SPEAKING
FREELY Beware of the Islamist
trap By Monte Palmer
Speaking Freely is an Asia Times Online
feature that allows guest writers to have their
say. Please click here if you are interested in
contributing.
Islamists, judging by the
use of the term in the global press, is a
simplified way of referring to all Muslim groups
seeking some form of Islamic rule in the Middle
East.
Like most simplistic expressions,
"Islamist," is laden with hidden traps. The first
Islamist trap is believing that all Muslim groups
seeking some form of Islamic rule in the Middle
East are of one mind and body. They are not. The
second Islamist trap is assuming that all groups
seeking some form of Islamist rule are
inherently hostile to
the interests of the United States and its allies.
Some are, and some are not. The third Islamist
trap is thinking that the US and its allies can
stop the Islamist surge now sweeping the Middle
East by diplomacy, sanctions, and covert action.
The verdict on this supposition has yet to be
rendered, but the outlook is not promising. The
fourth and most lethal Islamist trap is the belief
that force alone can stop the Islamists. Iraq and
Afghanistan suggest otherwise.
The dangers
of assuming that all Islamists are the same is
easily illustrated by a brief review of the four
main Sunni Islamist currents competing for control
of the Middle East.
Islam lite The most liberal of the four main Islamist
currents is Islam Lite, the sarcastic Turkish
nickname for the Justice and Development Party
that has ruled Turkey within a secular framework
for more than a decade. Islam Lite, the most
forward looking of the four Islamic currents, has
built Turkey into the world's seventeenth largest
economy, consolidated Turkish democracy, brought
Turkey to the doorstep of membership in the
European Union, reaffirmed Turkey membership in
the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and
established Turkey as the dominant Muslim power in
the Middle East and beyond.
This is not to
deny that the Justice and Development Party does
have an Islamic agenda that seeks to create a more
Islamic state in Turkey and the Arab world. At the
domestic level, the Justice and Development Party
has implemented sweeping Islamic reforms that
promote veiling (head scarfs), prayer in schools,
and other Islamic practices outlawed by Turkey's
revolutionary leaders in the aftermath of World
War I. While these Islamic reforms are hardly
earth shaking, seculars worry that they are but
the first step in the Party's much deeper Islamic
agenda.
At the regional and international
levels, the Justice and Development Party's
Islamic agenda includes support for Muslim
Brotherhood rule in Egypt, Tunisia, and the Gaza
Strip. It also calls for an independent
Palestinian state in the Occupied Territories. All
have soured Turkey's relations with Israel, but
war between the two former allies is not in the
picture.
Partnership with the US and EU is
an essential component of Islam Lite. Subservience
is not. Some observers accuse Turkey of using
Islam to extend its regional influence. The
Israelis, by contrast, worry that Turkey will use
its military power to extend its Islamic reach.
While neither thought can be discounted,
the Islamic Lite model practiced in Turkey does
demonstrate that moderate Islamic rule is
compatible with democracy and development. Much
like Turkey itself, the Justice and Development
Party provides an avenue for cooperation and
dialogue between the West and Muslim currents
throughout the Middle East.
Things,
however, may not be as simple as they seem. The
Turkish model is deeply rooted in Turkish history
and culture and may not be exportable to either
the Arab world or the Islamic regions of Central
Asia. Also problematic is the weakness of Islamic
Lite currents in other areas of the Middle East,
All, with rare exceptions lack a firm
organizational network and their popular support
base pales in comparison to those of the Muslim
Brotherhood and even the more extremist Salafis.
The Muslim Brotherhood Next in
the hierarchy of religious extremism comes the
Muslim Brotherhood, the world's largest and most
powerful Islamic organization. The Brotherhood now
rules in Egypt and Tunisia and exercises profound
influence throughout the region. The name may
differ from place to place, but they are all
Brotherhood offshoots.
The odds are that
it will control most of the Arab Middle East by
the end of the decade.
The foundation of
the Brotherhood's success is a vision of Islam
that promises Islamic morality, modernity,
welfare, honesty, capitalism, stability, and
development in a single and seductive package. It
is this seductive package that has enabled the
Brotherhood to capture the center of the Sunni
Islamic community.
Popular support, in
turn, is bolstered by an organizational structure
that spans the globe. In contrast to Turkey's
Justice and Development Party which is
overwhelmingly focused on Turkey, the Muslim
Brotherhood is first and foremost a Muslim
organization that places Islam above nationalism.
