Post-Islamism debates
Ali Eteraz on post-Islamism:Â
 …since 2001 we have devoted far too much time to the Islamic reform cult of personality. Faced with an increasingly complicated world, the time for heightened sophistication is now. Structural and political discussions - for example, about separation of mosque and state, the making of a Muslim left, the ideas of Muslim secularists, the debate over Islamic liberal democracy and the emergence of a post-Islamist Islam - are a completely overlooked part of this thing called “Islamic reform”. The true and original goal of Islamic reform was to help voiceless Muslims and minorities. The social transformation necessary for creating such a landscape requires acknowledging that Islamic reform is at its heart a political, not merely religious, project.
Read the full article here
P.S. Ali’s optimism on Tehreek-e-Insaaf needs a bit of a reality check. I don’t blame him as the Great Cricketer is increasingly attracting the attention of the educated urban elites in Pakistan and abroad.
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Raza, thanks for the link. That was an interesting piece but I too was a bit taken aback by the reference to Tehreek. I mean, they’re hardly a political party at all. And I don’t see the relevance of sufism in that line. As you know, back here it’s become very ‘trendy’ to label oneself a sufi (sufism for the “elites”, fundamentalism for the poor).
Perhaps the most startling thing, though, was the lack of any reference to the growth of conservatism and radicalism in many places. Post-’79 has seen a fair share of that: from Algeria to Sudan to Pakistan-and so to talk of post-Islamism just seems way to0 premature (to my mind at least).
Do you think the answer has to come through ‘political Islam’-third generation or not-anyway? My hat’s still in the PPP ring. Hope you haven’t deserted !
Comment by billo — November 1, 2007 @ 9:54 am
After reading that article which presents this Utopian sort of remedy for Muslim countries, I’ve been thinking how centuries of a specific way of looking at Islam/Arabs/Middle East by Orientalists through their romantic and general views have had tremendous effects on Muslims and their view of the world. Many Muslims today aren’t much different than Orientalists. They just appear to be on the other side of the spectrum in terms of defending themselves but in actuality they have largely accepted Orientalist ideas and promote them. I have been and continue to be guilty of this as well. Over hundreds of years, largely due to imperialism, colonialism and the cultural superiority of the imperialists, Orientalim has been embedded in our psyche and has become so much a part of the zeitgeist or intellectual climate that we hardly realize that we are also aiding the Orientalist agenda. Some quick thoughts on the article:
“The primary opponents of these dictators are the populist Islamists. They want to vote; except after voting they want to appoint an extra-constitutional body of clerics to strike down legislation they do not approve of.”
“Faced with only these two options - dictators or elected theocrats - in Muslim majority countries, the usual reaction by westerners is to throw their hands up in frustration and opt for apathy or give into a militaristic pessimism. These are both uninformed reactions. They fail to take into account the future of Islamic reform, which lies with the emergence of a post-Islamist political order in the Muslim majority world.”
- I think the point to consider here is ‘They want to vote’, which is assuming that people under consideration are allowed to take part in democratic elections. Provided that they make their intentions known prior to being elected, don’t the elected politicians have the right follow their political agenda whether it is to appoint clerics to carry out other extra constitutional actions. After all, they are serving the will of the people. It’s about time that we ignore ‘the usual reaction by westerners’ and their ‘frustrations’ and ‘apathy’. How are Muslim countries at fault if they choose their governments in a democratic manner but if they don’t sit well with Westerners, the Westerners have the right to ‘give into a militaristic pessimism’. We hold Muslim countries at fault for not being democratic and then at times when they choose to exercise their right to elect their own representatives, we expect their policies to be in accordance with Western expectations and if they are not, then those ignorant Muslim must fall victims to the wrath of the West as the good old Westerners have no choice but ‘give into a militaristic pessimism’.
“Post-Islamism is at hand because a new crop of Muslims have figured out how to reconcile liberal democracy with Islam. Upon doing so, they give up on creating religious organisations devoted to “da’wa” (Islamic evangelism) and move towards becoming organised as civil-political parties with platforms based on equality and pluralism.”
