.
The Islamist alternative is now losing its luster. Even the more moderate Islamist manifestations have stalled. Iranians would probably vote in a secular pro-Western government tomorrow if offered the chance. Egyptians by the tens of millions signed a petition asking for the ouster of Mohammed Morsi. In Turkey, the “Islamo-Liberal synthesis” that the West so enthusiastically hailed looks increasingly less liberal, sliding into an “Islamo-corrupt strongman synthesis.” In Tunisia voters chose a secular government in the last elections, while Libya seems bogged down in a civil war with its Islamists.
All of this must be intensely disheartening for average people simply looking for a political ideology that offers them hope and a viable alternative to despair. The United States and other countries might also rue the day they helped depose communists and socialists, who despite their faults were a lot preferable to the likes of the Islamic State. There is, however, a remarkably novel and unlikely ideological alternative emerging. Kurds of Syria and Turkey, in the most unlikely of circumstances, have reinvented their leading political movements and begun experimenting with a modern variant of egalitarian, local, direct democracy. In a world thirsty for ways to contain the Islamist fever that has taken over many Muslims, one would expect people to pay a bit more attention to such secular efforts, or to at least be a bit more enthusiastic about such alternatives. Yet serious discussions of “democratic autonomy” barely make the mainstream news.
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
Saturday, 24 January, 2015
Thugs of the Islamic State behead captives and execute civilians, promising genocide against all those whose beliefs differ from theirs. French-born Jihadis brazenly assassinate cartoonists, police officers and Jewish supermarket shoppers in downtown Paris. Boko Haram kidnaps young girls and murders its way across sub-Saharan Africa. The Taliban execute adolescent pupils at a school in Pakistan. Hamas promises no peace with the Jews and declares that “It is only possible for the members of the three religions to coexist in safety under the shadow of Islam.”
Useful idiots of the world sagely tell us that “none of this has anything to do with Islam.” Clearly it has something to do with Islam. Your humble columnist is no theologian, however he can confidently say that every religion seems to have ample ambiguity and sufficiently diverse texts for one to refer to selectively. Just like in Judaism and Christianity, Muslims can quote suras about how “there is no compulsion in religion” and passages extolling tolerance, or others, less accommodating, such as “I will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve. Therefore strike off their heads and strike off every fingertip of them.” In this way one can find justification for just about anything.
When religion is married to politics, political players will pull from this jackpot of justifications. Combining the two sullies religion and destroys the political process. Political compromise and tolerance appear that much harder to pursue when someone believes, or makes others believe, that they represent God’s will on earth. The faith is easily twisted to suit the political exigencies of the day. In other cases those invoking the faith have no theological clue. Mark Twain observed this some time ago, remarking that “In religion and politics people’s beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second-hand, and without examination, from authorities who have not themselves examined the questions at issue but have taken them at second-hand from other non-examiners, whose opinions about them were not worth a brass farthing.”
Agreeing that many political actors simply use religion as a tool, many analysts note the relatively recent rise of Islamist politics. Not so long ago, many women in Cairo, Teheran and other capitals of the Middle East wore mini-skirts and the latest hair styles. They studied and then had careers side by side with their male peers. Secular Arab socialism used to be all the rage. In Turkey Kemal Ataturk’s Western-oriented secular Turkish nationalism held sway, just as the Shah of Iran attempted to replicate a Persian version of Kemalism.
The ideologies of the 1960s and 70s promised freedom from colonialism, resistance to imperialism, dignity, security and a better life for all. The people ended up getting neo-colonialism, costly wars, humiliation at the hands of new local oppressors, dictatorship and mass poverty. As local strains of socialism and fascism failed, the Communist Party offered a different variant of political hope, and was often the largest opposition party in Arab states and Iran. With American help, communist dissidents across the Middle East were crushed, however. Once the Soviet Union collapsed, the region’s hope in socialism and communism receded as well. Around this time, the appeal of Islamism grew.
The Islamist alternative is now losing its luster. Even the more moderate Islamist manifestations have stalled. Iranians would probably vote in a secular pro-Western government tomorrow if offered the chance. Egyptians by the tens of millions signed a petition asking for the ouster of Mohammed Morsi. In Turkey, the “Islamo-Liberal synthesis” that the West so enthusiastically hailed looks increasingly less liberal, sliding into an “Islamo-corrupt strongman synthesis.” In Tunisia voters chose a secular government in the last elections, while Libya seems bogged down in a civil war with its Islamists.
All of this must be intensely disheartening for average people simply looking for a political ideology that offers them hope and a viable alternative to despair. The United States and other countries might also rue the day they helped depose communists and socialists, who despite their faults were a lot preferable to the likes of the Islamic State. There is, however, a remarkably novel and unlikely ideological alternative emerging. Kurds of Syria and Turkey, in the most unlikely of circumstances, have reinvented their leading political movements and begun experimenting with a modern variant of egalitarian, local, direct democracy. In a world thirsty for ways to contain the Islamist fever that has taken over many Muslims, one would expect people to pay a bit more attention to such secular efforts, or to at least be a bit more enthusiastic about such alternatives. Yet serious discussions of “democratic autonomy” barely make the mainstream news.
[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
