|
The following is the
second
chapter of the book by
David Bukay, Total
Terrorism in the Name of Allah: The Emergence of the New Islamic
Fundamentalists, ACPR Publishers, 2001. The first chapter can be seen in
issue no. 5 of NATIV Online. |
Total Terrorism in
the Name of Allah:
The Emergence of
the New Islamic Fundamentalists
David Bukay
PART II
Islamic Fundamentalism – Its Causes and Meanings
The Middle East has the dubious honor of
being the principal source of states that support international terrorism.
Five out of seven of the states are defined as such by the American
administration – Iran, Iraq, Libya, the Sudan, and Syria. Two of the other states
are Cuba and North Korea. But a more up-to-date list must include three
additional states, which are located on the periphery of the Middle East:
Afghanistan, Somalia, and Saudi Arabia, that support many Islamic movements,
from the Balkans to Philippines. Moreover, 22 out of 41 terrorist
organizations that are described by the United States are from the Middle
East. Most of the organizations are of the Islamic fundamentalist model.70
Lewis draws our attention to the fact
that Islam is still the strongest, most influential battle cry, and people are
ready to kill and be killed for the religion, more than for any other cause.
Even when religious faith has died, the loyalty to Allah remains. And if the
loyalty to Allah weakens, the basic Arab-Muslim identity remains beneath the
superficial wrapping of values and ideologies.71
In this context, Smith, a researcher of Islam, claimed that despite the Muslim
intellectuals holding Islam in esteem in history, as they do Allah, and even
instead of Him,72 the significance is not
only deep faith, but fixated fanaticism that is also profoundly connected with
the anarchistic and violent Arab character.
Two contrasting trends have stood out in
the conduct of Islam in the 20th century. On
one hand, they have made it possible for the Arab regimes, in combination with
petro-dollar power, to have the capability to act in the international system
with maximal intensity in order to advance their national goals. On the other
hand, they have given birth to “the Return of Islam” as an apparently
apologetic movement, yet aggressive in essence. The Muslim victory is
expressed through the Muslims’ great influence in international organizations.
Muslims live in large concentrations in nearly a hundred states, and 56 states
are members of the Organization of Islamic States. This is the background to
the demanding behavior of the Muslims, and, more specifically, of the Arabs
and Palestinians. At the Durban Conference for example, the Arabs, with the
backing of the Islamic states, pushed aside the world issues of racism, the
struggle for equality, and the world economic gaps. They left aside all the
poor and the wretched of the earth, without consideration, and placed in focus
“the solution to the Palestine Question”. As if the world did not have other
nationality issues to worry about,73 and as
if there were no refugees,74 nor poverty nor
wretchedness, except among the Palestinians.
Saudi Arabia serves as a striking
example. It is an important international actor and may lead in financing
terrorist organizations, in consequence of its desire to buy quiet:
petro-dollar payments as a political whore’s fee for maintaining the sultanist
regime. Saudi Arabia is one of the important factors in helping and financing
Islamic terrorism, in order to lower the pressures on the regime. With Saudi
support and sponsorship, a state with a violent regime, like Syria, which
supports and aids international terrorism, can be a member of the UN Security
Council. And the Sudan and Yemen, grim regimes in regard to human rights, can
be members of the United Nations Human Rights Commission.75
The failure in confronting the West
explains the rise of the Return to Islam movement as a movement urban in
essence and characteristics, which was exposed to processes of modernization,
its members belonging to the educated middle class, which protested that the
West did not have anything to offer to Arab-Muslim society. When national
honor, self-image, and social identity had been wounded, the educated public
found an outlet in Islam. It was a solid, known anchor in a society whose
world order was threatening to change. The penetration of the infidel West
aroused rancor and sharp reaction, precisely among those who came in direct
contact with it, among those who had experienced modernity and education,
among members of the middle class. Modernity was perceived as the mother of
all sin; its permissiveness and materialism were a disaster. However, the
greatest sin of the West was to have placed man and the rule of reason at the
center, instead of submission and absolute devotion to Allah (which is the
literal meaning of Islam). The outcome was that the impulse to act for drastic
change was as large as the dissonance between the believer’s world outlook and
reality.
Lewis describes an event in Syria, on
April 25, 1967, when the Syrian army newspaper, Jaysh al-Sha`ab
(“People’s Army”), published an article by a second lieutenant in the army,
Ibrahim Khallas, who claimed that the only way to build an Arab society was to
create a new Arab socialist man who believed that Allah and religion, and all
the values of Arab society were nothing but mummies in the museum of history.
There was one single value: Absolute faith in Man, who shaped his own fate and
relied on himself and on his contribution to mankind. The result was
astonishing. All Syria rose up and violent riots broke out, gigantic in their
scope. An attack on Allah and religion in an official publication had crossed
the limits of consensus. In view of the violence, the Syrian government was
forced to announce in the al-Thawra newspaper that the regime respected
religion. The editor of the newspaper and the author of the article were
sentenced to life in prison.76
The Khomeiniite revolution in Iran in
February 1979 became the watershed for the significance of Islamic
fundamentalism. Indeed, it was more a revolution for Shi`ites alone,
but the success created a wave of euphoria, a deep feeling of pride, and a
strong incentive for activity throughout the Muslim world. It created a model
for the triumphant actions of revolutionary Islam, and it was striking proof
of the potential for Islamic success. Nevertheless, there is an argument that
the influence of the Khomeini revolution in Iran on the growth of
fundamentalist Islam was limited.77 Likewise
was the influence of the uprising by 300 fanatics on July 20, 1979, who seized
the Great Mosque of the Ka`aba and held out there for two weeks. Except for 22
men, the majority were Saudis by origin. Thus they exposed the great weakness
of the regime, which was almost toppled.78
The 1980s experienced intensive,
revolutionary Islamic activism in most Arab states, but at the end of the
process, the Arab regimes succeeded in curbing the Islamist offensive and
pushing them back to the periphery. Then, the Islamic victory in Afghanistan
over the Soviet Union and the overthrow of the Communist regime there put the
issue of Islamic fundamentalism back onto the agenda and served as crushing
proof that Islam could defeat the infidels by the force of enthusiasm and
religious faith. The mobilization of funds and volunteers for the struggle
throughout the Muslim world aroused powerful Islamic feelings even in the
countries of Southeast Asia because this was solid proof that Allah was with
Islam. And Islam was winning because it was right.79
Added to this was the sharp popular reaction in all the Arab states during the
Gulf War in support of Saddam Hussein and against joining the Western
coalition. This episode undermined the legitimacy of the secular regimes, and
intensified the feelings of hostility to the West, the infidel aggressor. The
feeling was of a fateful battle over the future of Islam.80
The fall of the Soviet Union and the rise of “a new world order” in the
international system were perceived in Islam as a historic opportunity to
seize its proper place in the world.
The Islamic fundamentalist feelings were
reinforced with the rise of the military regime in the Sudan in June 1989, in
a coalition with the radical Islamist movement led by Hasan al-Turabi, and the
victory of the Islamist movement in Algeria in the elections of 1991. These
events demonstrated the continuing trend that Islam was winning and that the
future was on its side. And they expressed the popularity of the Islamist
movement and their political message in the Arab states, when the regimes
allowed them to act. The latest sign that Islam was on the right road came
with the victory of the Taliban movement in Afghanistan on September
26, 1996.
Islamic fundamentalism began to mold the
political landscape of contemporary Arab and Islamic society under the slogan:
“Islam is the solution.”81
A Typology for Understanding the Fundamentalist Phenomenon
Dekmejian’s Model.82
This is one of the most outstanding, most quoted studies on the contemporary
Islamic revival. Dekmejian found that it had three traits: First, wide
distribution, almost in every country, as a local reaction to national
conditions of crisis; second, polycentrism, that is, it was local in every
state and did not have an overall leader or central directing and operating
organization; third, great and high consistency in time and activity,
throughout the whole 20th century. The
conceptual framework includes crises of identity, legitimacy, and culture, and
a failing government and military weakness.