- The author should insert ‘Western style liberal democracy’ in this paragraph as this part is implying that Muslims haven’t known what democracy or liberalism is about and now this so called ‘new’ crop of Muslims have finally figured out how they can combine Islam and democracy and what equality and pluralism is all about.
“Incidentally, part of the credit for the popularity of post-Islamism goes to the theocratic Islamists. In their eagerness to merge religion with politics, they thought the result would be religion. Instead, the devout middle class realised that religion alone could not provide for their social concerns. Post-Islamism, thus, is the recognition that while religion may provide salvation in the next life, politics is what provides for welfare in this one. It is, at its barest, politics subsuming religion.”
- First of all I didn’t know that the whole of Muslim middle class was devout. This is a big generalization. Consider Pakistan as an example where the religious parties have never enjoyed popularity. Why didn’t the devout middle class choose the mullahs to be their representatives.
“The fundamental point that makes Wasat post-Islamist is that instead of defining Islam as a religion, it defines Islam as a culture, or civilisation, which is inclusive of minorities. Thinking of Islam as a culture is similar to how certain people in the west refer to the west as “Judeo-Christian” while still leaving room for Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists to practise freely therein.”
- Defining Islam as a culture or civilization - isn’t that what Orientalists have been guilty of? I don’t know how something as complex as Islam can be defined let alone be restricted to a culture or civilization. By the way, the idea of Islam being a cultures isn’t new. It is also ridiculous to respect the notion of accepting minorities in this culture of Islam or Islamic civilization. Those minorities are part of Islamic countries and have been so since the beginning of human civilization. We should now try to introduce ideas of including them into the realm of Islam or applaud so called attempts?
“Today, political Islam is entering its third generation. The first round was revolutionary and violent. The second round, still with us, became more methodical but was still domination-oriented and supremacist. The third round - the post-Islamist push - is committed to the democratic process and has ceased to think of itself as a religious movement, instead adopting a civil-political platform.”
- Political Islam??? It’s interesting how vastly generalized examples of the political situation in three countries (Egypt, Turkey, Pakistan) are considered and then applied to Islam as a whole; defining the political nature of every Muslim in the world. Furthermore, the author doesn’t explain where this timeline of his begins and what and who is included. Which era was revolutionary and violent? If Pakistan is taken as an example then it’s interesting to note that the country didn’t even exist when Islam took root in Arabia. However, Pakistan is being included in the realm of Political Islam by the author and is a fundamental example being used to support his thesis in this article. Obviously political Islam is much older than Pakistan and the modern states of Turkey or Egypt. I say modern because we must remember that the political environment of Turkey and Egypt was much different after the colonial era than it was prior to it. This whole argument is flawed in my opinion. Egypt, Turkey, and Pakistan are different places and a different set of circumstances changed the course of history for each of them. You cannot paint every country with the same brush just because they happen to fall into this crafted notion of a realm of Islam. What about other Muslim countries such as Malaysia, Maldives, Indonesia etc. Do these political phases apply to them as well? I am not so sure.
“A paper (pdf) presented at the University of Virginia sets forth an interesting link between economic patterns and the post-Islamist push, stating that “economic liberalisation strengthens and expands the devout middle classes” who then push for “moderation in political Islam for they believe that democracy, rule of law, and a limited state would serve their interests betters”. If this is true, then it means that the way for the west to challenge traditional domination-oriented Islamists like Jamat e Islami and the Brotherhood is to engage citizens in business, paving the way for post-Islamism.
When post-Islamist groups come to power, they will be social conservatives focused on family and spirituality (though not Wahhabism). On the issue of religion in politics, a post-Islamist politician will sound somewhere between John Edwards and Mike Huckabee. In their foreign policy they will reject intrusions upon their sovereignty from all foreign groups, including on one hand Nato and other western coalitions, and on the other, al-Qaida and the Taliban. However, they will generally abide by international norms and not launch themselves into international conflicts, finding them to be fiscally and socially expensive. This makes sense because their largest support comes from the middle classes. Their biggest trouble will be local and national rebel groups, whether it’s Kurd separatists, al-Qaida or the Taliban. Finally, just as Europe’s Christian democratic parties gave birth to liberal democrats, it is likely that after consolidating power, post-Islamic parties will create space for openly secular parties to gain more traction.”
