Issue No. 603
Heritage
Previous issue
Site map
|
|
12 - 18 September 2002 Issue No. 603 Heritage |
Current issue Previous issue Site map | |
| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 | Recommend this page | ||
Islamism's Stalingrad?
While the events of 11 September have undoubtedly taken their toll on the Islamist movement in Egypt, their long-term effects are more ambiguous. Omayma Abdel-Latif investigates
"Islamism is an idea whose time has come and gone. Muslims no longer view Islamism as a source of utopia. The 11 September attacks reflect the isolation, fragmentation and decline of the Islamist movement." Such are the conclusions of the French sociologist Gilles Kepel, whose most recent book deals with the rise and fall of the Islamist groups. Kepel, however, has not been alone in putting forward the argument that the period after the 11 September attacks has been "the Stalingrad" of the Islamists, or, as one Arab writer has put it, the equivalent of "1967 for Arab nationalism", an argument that has gained ground in the wake of American success in Afghanistan.
Click to view captionIs Islamism past its heyday? (left) Prayers in Cairo for the souls of Palestinians slaughtered in Hebron in 1994, (right) Egyptian Islamists on trial However, this view still leaves several questions unanswered: will this result in the quashing of the political Islam movements, both militant and non-militant, and, just as importantly, what will be the fate of these movements, which, according to their supporters, represent the only organised opposition in most Arab countries? How will these groups respond to the increasing pressure on them coming not only from the state, but also from an international community that views their dismantling as a crucial element in the 'war on terrorism'?
Arab observers say that America's war on terrorism, coupled with a disastrous public-relations campaign that has failed to win "the hearts and minds of Muslims", has been a blessing to the Israeli authorities in their campaigns in the occupied territories, and that the US has turned a blind eye to countries using the Bush doctrine to persecute its Muslim minorities. This has led to a growing conviction among sections of Arab and Muslim societies that America's war on terrorism is actually a war on Islam.
Growing sympathy for the Islamist movements has been the result of this, not only on a popular level, but also from sections of the liberal intelligentsia and the left. Indeed, writing in the March 2002 issue of the US journal Foreign Affairs, Graham Fuller, a former CIA official and expert on Middle East politics, points out that "no other ideology had a remotely comparable sway in the Arab world."
Many Islamists do not accept that the 11 September attacks are relevant to them, since, they say, the attacks were carried out by an extremist fringe group unrelated to the Islamist movements as such. However, they stress that the attacks have taken their toll on the Islamist movements, if only because they have led to a deterioration of the relationship between such groups and the state. Some governments in the Middle East have used the excuse of combating terrorism in the wake of the attacks to repress the Islamist opposition.
Thus, for Essam El-Erian, a senior member of the Muslim Brotherhood and secretary- general of the Egyptian Doctors Syndicate, "11 September was a bandwagon, an excuse to tighten up the government's grip on society and stifle the few civil liberties available, rather than opening up more space for democracy."
El-Erian says that over the last year there has been intensification of the confrontation between the Egyptian government and the Brotherhood, with a clampdown on the group's senior members after 11 September. Though observers believe that such measures are only the continuation of the state of confrontation that has been in place since the group began overt political activities, Brotherhood sources say that the events have given the state a freer hand in its dealings with the group. While critics of the Brotherhood point out that one of the results of the 11 September attacks has been to expose the "structural weakness and inherent doctrinal problems of the Islamist movement", saying that the Brotherhood has failed to achieve any political breakthrough during its 30 years of activism, El-Erian says that the group's preoccupation with its own survival has meant that it has had little energy left for political activity. Open confrontation with the state, he says, has never been on the group's agenda, because "the interests of the country would be put in jeopardy if such a confrontation was allowed." The group, he says, has focused on constitutional channels to bring about the changes they desire.
Nevertheless, this has not stopped the Brotherhood's critics from pointing to the group's shortcomings. "They have never reached the critical moment when their claimed ability to mobilise the street could lead to radical political change," said one observer.
El-Erian does not share the view that the 11 September attacks have exposed the weakness of the Islamist project. Rather, he says, "it is the bankruptcy and failure of the Western model of modernisation that we have witnessed after 11 September. People have come to realise that turning to their own heritage, religion and culture is what really matters," El-Erian says.