Dekmejian found eleven dialectal,
reciprocal relationships: Secularism vs. Islamism; Islamic Modernism vs.
Islamic Conservatism; Establishment Islam vs. Fundamentalist Islam; Ruling
Elites vs. Islamist Militants; Economic Elites vs. Islamic Radicals; Ethnic
Nationalism vs. Islamic Unity; Sufism vs. Islamism; Traditional Islam vs.
Fundamentalist Islam; Religious Revivalism vs. Political Islamism; Gradualist
Islam vs. Revolutionary Islam; Dar al-Islam vs. Dar al-harb.
There is a high statistical correlation
between a small group, a high degree of militancy, a covert status, and
charismatic leadership. On the other side, there is a high statistical
correlation between a large group, low militancy, overt status, length of life
and bureaucratic leadership. Meanwhile, the reaction of regimes is measured
along two dimensions, Islamism vs. Secularism and Radicalism vs. Social
Conservatism. Thus, the fundamentalist movements gathered spiritual and
socio-economic strength, while two conditions were fulfilled: the appearance
of a charismatic leader attractive to the masses, and a society mired in a
profound crisis. On the basis of behavioral science theories, Dekmejian
assembled the personality of the radical Islamist true believer. He argued
that the Western attempt to place Islamic fundamentalism under the rubric of
“fanaticism”, was dysfunctional for balanced, unemotional analysis of the
phenomenon.
Ayyubi’s Model.83
He outlined the various forms of Islamic activism that is expressed in a deep
commitment to the religious cause, in three types:
Salafiyyah Movements whose
Sunni members were radicals intolerant of other groups, and believing in
parameters that were set by the Prophet and the sahabah; Fundamentalists
who supported with rigid devotion the early sources of Islam, who had a
comprehensive, global world outlook, the components of which were religion,
state, and world (din, dawlah, wadunyah) – supporters of
collective action to set up an Islamic state on the basis of the ummah;
and New Fundamentalists who broke away from the ranks of the
fundamentalists after they became more militant in their activity and more
radical in their faith. They express activism through terrorist activity
against the existing political and social order, and through molding the
correct Islamic society. In their harsh intellectual dogmatism they place holy
war (jihad) and the sovereignty of Allah (hakmiyah) at the focus
of recommended Islamic activity through devotion to the shari`ah.
Guazzone’s Model.84
She claims that it is necessary to distinguish between Islamism as a political
movement and Islam as a religion and a general culture. Islamism as an
ideological movement originated in the last third of the 20th
century, when it sprouted and spread as a result of social, cultural,
political, and economic causes, but it is nourished by two sources: the
cultural contrast that exist in the Arab world in its approach to modernity;
and the crisis of legitimacy of the political systems that grew up after
achieving independence. In addition, intensive demographic growth, without any
economic growth to match, intensified the influences favoring the growth of
radical movements and accentuated the threats to the West. The processes of
cultural modernization remained partial and problematic, and the attempts by
Muslim reformists to create a synthesis that would make possible the growth of
a liberal Islamic current focusing on human logic, did not succeed.
Nevertheless, the Islamic movements are the most outstanding, most significant
authentic current in Arab politics.
Roy’s Model.85
This concept claims that there exist three groups among the fundamentalist
movements, those who support the victory of Islam through activity from
“below”, through the masses and within the fields of education and culture,
while broadly using the mystic and Sufi ingredients, such as the Muslim
Brotherhood in Egypt; those who support participation in the existing
political system, stressing activist action, and adopting Marxist patterns
(such as in the Sudan, Tunisia, and Yemen); and those who support the use of
violent means to attain power (the Gama`ah and Jihad in Egypt or
the Armed Islamic Group and Armed Islamic Movement in Algeria).
Factors in the Growth of Fundamentalist Islam
The many studies in the field, which have
been carried out over the last two decades, refer to a number of dimensions:
First, a reaction to Western penetration, and intense rancor toward its
presence and influence on Arab politics. It is expressed precisely among the
city dwellers, those who came more in direct contact with the West, and
precisely among the educated middle class, those who experienced modernity and
technology. This reality has created a sharp resentment towards the West; at
the start there was an economic takeover, and afterwards a
military-territorial takeover. And when the Arab states had succeeded in
freeing themselves from this trauma, the attempt at cultural takeover turned
up. This was the worst of all. Hence, the phenomenon of Return to Islam is an
essentially urban movement which has not freed itself from the bonds of
traditionalism and protests that the West has nothing to offer to the values
of Islamic society.
Secondly, the failure of the secular
political alternative. The authoritarian regimes and the patrimonial
leadership remained repressive, alienated and lacking the capacity for
political participation or influence on the patterns and outputs of power. On
one hand, they acted through essentially Western institutions and values. On
the other hand, they did not allow liberalization or freedoms. Above all,
modernity is the mother of all evil, the basis for permissiveness, for
materialism, for alienation, and for placing man and the rule of reason at the
center, instead of submission and absolute devotion to Allah.
Thirdly, we ought to add to the political
failure of the Arab regimes the collapse of Arab ideologies; not only
nationalism, socialism, and Communism, but also Nasserism, Arab Unity, and the
inability to solve “the Palestine Question”. Added to these were quick changes
that Arab society had passed through without any social, economic or
educational infrastructure, “the lumpen proletariat” that had been created as
a result of rapid, unplanned urbanization and had accentuated the mass
unemployment and the lack of professional jobs. For the lack of “urban
values”, an unnatural society developed that was based on traditional thought,
despite life in the city. Finally, the challenges of Western technology and
the global village threatened the underpinnings of Islamic culture and
education.
The outcome of these processes was that
sharp dissonance developed between the world outlook of the Muslim believer
and the reality that revealed itself to his eyes. The acute frustration
increased the impulse to act drastically for change in this intolerable
situation, even through aggressive means. The cultural conflict of values
served as a powerful catalyst for return to the world of familiar Islamic
values as a saving anchor in a stormy sea.
While these aspects explain the
phenomenon and the factors in its growth, we argue that sober analysis will
enable more focusing on the context of identity crises and legitimacy,86
personal and collective, which derived from the activity of a failed ruling
elite. The fundamentalist Islamic reaction was the direct outcome of political
and cultural crises, which deeply influenced traditional society. The
repressive and humiliating colonial encounter with the military and economic
takeover by the West on Arab-Muslim soil, and the implanting of the state and
the system of political institutions, were the most difficult challenge in the
history of Islam. A practical ideology, which would supply a platform for
nation-building, lay a foundation for socio-economic development, and make
possible political participation, did not exist. The elite failed in creating
a new political order, the Western ideologies failed, and the military defeats
at Israel’s hands, “an aggressive spring board” left behind by the West, were
an incentive for destructive psychological influence on Arab society. The
defeat in the 1967 war illustrated in the collective consciousness the
political emptiness; and the few processes of reform by the regimes were
perceived as an artificial implant that increased dependency on the West. The
West’s goal was secularism, materialism, and spiritual bankruptcy. In these
circumstances, the Arab-Muslim reality shows that at a time of crises and
trauma, the alternative takes shape as the Return to Islam.