- The last part is particularly generous with half-truths, vague observations, and predictions that are largely unfounded. Notice how the onus is on the Muslims to be responsible for somehow magically improving their economic conditions, reviving their political systems to this liberal theory, preventing foreign groups from incursions into their lands, not launching offensives or becoming involved into international conflicts while making a huge assumption that everything in the world will be rosy and outside powers will not interfere as long as Muslims happily go on and implement these changes. Not the mention the fact that these countries were pillaged and the people divided thanks to Western colonialism and imperialist ventures and a lot of what is occurring these days is due to the Western policies of the past and present.
This bizarre “post-Islamist alternative” reeks of Orientalism. It tries to imply that in order to be accepted Muslims must modernize their political systems in the manner of the West or be shunned. I think this a confused and ill-founded idea. Criticizing the Islamic fundamentalists and trumping the card of liberalism alone isn’t going to magically do away with the problems of the world. The ignorance due to arrogance must be dealt with first………………………and so on and so on…
Comment by cubano — November 1, 2007 @ 5:52 pm
Cubano is right, as much as I like Ali Eteraz.
And the Great Cricketer??? lol Now there is a referee (or is it umpire, I don’t know the game) you can’t argue with.
Ya Haqq!
Comment by Irving — November 2, 2007 @ 12:51 am
Just to add to Cubano:
to say that the “primary” opponent to dictatorship has been the “popular Islamists” is really quite remarkable. At least in Pakistan, as I hope Raza will confirm, the main opponents have been secular parties.
Come on raza, you have to step in here and say how bizarre such claims by this author are. First, the rather odd notion that Tehreek-e-Insaaf “opted” for Sufism (whatever that means). Second, the idea that we’re entering a post-Islamism scenario when all the indicators point to a growth of Islamist parties (at least in Pakistan).
Comment by billo — November 2, 2007 @ 3:50 am
Salams,
I hear the concerns very well, and I acknowledge the Arab/Turk analogy does not perfectly carry into Pakistan.
However, the article’s aim is not solely journalistic, but also persuasive. So, in Pakistan, where it is apparent that Islamist parties are on the rise, the subtle suggestion is that if you are a devout Muslim and you truly must participate in political Islamic parties, there are options that exist, like Tehreek which aren’t as dominance oriented as the MMA and more favorable to pluralism. Obviously, so far very few Pakistani Islamist types have taken that turn, but that’s because the Pakistani “devout” haven’t had a chance to see the Islamist parties fail and flounder as they did in other parts of the world. I did use the word “nascent” for Tehreek.
Finally, PPP and MQM are definite alternatives in Pakistan, and they are secular. I did not discuss them because they did not relate to the overall scheme of the article (it was the concluding article on a series on Islamic reform). I think you’ll concur that conceptualizing PPP as a sort of “Islamic reform” phenomenon would have been illogical.
I explain more here:
http://eteraz.wordpress.com/2007/11/01/roadmap-to-islamic-reform/
“If Islam ceases to be informed by the Quran and Sunnah, it would no longer be Islam. At Guardian I was asked to write a series about “Islamic reform.†This means that the furthest I can take the discussion is where the in-built limits of Islam permit me. Thus, the most I could do when discussing the issue was to ask how far can practicing Muslims go towards addressing some of their most pressing problems while still affirming Islam. That’s all. This is why the discussion ends where it does, namely, with post-Islamists.
In other words, I did not discuss secular humanist thought in the Muslim-majority world (and the million of merely cultural Muslims). Nor did I discuss secular-humanist groups, movements, or political parties that are avowedly secular and do not base their platform in Islam. Discussing their contribution and their role — both of which are significant — is something I plan on doing at another time.