"I believe that the more they [the state and the West] fight Islamist movements, the more people will join them," he said.
Citing examples from the past three decades, observers of political Islam have noted that Islamist groups have shown every sign of wanting to be a part of constitutional political life. Engaging in the electoral process, whether through parliamentary elections, or through election to the professional syndicates, has confirmed the Brotherhood's commitment to legal political channels. For the academic Denis Sullivan, in his book Islam in Contemporary Egypt, the Brotherhood's development over the past three decades has meant that it is now more "accommodationist, non-violent and cooperative, seeking to achieve its objectives by focusing as much on the state as on society through education, services and consciousness raising".
Nonetheless, some observers still argue that the events of 11 September have signaled the failure of aspects of the Islamist project. "The Islamists have indeed failed and their project, whose ultimate end is to establish an Islamic state, is in tatters," says Wahid Abdel-Meguid, editor-in- chief of the Arab Strategic Report published by the Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies.
But the existing Islamist groups' failure to achieve this end does not necessarily mean that the whole idea of appropriating Islam for political purposes has failed, he remarks. "The 11 September attacks were the result, and not the cause, of the failure of these groups. They have failed in the difficult task of challenging their own regimes and in forcing internal political reform, so they opted instead for the easier target of attacking America and the West. They entered the process of failure long before 11 September," Abdel-Meguid explains. The Brotherhood, he insists, are still in the "process of failure", or, as he puts it, they have not failed in the same way as the rest of the militant Islamist groups have, even if they are moving in the same direction.
For many liberal and leftist observers, the problems posed by the Islamist project are inherently doctrinal. Its success, they argue, would mean that other political movements would not be allowed to function. While this is true of ideological projects other than the Islamist one, for them the problem with the Islamist groups, including the Brotherhood, is that "there is no connection between the Islamist project and the democratic means with which they aspire to achieve peaceful change".
"There is no radical doctrinal change that could convince other political actors and the government that they believe in democracy as a way of governance," Abdel-Meguid says.
Still other commentators refer to what they describe as "a crisis of theorising in political Islam". The political Islam movements, they say, lack the kind of ideologues who could inject new blood into their vision of the world, and, following the death of the Islamist theorist Sayed Qutb in 1965, they have been content to borrow from various other trends, including from the left and from Arab nationalism, in their search for an Islamist ideology. However, those calling on the movement to renew its ideological resources have generally been outsiders, such as Tarek El-Beshri, Fahmy Howeidy, and Ahmed Kamal Abul-Magd.
Other observers think Islamist politics are too complicated to be reduced to failure. For Salwa Ismail, a professor at Exeter University in the UK, for example, the argument about the failure of political Islam "completely misses the point, mostly because it limits the political to activities concerning the state and government alone". The Islamists, she explains, "are both conscious strategists and the beneficiaries of deeper social change". Seen from this perspective, Islamist politics have proven their adaptability and resilience.
However, at perhaps no other time has the argument that Islamist politics have failed had such force as it has had this year, following news of a 'declaration of repentance' from Al-Gama'a Al-Islamiya's leaders in a series of interviews conducted by the editor-in-chief of the Egyptian magazine Al-Musawar, Makram Mohamed Ahmed, in June. Though such a step had already been signaled in June 1997 when members of the same group declared a cease-fire and the cessation of all violent activities against the state, the significance of the present move is that it comes at a time when hostile attitudes towards groups taking Islam as their point of reference is the order of the day. Reconciliation between the state and these groups has never been so timely, begging the question of whether a political deal was behind it.
While Islamist sources have dismissed speculation about a deal between the two parties, saying that these are people who have been in prison for 15 to 20 years, and they have realised that violence has not done the Islamist movement any good, observers continue to believe that the step is another sign proving the failure of Islamist politics.
Nevertheless, other observers have been more inclined to accept the group's own explanation, which stresses their "accommodationist behaviour". One observer notes that what sets this group apart from others, such as Al-Qa'eda, is that it has admitted the mistake of using violence to achieve political ends, saying that the group "would rather be engaged in proselytising for Islam, which is a non-political activity".