Arab society after attaining national
independence expressed itself in acute social alienation; huge gaps between a
small minority of the rich and the poor masses; and lack of normalcy related
to the lack of security of existence and to social anomie. Everything was not
understood and was complex: the state, the national institutions, the
political frameworks, were unfamiliar, imported, the creation of the hated
West, and without any cultural connection to the values and conceptions of the
Arab-Muslim political system. The lack of institutionalized legitimacy of the
government, while legitimacy belongs to the leadership alone, and sovereignty
and citizenship do not exist in practice,87
created a reality of a fluid political system, without responsibility, which
was expressed in political degeneration.88
The Islamic societies remained for the
most part village-based and traditional. Hence, they had a high religious
consciousness. Processes of urbanization were not the result of
industrialization, but were a flight from the impoverished periphery. Most of
the Islamic world was in a pre-industrial stage, while it was partially still
in the feudal age. In these stages, religion had broad influence on the
population. Moreover, Islam had not eliminated ethnic-cultural splits and
divisions, and nationalism took root intensely. Therefore, fragmentation
deepened even further. The ideal of creating a unified Islamic nation, and
even one Arab nation on a qawmi basis remained more elusive than ever.
Processes of demographic growth on a huge, uncontrolled scope and creation of
a “lumpen proletariat” were destructive in their influence, principally in
light of the incapacity of the regimes to assure services to the population.
The result was the crushing of traditional social frameworks, the sharpening
of social gaps, and the accelerated frustration of an anomic, alienated
society.
These phenomena had important
implications in regard to feelings of collective and individual identity, and
in focusing on systems of faith, values, and loyalty. Therefore, they had
implications for conduct towards the international system. Parochial interests
as well as dynastic interests shaped the attitudes of the Islamic states, and
prevented development of a unified political entity with demands for its own
status and active role in the international system. In contrast, the Western
states succeeded much more in their efforts at integration and unification.
Choueiri treats the phenomenon of the Return to Islam as a direct reaction to
the growth of the nation state in Muslim countries, and to the unique problems
that it caused in these states. Radicalism is an urban reaction of social
groups in processes of development, which have lost their known ideological
foundations, and were now in confrontation with threatening environments. The
Islamic movements express a vehement effort that is combined with a determined
stance to contend with a reality that is perceived as deviant and infidel, and
to defeat it.89
The Arab and Islamic states are non-state
societies, decentralized and anarchic in character. They emphasize three
dimensions: first, the phenomenon of legitimacy does not exist, and
sovereignty is in the hands of the rulers, while the main political activity
occurs through coercion by force. Secondly, the decision-making processes and
their enforcement are not executed in the political system under the influence
of interest and pressure groups or in the functioning of functional
sub-systems. Thirdly, citizens do not have sovereignty, rather the people are
subjects with a parochial political culture
who do not view themselves, nor are they
viewed, as having an opinion or influence on the political system and
procedures of administration. Indeed, the Arab state is strong in regard to
all the internal systems within it, but it is weak as a functioning
organizational framework.
This reality has brought two social
groups – the intellectuals and the religious functionaries – on one hand, and
the masses on the other, to feelings of heavy despair and absolute chaos
because modern political reality is failing and totally lacks hope, and
because the Arab regimes are powerless and corrupt. The right way is a return
to the sources, to the wellspring of Islamic life, which alone can serve as an
saving anchor, known and just. The combination of a frustrated intellectual
and religious minority – the force that shouts and leads – and the
impoverished masses, the power of numbers of the force that is led, this
combination is the basis for the rise of the Islamic movements and the
persistence of their presence. In these circumstances, the return home to
Islam was a saving anchor that furnished the population with feelings of
belonging and self-worth.
The Islamic movements negate
ideologically the existing political system, the territorial state and its
institutions, if only because it is the creature of Western imperialism. But
in practice, the Islamic state operates according to the existing political
demarcation lines, and the Iranian experience has shown that an overall change
or revolution in the political frameworks is not involved. The objectives have
remained state-political within the existing frameworks and in the regular,
known patterns of action. The Sudan too lacks signs of change in the structure
of the existing state in the Islamic direction, because, among other things,
it is not at all clear what an Islamic structure is.90
If so, radical Islam does not necessarily constitute a threat to the existence
of states on the Western pattern.
The crises of identity express themselves
in basic phenomena too, such as “Is there a Middle East?” and “Where is the
Middle East?” The name expresses the identity crises more than anything else,
since, after all, the Middle East is the only region in the world that has a
unique name, Eurocentric in origin, which is not connected to the name of a
continent. It is precisely the leaders of the Middle Eastern states – who have
a sense of honor – who after the trauma should have totally rejected the name,
which expresses colonialist conquest and supremacy. The region ought to be
known as Western Asia and North Africa. Moreover, there is also the identity
crisis of “Who Is an Arab?” Originally, it was the Bedouin of the
Arabian Peninsula who lived in a tribal setting. This is also the approach of
Ibn-Khaldun (1332-1406).91 When the Arabs
accepted Islam as a religion and way of life, and transformed themselves,
after the territorial expansion of the conquests, into sedentary inhabitants
of villages, the issue became more acute. The approach to formal definition of
“Who Is an Arab?” touches several dimensions: Those who were born on Arab
soil; speakers of the Arabic language as their official language; who grew up
in Arab culture; and who cultivate the splendid Arab past. Similar definitions
were given by most of the intellectuals and several parties, but any
examination will clearly show that each one of these dimensions and all of
them together are problematic for the matter of defining “Who Is an Arab?”
The problem of Arab identity has remained
unresolved. The dimensions were expressed recently on the issue of Arab
nationalism. Does it belong to the category of watani, that is, the
unique patriotism of every Arab state? Or does it have to do with the category
of qawmi, that is, Pan-Arabism? According to the ideal conception, the
existing division of Arab states and the borders that separate them are
temporary and artificial. After all, all Arabs are brothers, sons of the great
Arab nation, and this is also their destiny. But reality is totally different
from the ideal. Not only is there no unity among the Arab states but a
situation of Arab cold war prevails (in Nasser’s time), Arab detente (in
Sadat’s time), and Arabs against Arabs in the name of opposed state interests
(during the Gulf War).
The practical expression of the identity
crises was on two central issues: Arab Unity (al-Wahdah al-`Arabiyyah),
the operational meaning of which was to be liberated from the remnants of
Western imperialism which were expressed in the division of the Arab states;
and “the solution of the Palestine Problem” (hall qadiyat Filastin),
which meant liberation of the Arab homeland from the yoke of Zionist
occupation that prevented realization of Arabism (`Urubah). Over most
of the 20th century, great confusion
prevailed in the Arab states between an ordinary foreign policy, in accord
with interests, with the surroundings, and with the leaders’ perception of the
world, and a foreign policy unique to the Arabs, which required them to act
together, for the sake of values that did not necessarily command trust or
consensus. The basic question was: What is the goal? Pan-Islamism in the sense
of “Muslims of the world – Unite.” Or pan-Arabism in the sense of “Arabs of
all countries – Unite.” Or independent Arab states with specific interests?
However, here perhaps more than in any other field, the failures of the Arab
regimes caused the decline of Arab nationalism, and the political discourse
became shallow, without direction or trend, but clearly moving towards states
with interests of the watani kind, without a balancing force.
In these circumstances, the Islamist
movements reached a clear, resolute conclusion: It was necessary to go back to
the sources, to the pure, correct Islam. For Islam had solutions to all sorts
of distress and need, and principally to the conflicts of culture and the
crises of identity of Arab society. All social troubles and personal distress
derived from one cause: Neglect of the right Islamic path in conformity with
the shari`ah. There is no chance of attaining Arab unity or a solution
of the Palestine Question without overthrowing the secular Arab regimes
beforehand. The secular Arab leaders, in their emptiness and deviation from
Islamic values, had created the Zionist state, and defined the goal
mistakenly; it was not Arabism but Islamism, not secularism but life in accord
with religious values which contained everything and was the solution to all
distress (al-Islam huwa al-hall). Instead of a secular state, the
pan-Islamic framework was offered under the law of the shari`ah.92
Deprivation and socio-economic neediness, researchers claim, lead not only to
aggression and violence, but also to religious commitments, to a return to the
religious sources.93 The problem is that in
contrast to the concept of Voll, who claims that the vocabulary of radical
Islamism expresses renewal (tajdid) and reform (islah),94
the movement is much more extremist in its character, in its definition of
goals, and in its activity, as we will explain below.