Egypt is the headquarters of the Brotherhood, but
its goal is a Middle East dominated by moderate
Muslim rule. Brotherhood dominance in one country
is used to strengthen Brotherhood influence in
others.
In sum, the Brotherhood possesses a
forward looking agenda that includes democracy and
development within an Islamic framework. This
differs markedly from the Turkish Lite model which
is willing to pursue democracy and development
within a secular framework. The Brotherhood is
willing to cooperate with the US and the EU, but
only on terms that advance its Islamic agenda.
This, too, differs from a Turkish model that
places Turkey's national interests above Islamic
interest.
The Brotherhood, in common with
the Islamic Lite model, pursues its Islamic agenda
in a patient and pragmatic manner that avoids
violence if possible. This said, the Brotherhood
is more directly involved in supporting Hamas and
other affiliated Islamic movements than the
Turkish Justice and Development Party. While the
Turks exert diplomatic pressure on Israel to ease
its efforts to crush the Hamas rulers of the Gaza
Strip, the Muslim Brotherhood offers hands on
support to Hamas. It is not a combatant, having
upheld Egypt's peace treaty with Israel, but
neither is it without blood on its hands.
The West is not anxious to deal with the
Brotherhood, but it may have little choice in the
matter. If elections are held in the Arab world,
the Brotherhood will either win the elections or
possess so much power that it can prevent any
other group from ruling effectively.
Salafis The salafis are
exceptionally conservative Muslims who believe
that the Koran and Sunna (sayings and actions of
the Prophet Mohammed) should be followed to the
letter. This includes accepting the rule of
tyrants as the will of God. God will judge the
kings and tyrants when the time comes, but that is
his call and not theirs. The salafis also feel
honor bound to force other Muslims to accept their
most restrictive vision of Islam. In the salafi
view, humans are too venal to follow the true path
of Islam unless all vestiges of temptation are
removed from society. This includes the
temptations of the flesh and requires the full
veiling of women. In cases of rape, women are
condemned for provocation.
The Wahhabi
doctrine of Saudi Arabia and most areas of the
Gulf is salafi to the core. The senior Wahabi
clerics are part of the ruling elite in Saudi
Arabia and control both the religious police and
the education system. They also play a key role in
the Saudi security system by justifying the rule
of the Saudi monarchy as the will of God. The Gulf
monarchies cannot rule without them.
While
dominant in the Gulf, diverse salafi currents are
emerging as a major force in Egypt and Tunisia,
two of the most westernized countries in the Arab
world. The first free parliamentary elections in
Egypt saw the salafis capture about 25% of the
vote in comparison to the Brotherhood's 40%. When
you add the Islamic Lite votes to the total, the
Islamists garnered some 70% of the popular vote.
Subtract the Christian vote, and the Islamists
garnered close to 80% of the Muslim vote. The
election campaign was bitter, but when the
Brotherhood emerged as the Islamist candidate in
the run-off elections, they were supported by both
the salafi and the Islam Lite currents. Both are
now involved in a bitter struggle to pull the
Brotherhood in their respective directions.
As things currently stand, the Salafis are
a powerful, backward looking current whose global
reach, supported by Saudi oil wealth, preaches
virulent anti-Americanism. Unlike the Brotherhood,
the salafis are neither patient nor pragmatic.
They don't rebel against Muslim leaders, but they
are active supporters of violent attacks against
the US and its allies. Salafi supporters in Egypt
and Tunisia have also been involved in violent
acts against Christian and secular currents whom
they view as a threat to Islam.
These
attacks are also designed to force a conflict
between the reigning Brotherhood regimes and
secular currents in these westernized of
countries. Nationality doesn't matter, neither
does reality. Faith will assure the return of a
Sunni theocracy modeled on the 7th century Arabia.
Shia need not apply. In the meantime, the salafi
will do everything in their power to force Muslim
societies to live according of Islamic law. The
Muslim Brothers are flaming liberal by comparison.
It is vital that the West keep the Muslim
Brotherhood on the moderate track and avoid
pushing them into the salafi camp.
Jihadists The Salafis, in turn,
give way to the jihadists intent on cleansing
society by violence. Nothing else will do.