I do think that Pakistanis should not downplay the growing political power of the mullah. Even a PPP idealist, at this moment, cannot deny that MMA is going to win 90% of NWFP and Balochistan. That won’t lead to a majority in the Assembly but it does show that those who want to play the political islam game within the democratic process are here to stay. And, one of the ways to undermine their influence — isn’t that the goal? — is to show their base that “soft” Islamism does exist which isn’t dominance oriented, and it is not less Islamic.
Finally, the Sufism thing is Imran’s own words, not mine. He said it in an interview on Islamica magazine.
Comment by Ali Eteraz — November 2, 2007 @ 5:17 am
Khalid: I am in complete agreement with you- no I will not desert you -:)
Cubano: thanks for such a thoughtful comment. I am thinkin about it and will get back to you - this is the treachery of orientalism - it sort of gets under skin and we often don’t recognize it..
Irving: thanks for visiting.
Ali E: I am gald that you wrote and clarified many points. I look forward to your other posts and please send them to Jahane Rumi. Your insights even when we don’t agree, are most enjoyable to read..
Comment by RR — November 2, 2007 @ 7:12 am
Ali, thanks for the response.
I do not mean to ‘analyse’ your piece since, as I have already said, I thought it was a good piece of writing and doesn’t deserve that-and besides, doing so would be bad form.
Still, since Raza has introduced this as a debate I do want to take up a point or two, if you don’t mind?
“practicing Muslims go towards addressing some of their most pressing problems while still affirming Islam.”
This begs the question: are supporters of the mainstream political parties not practicing muslims?
Secondly, the idea that only the Islamists oppose dictators is patently not the case in Pakistan. In fact, I tend to agree with Khaled Ahmed: the Islamists are actually a by-product of army interventions.
Thirdly, I don’t think there is a “universal consensus” (apologies if I’m misreading you). Certainly this is an increasingly popular stance: it’s all the fault of the West/the Jews and so on and so forth. But I think the inherently cynical bastards (Lahoris) would say that it takes two hands to clap: a lot of people here realise that we are partly to blame for the situation ourselves. What you say is the consensus is, to my mind at least, a disturbing victim mentality.
Comment by billo — November 2, 2007 @ 12:59 pm
You are more than welcome to analyze the pieces. I’m no one special.
Re: practicing Muslims; you’re right, its a vague term. It could be devout, but even that is vague. I wanted to use a term that would convey the idea of being “Islamocentric” even in politics, and couldn’t come up with one, so I used practicing Muslims because I was writing to an audience which usually conflates being “practicing” with having a political agenda. I of course am aware that this is not a universal (as you point out). When I revise and edit the series to put on my website, I will take your point into consideration, as its valid.
Other than that, I am a Lahori so I’m actually quite a cynic, which is why I find the assertions that I’m an idealist so amusing. A close reading of my series will reveal that it could only have been written by a secular cynic.
Comment by Ali Eteraz — November 2, 2007 @ 6:31 pm
Raza, I hope you don’t mind if I go off on a tangent here…
Ali, just read your illuminating piece on the Enlightenment(highly recommended to all here).
I like what you say about the dangers of individual interpretation-what else is bin.L but a sort of virtualist, detached from the community and communal understandings (Gibbon would say that this invariably leads to ‘folly’). btw, Levinas’ ‘Jewish Revelation’ is brilliant on this.
Of course, the I/We (or I/other) relation is a fundamentally important one -both at the religious and political level. What was the 20th century but an emphasis on this “/”?
But here’s a line from Kant that Hannah was very fond of:
Company is indispensable for the thinker.
—–Reflexionen zur Anthropolgie, Kant.
And I think the Russians would reformulate the cogito to: ‘we are, therefore I think’.
A double inversion. ‘I’ *emerges* from existence, and that existence is the recognition of others: Volo ut sis…
Ali, if you haven’t read it already, could I recommend Fergus Kerr’s ‘Theology after Wittgenstein’?
Salaams,
K.
Comment by billo — November 3, 2007 @ 2:58 am