Secularism is perceived as the harshest
threat to the traditional society, which originated in Islam. This is the
reason why so many researchers do not understand that secularism and Islam
cannot live side by side. Islam is a permanent opponent to the process of
secularization as a part of modernization in all political regimes and
throughout history. Islam is both religion and state (din wa-dawlah).
It exists as an all-embracing system of faith, in the setting of the desirable
and aspired to Islamic order (al-nizam al-Islami).95
Hunter too claims that on the level civilizations, the problem is not between
Islam and Western liberalism, but between faith and secularism. These
phenomena are in direct contradiction, without any capacity for compromise or
coexistence.96 The Islamic modernist
approach, which sought to combine Islamic values with modern Western values,
only added oil to the furnace of frustration, and exacerbated the crises of
identity and tension arising from the cultural gaps. This is also the position
of Sharabi: that the Islamic revival is opposed to modernism.97
Finally, Esposito dealt at length with
the factors of growth of fundamentalist Islam, and claims that their source
lies in crises of identity and ideology, and that they constitute a supreme
expression of disappointment with the West that is accompanied by feelings of
pride and superiority.98 Analysis of the
processes of Islamic history, that expressed sorrow and a sense of oblivion in
view of inferiority facing the West, brought him to the conclusion that these
had ignited the Islamic revival.99 However,
he warns the West not to see the Return to Islam as a threat to its interests
and its presence in the region. In his opinion, a correct policy on the part
of the West would clearly prove that it is possible to advance mutual
relations. Islamism does not necessarily negate modernization, and the use of
Western technology, but it is a reaction to modernity, to the adoption of
Western values. Modernity directly threatens Islamic identity and culture.
From their point of view, the only way to defend themselves against the
Western cultural offensive is Islamism.100
The anti-Western feelings do not derive
from the distant historic past, nor from the Crusader age. Rather they are a
result of colonial domination, the physical occupation, and the economic
hegemony in the 20th century, which caused
Islamic society to fail to develop, and the injury to its heritage and
culture. Colonialism brought into the world the secular Arab states,
demarcated artificial borders for them, and prevented consolidation of the
Islamic community.
Lewis and Pipes argue that Islamist
anti-Westernism derives from a deep sense of humiliation in the proud
consciousness of the heirs of a civilization hegemonic in the past, which has
been subdued by those whom it considered inferior. The more that Western
culture became attractive, the more that fundamentalist hostility increased
and the more the desire to fight Western culture grew.101
However, we propose making a revision in this approach. We believe that the
crisis that Lewis and Pipes are pointing to fits more precisely the possible
reactions of the existing Arab regimes, precisely the feelings of the secular
leaders who are caught up in the profound dissonance of a crisis of
expectations. Yet, it is doubtful whether this is true concerning the
activists and leaders of fundamentalist Islam. There exist proofs that real
resentment and disgust with Western culture and its dangers, rather than with
Western domination, are the outstanding characteristic. Not Western politics,
but precisely cultural hegemony, the continuation of the Western presence, and
the threat to Islamic society, are what mold the Islamist conception and
Islamist conduct.
External crises were added to these
internal identity crises. The former had essential influence in strengthening
these trends. Many researchers point to the Arab defeat by Israel in the 1967
war, as an outstanding watershed, like the establishment of the State of
Israel as a result of the 1948 war. The failure to “solve the Palestine
Question” created waves of feelings of fear and hatred of Israeli power and
proved the emptiness of the Arab regimes. The Muslims externalize immense rage
and great hatred for the West which implanted Israel here, in order to
continue to perpetuate Islamic weakness and division. Israel is identified
with and expresses the conspiratorial plot against Islam. The struggle for
Palestine is a battle for Muslim honor and Arab soil.102
From the beginning of the 1970s, a
depreciation has taken place in the political legitimacy of most Arab regimes,
parallel to a decline in the credibility of the secular Arab regimes. Nasser’s
death on September 28, 1970, caused a sharp decline in Pan-Arab sentiment, as
well as a search for ideological successes.103
The Arabs’ feelings of inferiority which developed after the victory of the
infidel West, crystallized after the Western conquest of Arab lands, and were
reinforced after the “implantation” of the State of Israel by the West as well
as by Israel’s triumphs, causing acute phenomena which intensified the Arabs’
identity crises. In these circumstances, the Arabs customarily put their ears
to the ground in search of the sounds of ancient drumbeats that call them to
return to the golden age.
The struggle against Western imperialism
for national liberation has been a deep trauma. Historically, the typical
pattern has been economic takeover and afterwards political-territorial
takeover.104 These two, the economy and the
politics, go together in the threats which the Arabs perceive of as Western
hegemonism. And these are exactly the tools which Israel used, according to
them, although in reverse order: first territorial takeover and expansion of
its territory, and then when the Arab states had succeeded in contending with
and limiting the phenomenon,105 Israel sought
to subject them economically. Ignorance of this Arab understanding causes
Israeli politicians, who live in a Western-European culture, to continue their
march of folly, acting in the economic field as if it were the basis for peace
arrangements. Moreover, they have not learned that even among the Arab states
themselves, there are no peaceful relations. What there is are cold war and
armistice, which are expressed in sharp verbal hostility. And on top of all
this, there are no operational economic cooperation agreements, and the rich
oil states do not help the poor Arab states.
The Arab failure in the war in 1948 and
the establishment of the State of Israel, as a symbol of the Western
imperialist presence, had their preliminary influence in military putsches in
the major Arab states. But these had deeper waves of influence in the
functioning of the regimes and in the trust placed in them. In this sense, in
the Arabs’ perception, on the ideological level, Israel was absolutely
illegitimate and worthy of destruction, not only after its establishment as a
Jewish state, not only in view of its location in the heart of the Arab
nation, not only on account of its aggressive, expansionist activity, but
because it embodied the aggression and disease of Western conquest. In the
values and ideological conceptions of Arab society over the generations and in
its various states, there is no Jewish people, nor can there be a Jewish
state, certainly not on Arab land. There is only a Jewish religion. The Jews
are members of the Mosaic faith and are known in Arab history as “protected
people” (ahl al-dhimma). Israel represents the West, which set it up
and fostered it, in order for it to serve as a springboard for a Western
return. The hatred for Israel is first of all hatred for the infidel
imperialist West.
The collapse of the Soviet Union and the
wreck of the Communist gospel, and the failure of Arab socialism in the
Eastern European manner, together with the rise of globalization as a basis
for the new world order, caused an acute ideological crisis which was
accompanied by the decline of pan-Arab nationalism of the qawmi type.
This reality of the decline of the three secular ideologies and the rise of
the globalist ideology which threatened to sweep away the most basic values
that remained of the tradition, reinforced the demands for the Islamic
approach to action, through the magic formula known and cherished among the
masses: Islam is the solution (al-Islam huwa al-hal).
Characteristics of Islamic Fundamentalism
The Islamic movements represent various
trends, varied plans of action, and different views as to the means of
attaining their goals. It has to do with complex, many-faceted movements which
act indeed mainly in the internal political system, but have a clear link to
external systems as well: regional (influence and mutual linkage among
movements and states), and international (sources of funding and activity).
They play a central role in shaping the system of relations and conflicts in
Arab politics, on the levels of government and opposition. They contain groups
that are under revolutionary messianic rule, as in Iran; under closed,
conservative rule like Saudi Arabia; or under a coalition of a military
regime, like the Sudan. At the same time, we find them in violent opposition
to the government, as in Egypt, Algeria, Syria and Tunisia, under harsh
repression like the Shi`ite movements in Iraq; and in agreed
partnership with the government as in Jordan (moreover, there are radical
movements there in the bin-Laden style, which the state suppresses harshly).