Those who continue to argue for the Islamist project believe that there are two areas ripe for Islamisation, the first being the state and the second society. While such people admit that they have not succeeded in efforts to capture the state, this is not true of 'the battle for society'. There are, they say, conspicuous signs of 'Islamisation from below,' rather than 'Islamisation from above' imposed by the state, and this has influenced not just sections of the middle class, but also the affluent upper strata of society whose discourse is now littered with Islamic idiom.
While it is true, observers say, that political Islam has not manifested itself as an organised political force in Egypt, it has become a powerful social force raising Islamic cultural consciousness and influencing the attitudes and actions of many social groups, and not only the poor and the frustrated as was previously the case. According to Ismail, the deployment of Islamic idioms to articulate given practices, and hence the Islamising of society, is a sign of Islamist success.
Ismail concludes that "perhaps an alternative policy can be achieved through a take-over not by confrontation with the state but by social activism and engagement," capturing society rather than the state. However, Abdel- Meguid and others do not share this view: for them, the use of Islamic idioms in public discourse and signs of Islamisation from below are only part of "the 'Islamist mind-set' that has engulfed Egyptian society since the 1967 defeat."
"The Islamisation of society has nothing to do with the Islamist movement, because it is apolitical. It has not been due to efforts exerted by political Islam groups, because such groups have never enjoyed a large popular base," he says.
While the Islamisation of society "remains an asset for the Islamists and parts of it could be translated into voting power for them," Abdel-Meguid says that "other parts of society remain apolitical". Nevertheless, he admits that "there are legitimate concerns that at moments of social unrest this apolitical Islamisation could translate into an asset for any Islamist movement which wanted to take power."
Perhaps one of the major challenges awaiting the Islamists in the years to come is what Sami Zubaida, a professor at London University, has described as the "structural crisis of governance and the ever- present question of democracy in the Arab world". Using the same reasoning, Fuller cites three main obstacles standing in the way of political Islam in the coming years.
The first obstacle is the local political environment, in which Islamists are often suppressed, jailed, or executed, and this encourages the growth of militant rather than constitutional Islamist groups. Secondly, international politics push Islamist movements and parties in "unfortunate directions", and thirdly the Islamists themselves have too often been guilty of playing opportunistic political games.
For his part, Rafik Habib, co- founder of the Al-Wasat Party, suggests that the real challenge facing the Islamist movement and threatening its development into an integrated constitutional movement is its relationship with the state. While the Egyptian government has welcomed recent statements from Al-Gama'a Al-Islamiya, it has continued its policy of clampdown.
Such a stance, Habib argues, will play a detrimental role in the future of the movements. "If the government welcomes the transformation of Al-Gama'a Al-Islamiya, and yet does not want to recognise the Brotherhood's right to be considered as a political actor, it means that it denies the Islamists the right to operate as lawful political actors. Official discourse continues to portray the actions of the political Islam movements as illegal or criminal, and this will result in a crisis for them," Habib said.
For the Islamists, al-tayar al-islami (the Islamic trend) is far from being a fringe movement; rather, it is a central and pervasive one. "If one examines Egyptian history, one finds permanent Islamist activism: Islam will remain an inherent part of Egypt's social and political realm," El- Erian remarks. And on this point even some secular observers cannot do other than agree. Abdel-Meguid, for example, believes that political Islam is "here to stay for some time", but, he says, it will develop in forms different from those it has taken over the past five decades.
In a similar vein, proponents of Islamist politics speak of tajdeed al-Din, or the renewal of religion, terming this 'civil Islam'. One of the most consistent themes of this is the claim that modern ideals of equality, freedom and democracy are not uniquely Western values, but that they are compatible with, and even required by, Muslim ideas. Some of these 'Muslim Democrats' are determined to demonstrate that Islamic values are fully consistent with democracy, pluralism and tolerance.
|
 |
|
|||||||||||||||||
| ARCHIVES Letter from the Editor Editorial Board Subscription Advertise! |
WEEKLY ONLINE: www.ahram.org.eg/weekly Updated every Saturday at 11.00 GMT, 2pm local time weeklyweb@ahram.org.eg |
 Al-Ahram Organisation |