Symbolized by bin Laden and al-Qaeda, the
jihadists differ from the mainline Salafis in
three key ways. First, they have arrogated unto
themselves the right to excommunicate Muslim
leaders by declaring them to be kafirs or
non-believers. Most salafis deem excommunication
to be the right of God unless individuals denounce
their belief in God and refuse to accept the
Prophet Mohammed as his Messenger. Second, by
excommunicating political leaders for their
cooperation with the US, the jihadists are
absolved from Koranic scriptures requiring them to
support their ruling tyrants and kings. Rebellion
and assassination await. Finally, it is not enough
for the jihadists to impose strict Islamic law on
society. All Muslims societies, in their view,
have been so corrupted by their association with
the West that they must be totally destroyed and
rebuilt in a purely Islamic framework. The only
way to achieve this, goal, from the jihadist
perspective, is violence. There is no scope for
pragmatism. Bin Laden is gone and al-Qaeda has
been weakened, but the jihadists have simply
decentralized into a multitude of localized groups
intent on terror. When one is crushed, others
evolve to fill the gap.
Traps and
consequences The trap of viewing the main
Islamist currents as a cohesive force deprives the
West of much needed flexibility in dealing with
the competing Islamic movements most likely to
dominate the Middle East during the coming decade.
Turkey's Islamic Lite is compatible with the
stability and development of the Middle East, but
the jihadists are not. The Muslim Brotherhood
could go either way, while the salafis, ardent
supporters of retrogressive extremism, are
sheltered by their ties to the Saudi monarchy. You
can't have one without the other. The jihadists
are a clear and present danger to everybody. This,
of itself, provides a basis for cooperation
between the West and the more moderate Islamic
currents.
The trap of viewing the main
Islamists currents as being of one mind and body
sets the stage for believing that all Islamist
currents pose an imminent danger to the US and its
allies. How could it be otherwise when Islamic
Lite is painted with the brush of the jihadists?
The battle lines for an inevitable conflict
between Islam and the West have been drawn. Panic
and islamophobia soar. So does anti-Americanism in
the Islamic world. All that remains is a fuse.
The drawing of battle lines, in turn,
unleashes the trap of urgence. Something has to be
done, but what? Iraq and Afghanistan have dulled
the West's taste for drawn out guerilla wars. As
former Secretary of Defense Gates framed the
issue, "Any future defense secretary who advises
the president to again send a big American land
army to Asia or into the Middle East or Africa
should have his head examined." This was a direct
quote from General McArthur, This sets the stage
for an endless series of sanctions, covert
actions, and drone strikes which stoke extremism,
anti-Americanism and, eventually, a new explosion.
If sanctions and covert actions don't
work, the trap of assuming that the US can save
the world from the Islamist threat by military
force remains. I stress the US, because America's
EU allies are bailing out, while Japan, China and
Russia are pursuing Middle East agendas at odds
with that of the US. The jIhadists love it because
it gives them the opportunity for cheap victories
against a demoralized and over extended US
military that has already shifted its emphasis
from the Middle East to East Asia. As the
proverbial rhyme states:
"For want of a nail a shoe was lost.
For want of shoe a horse was lost. For
the want of a horse the rider was lost. For
the want of a rider a message was lost. For
the want of a message the battle was
lost. For want of a battle the kingdom was
lost."
For want of recognizing the
complexities of Islamic currents, the Middle East
could be lost.
Monte Palmer is
Professor Emeritus at Florida State University and
a former Director of the Center for Arab and
Middle Eastern Studies at the American University
of Beirut. His recent books include The Arab
Psyche and American Frustrations, The Politics of
the Middle East, Islamic Extremism (with Princess
Palmer,) Political Development: Dilemmas and
Challenges, and Egypt and the Game of Terror (a
novel.) His email is arabpsyche@gmail.com and his
blog is arabpsyche.wordpress.com
Speaking Freely is an Asia Times Online
feature that allows guest writers to have their
say. Please click here if you are interested in
contributing. Articles submitted for this section
allow our readers to express their opinions and do
not necessarily meet the same editorial standards
of Asia Times Online's regular contributors
Head
Office: Unit B, 16/F, Li Dong Building, No. 9 Li Yuen Street East,
Central, Hong Kong Thailand Bureau:
11/13 Petchkasem Road, Hua Hin, Prachuab Kirikhan, Thailand 77110