There are among them movements with
essential religious differences, and a division between Sunnism and
Shi`ism. We find variegated Islamist movements which are active even in
those states which suppress them: violent revolutionary movements aiming to
topple the existing regimes without restraints and by any means, together with
relatively moderate movements which are typically active mainly in the
social-economic field. They are active against moderate and radical regimes,
against military regimes and monarchies, and are active in both wealthy and
poor societies. That is, it can absolutely not be considered a monolithic
movement.
From a social and class standpoint, the
Islamic movements are deeply rooted in most layers of society. On the
leadership echelons, they are based principally on professional associations,
of the educated urban middle class (engineers, physicians, lawyers, teachers).
Arab civil society is Islamic in significance, and in the limited processes of
political activity, the voice of the Islamic movements is the clearest and the
most widely received. It is not only political but also a significant social
force of the educated, radical generation who have academic education in
fields of the exact sciences and natural sciences, who originated in the
middle strata of urban society. And they make intensive, sophisticated use of
the communications media. Most of them have Internet sites which detail their
ideology, their writings are disseminated among the public through cassettes,
compact discs, and diskettes, and their writings are laced through with modern
expressions, which reflect expert familiarity with the life of this world.
They use every modern, sophisticated means in order to attract prospects to
their dingy world.
Not only is there no uniform pattern in
the mode of operation of the Islamic movements, but one may discern a set of
attitudes along the axis of time. In the 1930s and 1940s, in the age of the
struggle to achieve national independence, they were not an opposition to the
political system, and focused on educational and social activities. In the
1950s and 1960s, in the age of Pan-Arabism and the Arab Cold War, a shift
toward the extreme took place in the attitude of fundamentalist movements
toward the military regimes in the Arab states, on account of their avowed
secularism, and the harsh repression which they deployed. The shift to the
extreme took on the form of a violent struggle, including terrorism and
political murders, in order to overthrow regimes. In the 1970s and 1980s, in
the age of Arab detente, a wide shift to the extreme took place in activity,
as a consequence of the Islamist victory in Iran; the struggle to overthrow
the Ba`ath regime in Syria; the challenge to the weak regime in Saudi
Arabia; the move to the extreme in militant activity in Egypt; and the
focusing on the struggle in Afghanistan against the USSR. The 1990s expressed
the rise in the new Islamic terrorism. One way or the other, from the middle
of the 1980s until the middle of the 1990s, there was a parliamentary
experiment with participation in elections, which was suppressed with an iron
hand.
It is conventional to argue that the
activism and militancy of the fundamentalist movements are phenomena defensive
in nature, that they are fighting a holding action against threatening
Westernism and that they attest to a profound crisis, combining cultural
protest with political protest. The outstanding researcher in this trend is
Emanuel Sivan.106 However, we argue that this
approach is not necessarily correct. We ought to remember that the Arab
culture-based behavior pattern, as analyzed in the first chapter, is an
externalization and an angry response towards any factor that wounds one’s
honor and causes shame, and it is summarized in the assertion: “I have a
problem – You are guilty.” The issue on the agenda is not one of defensiveness
and distress, but an attempt to contend with a hostile reality that creates
dissonance by contrasting with the Islamic sense of cultural superiority. It
is usage of a practical strategy, known and conventional, that has proven
successful in the past, and is giving signs in the present of being supported.
The central focus is restoration of past glory in light of acquaintance with
the vanities of this world, and the demand is forceful, vociferous, and
possessing a clear message. In this sense, fundamentalism does not express
passivity, but is a general offensive to impose religious values by force,
while giving Islamic answers to the illnesses of modern society. There is no
fighting a holding action or rearguard battle. The Islamist movements do not
have the feeling of failure or defensiveness in their actions. Rather their
actions are an offensive effort to restore the Islamic order. Technology and
science bring about alienation and amorphousness, and the clear response is
setting up an Islamic state.
At the focus of the concept lies a
diagnosis that Islam is in concrete existential danger. In the past, this was
on account of the Western colonialist occupation and its economic hegemonism.
Today, however, the danger derives from other sources of Western aggression –
the cultural invasion, the tempting magic of the modern secular way of life
that poisons the youth. Processes of cultural decline are fed by Arab secular
regimes that serve as agents for spreading the Western poison. This is the new
jahiliyyah that represents a real, immanent danger for Islamic
existence. And a violent struggle is required to liquidate the phenomenon.
Hence, the planes of action are in the cultural, socio-economic, and political
fields through preparing minds, while pointing the way to the correct Islamic
way of life: censorship of television programs, the movies, and the press,
modest dress for women and a prohibition on hard drink; establishing an array
of communal institutions which furnish welfare, health, and religious
educational services, and extensive work on the campuses; setting up banks and
investment companies in conformity with Islamic rules of economics, without
collecting interest; and pressures to advance processes of political reform
while bringing religion back to the foci of governmental activity.
Finally, the radical-messianic agitation
rises up from the stormy masses, from an ambitious leadership. The masses of
the people are caught up in social and economic distress, but their distress
is mainly cultural. The agitation does not come from above, from an ambitious
leadership. The phenomenon of the global village and the decline of national
motifs have brought about a vacuum in traditional societies, into which
fanatic religiosity has been drawn. This reality has been transformed into a
cultural holding action against modernity, led by educated urban youth. From
their viewpoint, this is the front of existential action against the state and
the illegitimate regimes that have not withstood the crises of rising
expectations and have caused total alienation and feelings of oblivion and
anomie. Fundamentalism confers identity and belonging, and supplies utopian
solutions to distress. It is an authentic, familiar phenomenon that has proven
itself in the past, and gives clear answers in a confused, bewildered world.
The right model is the classic Islamic way of life of the past, which ought to
be applied in the present, in order to bring the society of tomorrow back to
yesterday.
In this sense, the central slogan that
“Islam is the solution”, the only solution, makes clear that we must treat the
phenomenon as a “Return to Islam” rather than as a “Return of Islam”. After
all, Islam always was here as an activist political ideology, dynamic and
arousing to action.
* * *
Despite their fanatic radical zeal, the
fundamentalist Islamic movements have displayed versatile and flexible
functioning, and have passed through several stages in their activity, while
adapting themselves pragmatically to changing circumstances. At the beginning
a broad, all-embracing ideology was developed, based on proper and correct
Islam, on the foundation of the primordial age of the Prophet Muhammad, while
idealizing Arab society in conformity with the ummah conception. In the
next stage, from the middle of the 1960s, the Islamic movements went over to
the political field and employed violence and terrorism, aiming to overthrow
the secular Arab regimes. Almost all the Arab states passed through this
stage, but more than any others, Egypt, Syria, and Algeria. From the middle of
the 1980s and onward, attempts were made to become part of the parliamentary
system through participation in elections, in order to take power from within.
Here too Egypt stood out, but Jordan, Algeria, and Yemen were involved no
less.107 Finally, as a result of the
political suppression and manipulations of the elections by the regimes, and
their victory through organized violence, two currents in the fundamentalist
movements took shape. One decided to return to the sources, to cultural
activity among the population, where it proved itself, and the regime allowed
it to do so. The second current decided and/or was forced to change its
strategy of action, and went off to the training camps in Afghanistan with the
encouragement and support of Saudi Arabia.
Until the middle of the 1980s, the
Islamist movements did not receive permission to take part in elections,
except as individuals or in a coalition with non-religious parties. Since
then, the Islamic movements have participated in parliamentary elections in
Egypt, Jordan, Algeria, and Yemen. They decided to be involved in the
parliamentary political process to attain their goals, and in the Sudan,
Pakistan, Malaysia and Jordan, they have taken governmental positions.
However, in most of the states, Islamic political activity has been limited,
and is under tight supervision, both because it is viewed as a threat to the
regime and because the authoritarian regimes view any opposition with extra
suspicion. That is, the room for maneuver of the Islamic movements was
extremely circumscribed.
In several places, they arrived at
approvals, agreements, and understandings as to their patterns of activity.
The most outstanding arrangements are between Arafat and the Palestinian
Authority on one hand, and the Hamas on the other (the Islamic Jihad
is small and insignificant, therefore Arafat can strike at it); between the
Hizbullah and Syria and Iran concerning Hizbullah in Lebanon; the
National Pact signed between the government of Tunisia and Ghanushi’s
Resurrection Party, in 1988; and the agreement of understanding signed between
the parties in Yemen, including the Islamic Reform Party, in the wake of
parliamentary elections in April 1983.108
Egypt: From Terrorism to a Parliamentary Experiment and
Back to Suppression by the Regime
Until the middle of the 1980s,
the Egyptian regime prevented any Islamist political activity or parliamentary
participation, and channeled it into the social-economic field alone,109
yet, the Islamic movements were very preoccupied with the issue of
participation in elections. In the 1984 elections, they joined with the Neo-Wafd
Party and won a total of 15.1% (58 seats out of 390, eight of them
representatives of the Muslim Brotherhood). In the 1987 elections, they joined
with the Socialist Labor Party and the Liberal Party, and set up the Islamic
Alliance (al-Tahaluf al-Islami), and won 13% (60 seats out of 448, 35
of them representatives of the Muslim Brotherhood and three independents). In
the elections in November 1990, they sought to run independently. After their
request was rejected, they continued with the same coalition, and won 19.2%
(83 seats out of 444).110 In the November
1993 elections, they increased their strength slightly, despite attempts at
manipulation and harassment by the regime. Towards the elections of November
29, and December 6, 1995, the Egyptian regime did many actions in order to
dissuade the Islamic movements from participating. One hundred fifty members
of the Islamic movements offered their candidacy, but, the whole opposition
won 13 seats out of 444.
After suppression of the terrorist
activities, the leadership of the Islamic organizations announced a ceasefire,
and sought to be institutionalized and to set up political parties: the
Al-Shari`ah Party, headed by a lawyer, Mamduh Ismail and by Amin
al-Damiri; and the Al-Islah Party headed by Jamal Sultan and Kamal
al-Sa`id Habib.111 The Egyptian government
did not authorize the requests and worked energetically against establishment
of the parties.112
The movements worked hand in hand to
control the professional societies. In 1960, they controlled 17% of all the
societies; in 1970, 31%; and in 1980, 34%. From the middle of the 1980s, they
controlled most of the societies. For example, in the elections of 1993, they
won as follows: the physicians’ society, 22 out of 25; the dentists’ society,
7 out of 12 seats; the merchants’ society 22 out of 40 seats; the lawyers’
society, 19 out of 24 seats; the pharmacists’ society 22 out 25; the
engineers’ society, 22 out of 25.113
Their violent activity amounted to stormy
demonstrations, uncontrolled terrorist acts, and political murders. On May 5,
and August 13, 1987, attempts were made on the lives of former interior
ministers, Hasan Abu Basha and Isma`il al-Nabawi. On December 16, 1989, an
attempt was made on the life of Interior Minister, Zaki Badr, using a truck
bomb. On October 12, 1990, the Speaker of the Egyptian Parliament, Rifa`at
al-Mahgoub, was murdered; in June 1992, the writer Farag Fawda was murdered;
in April 1993, the Egyptian Information Minister, Safwat al-Masri, was wounded
in an attempt on his life; in August 1993, the Interior Minister, Hasan
al-Alfi, was saved from a car bomb; in November 1993 Prime Minister `Atef
Sidqi, was saved from attempted murder.114
At this stage, the fundamentalist
movements moved on to attacks on tourists and tourist sites. These attacks
were the subject of a religious legal decision issued by `Umar Abdul-Rahman
who was (and is) living in the United States. He stipulated that tourism was
opposed to the spirit of Islam. The first attacks were at Luxor on June 24,
and July 15, 1992. On October 2, 1992, shots were fired at a boat carrying
tourists on the Nile. On October 21, a tourist bus was attacked; a British
woman tourist was killed and two tourists were wounded. On November 12, 1992,
five German tourists were wounded in a terrorist attack on a tourist bus in
Upper Egypt. In total, there were 17 terrorist attacks in 1992 in which five
persons were killed and 48 wounded.115 In the
years 1994 and 1995, four tourists were killed, however, the tourist industry
suffered a very heavy blow and incoming tourism declined by tens of percentage
points.
After these successes, the terrorism
moved on to Cairo. In June 1993, four tourist buses were hit in Liberation
Square. Even before then, terrorism had even arrived at the pyramids with an
explosion on March 30, 1993. On December 27, 1993, eight Austrian tourists
were wounded near the Mosque of Omar in the Old City of Cairo. On April 18,
1996, 18 Greek tourists were killed in a terrorist attack at the entrance to
the Europa Hotel in Cairo. On September 18, 1997, nine German tourists were
killed in Liberation Square in Cairo; on November 17, 1997, the largest
terrorist attack, the slaughter of 58 tourists and the wounding of 24 was
performed at Luxor. In total, 86 tourists were killed in the years 1996 and
1997.
In the wave of terrorism in the years
1990-1997, 3,362 persons were wounded, and 1,552 persons were killed, in
contrast to 275 persons in the 1980s.116 In
the years 1992-1996, the terrorist attacks were focused on foreign tourists,
on tourist sites, and on tour buses and boats; attacks on the security and
judicial establishment; and attempts on the lives of public personalities.117
Those years were the worst in the history of terrorism in Egypt, 2,960 persons
were wounded in them.118
Syria: Radical Struggle and Repression by the Regime,
Without Parliamentary Responsibility119
After Egypt, Syria was the first state
where an Islamist movement established itself – under the outstanding
influence of Hasan al-Banna – chiefly working in the educational sphere. The
founder was Mustafa al-Siba`i, who possessed a doctorate in Islamic law, and
served as dean of the faculty of law of the University of Damascus. But it was
`Isam al-`Attar and Marwan Hadid who preached vehemently, calling for jihad
against the godless Ba`ath regime. Most prominent was the radical
ideologue Sa`id Hawa who asserted that everything was found in the Qur`an.
It was the only source for human laws, and anyone who deviated from it was a
kafir. To achieve the goals of Islam and to set up an Islamic state, it
was possible and necessary to use jihad. These personalities laid the
foundations for terrorism and armed struggle against the regime through
organizing supporters, the mujahidin, into violent underground cells
headed by “the pioneer warriors” (al-tali`ah al-muqatilah). Hawa was
exiled in 1977 and Hadid was arrested in 1976, later dying in jail. Leadership
of the movement was transferred to `Adnan Sa`ed al-Din, a man of leadership
and organizing talent. The movement began its career of terrorism.
On June 16, 1979, the officer Ibrahim
Yusef slaughtered dozens of Alawite cadets at the artillery officers school in
Aleppo. In August 1979, Dr Muhammad Shuhadah, Asad’s personal physician, was
murdered; and in February 1980, the Sunni Shaykh of Aleppo, al-Shammah,
was liquidated since he refused to support the violent struggle. There was
also information about an attack on Soviet advisors working in Syria. The
success of the violence and Asad’s conciliatory response brought about a broad
scope rebellion throughout Syria. The peak came in March 1980, when riots
broke out in many cities throughout the country, which were accompanied by
armed attacks on governmental and Ba`ath Party institutions. A comprehensive
commercial strike attests to the broad extent of support among the population
for the rebellion. On June 26, 1980, an attempt was made on the life of Asad.
At this point the regime woke up and went
over to a strategy of violent repression. Army and militia forces, principally
defense squads, commanded by Rif`at Asad, used massive violence in Aleppo and
Hama, killing hundreds of Muslims and arresting thousands. In July 1980, Law
no. 49 was published. It determined that membership in Islamist movements was
punishable by death, but whoever would leave such a movement and turn himself
in would receive a pardon. The Islamist movement was not broken. An Islamic
Front was established in October 1980, which included all the Islamist groups
in Syria. It published its program in November 1980, and its charter in
January 1981.
In April 1981, Alawite villagers were
attacked in northern Syria. In the summer of that year, governmental and
military targets were attacked, in addition to Soviet advisors in northern
Syria, especially in the areas of Hama and Homs. The peak came in February
1982, when members of the Islamic movement took over most parts of the city of
Hama in a broad scale armed action. The regime reacted with a war of
extinction, using artillery and aircraft, while killing thousands of
inhabitants and destroying whole sections of the city. The rebellion of the
Muslim Brotherhood was totally wiped out.120
In Syria, unlike Egypt, Algeria, and
Jordan, there was no parliamentary stage, but indiscriminate terrorism, that
became an organized mini-rebellion, leading to ever harsher suppression by the
state, after all attempts at reconciliation had failed. Reality shows that
since the Hama events, Syria has enjoyed two decades of political stability,
and the Islamic fundamentalist threat no longer constitutes a significant
threat.
Jordan: From Limited Rivalry to Harsh Restraint
The Muslim Brotherhood movement was set
up in Jordan in 1946, but reached prominence only in 1953 when `Abd al-Rahman
Halifah was named head of the movement. Its activities were recognized as
legal and its goal was to serve the monarchy and the state. Relations were
characterized by the avoiding of clashes and mutual violence, by limited
rivalry without hatred. This was in consequence of the awareness by the
Islamist movement of its Jordanian environment, and the understanding that its
collapse would be a loss for everyone, except the Palestinians.121
The movement took part in elections in the years 1962, 1967, 1989, and 1993.122
There were also extremist organizations
that were active in subversion, including through terrorist means, like the
Army of Muhammad (Jaish Muhammad), which was set up in 1988 by Dr Samih
Muhammad Zaidan, a Jordanian physician, together with `Abdallah `Azzam, who
was bin-Laden’s lieutenant. They both served in the group of “Arab Afghans”.
The purpose was to overthrow the Hashemite regime in Jordan, and to establish
a state based on Muslim law, by means of jihad: the Young Men of the
Islamic Trumpet (Shabab al-Nafir al-Islami) headed by two members of
parliament, Leith Shabilat and Ya`qub Qarsh; the Party of Islamic Liberation (Hizb
al-Tahrir al-Islami) which was set up in 1952 in East Jerusalem by Taqi
al-Din al-Nabhani, with the goal of renewing the Islamic caliphate in the Arab
and Islamic states; the Movement for Islamic Renewal (Harakat al-Tajdid
al-Islami) which was formed in 1995 by Saber al-Muqbal with the purpose of
carrying out terrorist attacks against Israelis and Americans in Jordan. In
addition there was the Movement of the Loyalty Oath to the Imam (Harakat
Bay`at al-Imam), founded by `Isam Muhammad Tahir and a group of radical
Palestinians in the spirit of the al-Takfir wa-l-Hijrah movement in
Egypt, with the demand for total separation from infidel society; and the
Jordanian Afghans which was founded by Jordanians and Palestinians who had
returned in 1993 to Jordan, after combat in Afghanistan. Likewise, Palestinian
Islamic factions were active from Jordanian bases.123
From the beginning of the 1980s, the
regime decided on a policy of “red lines” which delineated the limits of
tolerance along two dimensions: total thwarting of armed organizing and the
use of terrorism and prevention of infiltration of the security forces. The
ideological challenge is from fundamentalist Islam, and the historical pact
between the regime and the Muslim Brotherhood has been challenged. The regime
is secular and Westernizing, whereas the Islamist movements are striving to
establish an Islamic state under the laws of the shari`ah.
Participation in elections was viewed as
a successful means for mutual political partnership. The Hashemite regime
views parliamentary pluralism as a safety valve and a means of preserving
stability, while the Islamic movements aspire to obtain wide legitimacy, and
to attain control over Jordan.124 In the
elections of March 1984, significant growth took place in the strength of the
fundamentalists, when three Muslim candidates won the six available places. In
the 1989 elections, the candidates of the Islamic movements won 40% (32 out of
80 seats in the parliament, 22 Muslim Brothers, and ten independent
candidates).125 In 1990, the spokesman of the
Muslim Brotherhood, `Abd al-Latif `Arabiat, was chosen as speaker of
parliament and on January 1, 1991, a new cabinet was set up with seven
ministers from the Muslim Brotherhood for the first time in Jordan’s history.
In August 1992, the Jordanian assembly of
deputies authorized a transition to a multi-party system, and published a law
of political parties which required governmental approval and a commitment to
act within the framework of the Constitution, and an election law based on
voting according to the principle of one man one vote, rather than signifying
several candidates. The Islamic movement decided to set up the Islamic Action
Front (Jabhat al-`Amal al-Islami) led by Dr Ishaq al-Farhan. The Front
received a permit in January 1993. It ran 36 candidates in 17 voting
districts, and won 20% of the seats in parliament (18 representatives).126
However, in the elections of November 1997, the Islamic movement decided to
boycott. Despite this, ten Islamist candidates were chosen who contended
independently. The rate of voting was low, despite a religious legal ruling by
the Jordanian mufti, that participation in the elections was a religious duty.
This situation was convenient for the regime, which had entirely manipulated
it. And the tribal traditional parliament that was elected was convenient and
submissive.127
With the increasing influence of the
Islamic movements, from the middle of the 1980s, the regime worked to oversee
the mosques and the preachers, the professional societies and the campuses. In
November 1985, a wave of arrests began of hundreds of Islamic activists, and a
month later, a law was published concerning preaching and instruction in the
mosques. A special supervisory commission was set up headed by the minister of
Islamic endowments (waqf). The bread riots that took place in Jordan in
mid-April 1989, and the achievements of the Islamic movement in the November
1989 elections to Parliament reinforced the policy of imposing restraint. Use
was made of a strategy of integration towards moderate elements, and a
strategy of force towards extremist organizations, including mass arrests for
long periods, as well as executions. An important means was tight oversight of
the sources of funds, the mosques, and the preachers, and blocking channels of
external financial aid, particularly from Iran and Syria.128
Algeria: Parliamentary Victory, Repression by the Regime,
and Indiscriminate Violence
Since the 1970s, the Islamic movement
strengthened and went over from social and religious protest to parliamentary
political activity, and from there to violent struggle against the infidel
regime, and then to seizing power and establishing an Islamic state. In
Algeria too a very concrete attempt was made by the Islamic movements to act
within the setting of a political process, and to obtain parliamentary
legitimacy. When the military regime holding political power curbed the
apparent trend towards an Islamist victory, the country was torn apart by
political violence and unprecedented terrorism.129
In Algeria, as in other North African
states, the population is Sunni Muslim, mostly of the Malikite school
which is active in Berber tribal society with competing centers and adoration
of holy men called murabitun.130 In
the 1980s, a cultural rift developed between the ruling, French-speaking
political elite and the Arabic-speaking social groups instilled with an
Islamist ideology. In general, only French rule had made possible
professional, economic, and political advancement. In addition, tremendous
growth took place in the population, parallel with accelerated yet unplanned
urbanization. The main component was a young society (more than 50% under age
20) educated and unemployed, for whose problems the regime had no practical
solution. This failure to give employment to the educated and to contend with
difficult social problems, created a violent, revolutionary atmosphere. The
riots that broke out in October 1988 proved this demographic-occupational
trend, and the brutal repression by the army only fanned the flames of intense
resistance. The violence went on almost continuously until the “constitutional
putsch” in January 1992, when Algeria shook off liberalization and
constitutional legality, until the total ban on political activity by the
Islamic movements.131
President bin-Jadid had decided to set
forth a new constitution with at its center a multi-party system (the law of
parties of July 1989) including the Islamic movements. This was approved by
referendum in February 1989. `Abbas Madani and `Ali bin-Haj had already set up
the Islamic Salvation Front (jabhat al-inkadh al-Islamiyyah) on
February 18, 1989, and on March 7, it published its platform. It was
authorized to act legally in September 1989. In the elections of June 1990,
the Islamic movement won 54.2% of the vote for district councils, and 47.3% in
the local councils. It ruled in almost all the big cities (28 out of 31).132
The elections to the parliament were set
for June 1991. However, the regime had second thoughts. This, added to the
influence of the Gulf War on Algerian society, led to proclamation of a state
of emergency and to use of the army for the purpose of suppressing
demonstrators who went out into the streets. Madani and bin-Haj and several
thousand members of the movement were arrested, and after them, every other
Islamist leader who was named in their place. Yet, the movement was not
suppressed. In the first round of voting, on December 26, 1991, the Islamic
Salvation Front won 188 out of 430 seats (43.7%). Moreover, in 57 districts,
it won nearly 50% of the vote. This was proof that its chances to win in the
second round were high.
In
these circumstances, the regime decided to cancel the second round. On January
11, 1992, the army forced the president, bin-Jadid, to resign and the chiefs
of the army who had proclaimed an emergency military government, outlawed the
Islamic Movement (March 1992). Madani and bin-Haj were sentenced to 12 years
in jail, but the arrest of thousands of activists did not prevent the slide
towards violence through the underground activity of guerrilla warfare and
terrorism on the village countryside periphery. By 1994, more than ten
thousand persons had been killed, with the terrorist activity taking place at
the initiative of a more extreme organization than the Islamic Salvation
Front. This body was called: the Armed Islamic Group (al-Jma`ah
al-Islamiyah al-Musllahah) or GIA, led by Mansour Maliani. Most members of
the organization and its leaders were “graduates of Afghanistan”. They were
responsible for severe terrorist attacks and unprecedented violence, which
spread throughout the country. They declared that their goal was to set up a
caliphate in the Islamic states, through jihad. Religious legal
approval (fatwa) was given for proclaiming Algerian society “infidel” (kafir),
and then the movement turned to slaying foreigners too, mainly French
subjects, France being the regime’s principal support.133
The movement’s acts of cruelty, combined with the fact that most of its
leaders and central activists were, as said above, “graduates of Afghanistan”,
should have set off alarms in other states and in the international community.
Even within the Islamic Salvation Front
which was dominated by the extremist current led by `Abd al-Kader Shibouti,
the Islamic Armed Movement (al-Harakah al-Islamiyah al-Musallahah) or
MIA was established. Its leaders defined the GIA as an extremist Afghan group.134
Indeed, from the middle of the 1980s, several thousand Islamic volunteers had
left for Afghanistan with Saudi financing, and after finishing their military
training and religious indoctrination, they joined the mujahidin forces
who fought the Soviet Union. The Algerian “graduates of Afghanistan” forged
profound ties in the training camps in Afghanistan, in Pakistan, and in the
Sudan, and their radical leaders who had been deported to Europe, formed ties
with many militant activists there.135
Turkey: Parliamentary Victory and Political Defeat
Turkey is considered an outstanding
example of the ability to separate religion and state in Islam, and the first
Muslim state to present a multi-party system, and it had even opened up its
economy to Western processes. It passed through acute political and economic
crises, which brought about military intervention three times, in 1960, 1971,
and 1980.136
The Turkish army’s involvement reveals a
unique pattern, which may be called “veto group”. That is, when the senior
army officers believe that the political system is harming or deviating from
“the values of Kemalism”, they work in two stages. At the beginning they warn
the politicians and make it quite clear to them that their minds are firmly
made up to act in order to prevent this harm or deviation. And when the system
continues on its way, the army intervenes, disperses the parliament, carries
out a relicensing of the parties, holds new elections, and goes back to its
barracks.
Despite “the six pillars of Kemalism”,
which included the separation of religion and state, Islam has never left
modern Turkey. It existed at the periphery, and quickly arrived in the cities
the more that the crises of modernization intensified. Indeed, the process of
building Ataturk’s nation succeeded very much, but not in the field of
religion. Indeed, Islam does not have a place as central as it does in the
Arab states or Iran. Yet, it has succeeded in returning to the foci of the
political system.137 The achievements of the
Islamist movement, the Islamic Welfare Party of Erbakan, surprised everyone,
when it won in the elections of March 1994, with 18% of the votes in the local
elections, and the mayor’s office in Istanbul and Ankara. In 1995, the
movement won in elections to the parliament over the right wing and center
parties, and joined the coalition, and in June 1996, it became the major party
in the coalition, with its leader being named Prime Minister.
The results shocked the leaders of the
West in view of Erbakan’s political platform that called for a retreat from
secularism and application of Islamic religious law. In December 1996, he
visited Teheran, and strengthened mutual political and economic ties with
Iran. He declared his intention to set up an Islamic common market, to cut
Turkey off from the West and NATO, and even to withdraw Turkey’s request to
join “the European Common Market”. Despite his declarations, Erbakan did not
actually act to attain these goals. Nevertheless, he did not take into account
the unique role of the Turkish army as guardian of Ataturk’s values.138
In June 1997, the army forced Erbakan to conclude his role, in view of the
harm to the values of Kemalism. In January 1998, the constitutional court in
Turkey outlawed the Islamic Welfare Party, and all of the party’s members
sitting in parliament were expelled. Their participation in politics was
forbidden for a period of five years.139
In three other states, there was a
parliamentary experiment to integrate the Islamic movement into the political
system.
Tunisia. In 1988, the Islamic
movement (Harakat al-Itijah al-Islami) headed by Rashid al-Ghanoushi
participated in formulating the “National Covenant” which was signed on
November 7, 1988, and sought to take part in the elections as a political
party, the Renaissance Party (Hizb al-Nahdah). Its request was
rejected, and it did not take part in the elections held in April 1989.
Nevertheless, independent Islamic candidates won 13% of all votes, principally
from the suburbs of the capital. The administrative elections of 1990 were
boycotted by all of the opposition parties.140
In the 1994 elections too, the Muslim parties did not participate.
Morocco. Two Islamist movements
are prominent: Reform and Unity (al-`adal wal-ihsan), moderate and
close to the Muslim Brotherhood, led by Ibn-Qiran; and Justice and Charity (al`adal
wa-l-sadaka), a radical movement close to the jihad trend, headed
by `Abd al-Salam Yasin.141 The monarchist
regime in Morocco recognized their increasing influence, and chose a strategy
of integration towards the moderate Reform and Unity movement, allowing it a
channel of legitimate expression through parliamentary representation,
starting from the elections of 1997. Meanwhile, the regime chose in regard to
the radical Justice and Charity movement, a strategy of force: the movement
was outlawed and its leader has been in detention for ten years. This was the
situation in the elections of March 1999.
Yemen. In the 1988 elections in
North Yemen, opposition parties did not take part, in consequence of a
governmental directive. Yet, Muslim candidates won 25% of the seats (32 out of
128). In the elections that were held in April 1993, in united Yemen, the
Islamist movement, the Yemen Reform Rally (al-Tajammu al-Yamani lil-Islah),
headed by `Abdallah bin Hussein al-Ahmar, won 16.7% (64 out of 301 seats), and
became the second largest party in Yemen.142
