American politics
The use and abuse of Islam
Bush, democracy and the Muslim Brothers
Feb 4th 2011, 16:38 by Lexington
IN MY print column this week I felt I owed it to George Bush to remember that he was a keener promoter of Arab democracy than Barack Obama.
One of the (politer) commenters asked how dangerous the Muslim Brothers might be. Ha! Here's one I wrote earlier (2003):
THEY are not “failed states”. Both are “pro-American”. But they are a mess. At opposite corners of North Africa, Egypt and Morocco are swamped by social problems. Both have parliaments and elections, but neither is remotely democratic. In Morocco ultimate power rests with a king, Muhammad VI, with the power to appoint the prime minister and cabinet. Egypt is run by a president, Hosni Mubarak, who has sat on his perch since 1981 with little check on his authority. Both have secular opposition parties, but in both places the only serious challenge to the regime comes from the Islamists. What do the Islamists want?
Abdul Moneim Abul Fotouh is a doctor, the head of the Egyptian Medical Association and a leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, the organisation to which Sayyid Qutb belonged, and which is now tolerated, within limits, by Mr Mubarak's government. It has not dabbled in violence since the 1960s, but the Brotherhood is banned as a political party—though 17 of its members sit as “independents” in the toothless People's Assembly.
Dr Abul Fotouh will never be the toast of Washington's neo-conservatives. He argues that the West has turned against Islam mainly because “the Zionist colonial-settler project” (Israel) needs western protection and so has poisoned western attitudes to Islam. On the other hand, he does not subscribe to Qutb's notion that the West is in a state of jahiliyya. “In general, I don't find the western way of life at odds with Islam,” says the doctor. “At the end of the day, we have a set of common humanist values: justice, freedom, human rights and democracy.”
Saeddine al-Othmani is vice-president of the Party of Justice and Development (PJD), which everybody will tell you is the only legal Islamist party in Morocco. Everybody, that is, except the party's members. On meeting The Economist, Mr al-Othmani and his colleagues disavow the Islamist label. Yes, the party puts somewhat more emphasis than others do on Morocco's Islamic identity. But it is dedicated to democracy, not Islam. “For us”, they say, “the problem is that 50 years after independence Morocco is way behind on justice and economic development. So our two priorities are to fight corruption and put ethics back into public life, and then to diminish flagrant social inequality by investing in human capital.”
From Cairo, Dr Abul Fotouh sends the same message; the people demonised in the West as wild-eyed Islamists are just democrats in search of justice. He swats aside questions about the role the Brotherhood would want for sharia in a perfect Egypt. Of course sharia should be honoured. However, Egypt's crisis is not the absence of sharia but the lack of freedom. The Brothers have faced torture and prison; he himself was jailed for five years. “The West has to understand that these regimes are crooks and thieves who just want to sit on their thrones. They worsen the image of Islam in the West and create Islamophobia.”
Along with the PJD, Morocco also has a bigger Islamist movement, Adl wal Ihsane (Justice and Charity). This one is banned from operating as a political party and its charismatic leader, Sheikh Yassine, is under house arrest. Its explicit aim is to turn Morocco into an Islamic state. But this, says its spokesman, Fathallah Arsalan, is for the long term. In the meantime, it concentrates on education and welfare. “The present social crisis is not the time for political competition,” says Mr Arsalan. “What we need now is a transitory period when Islamists, leftists and rightists should all be involved in making conditions better.”
Such encounters show that political Islam is no monolith. The mild spokesmen of the PJD, Adl wal Ihsane and the present-day Muslim Brotherhood seem a world away from the violent men of al-Qaeda. So why do people bundle such movements together under the label of “political Islam”? Because they are linked, even if in no other way, in the minds of the regimes.
Take Morocco. Last May, suicide bombers in Casablanca killed 45 people. The perpetrators were said to belong to a group called the Jihad Salafists. No evidence links the attacks to the PJD, which was quick to condemn them. And yet the attacks prompted a clampdown on the PJD. Some palace officials said the bombings showed that the king's cautious political reforms were moving too fast. At one point, the government was said to be thinking of banning the PJD from this month's local elections.
This reaction is no surprise. In Morocco, Egypt and many other Muslim countries the regimes tend to arrange Islamists along a spectrum in which they are all in the end connected. At one end are imams whose only sin is to stir too much politics into their Friday sermons (which the regimes carefully monitor). At the other end are proper terrorists such as the Jihad Salafists in Morocco or the Gamaa Islamiya (currently observing a ceasefire) in Egypt. In the middle are movements such as the PJD, the Adl wal Ihsane and the Muslim Brothers, which claim to be non-violent but which the regimes accuse of “creating an atmosphere” of militancy in which the men of violence flourish.
The oddity of all this is that the regimes do not just fear the Islamists; they also manipulate them. Morocco's government once saw Adl wal Ihsane as a useful conservative bulwark against the left. Then it encouraged the PJD to become a moderate counter to Adl wal Ihsane. Then—when the PJD started to do well in elections—the palace began to worry that the PJD was growing too big for its boots. In Egypt, likewise, the regime has often seen the Muslim Brotherhood as a tool. Dr Abul Fotouh, now in his 50s, belongs to a generation of Brothers that was encouraged by then-President Sadat to act as a counterweight to the radical left on university campuses.
It seems grossly unfair to associate parties such as the PJD, which will not even call themselves Islamists, with the wilder jihadis. But such parties are not above a bit of dissembling of their own. The PJD's leaders may disavow the “Islamist” label, yet they harp on about Morocco's Islamic “tradition”. Its spokesmen are evasive when asked how extensive sharia would have to be in their ideal Morocco. And the party is built on top of an underlying network of associations, called Unity and Reform, which is much more outspoken about its goal of Islamising society.
Given this, it is not only the government that worries about the growing influence of the Islamists. Driss Ksikes, a playwright and editor-in-chief of Morocco's TelQuel, a current-affairs magazine, says he deplores the way the state used the Casablanca bombings to demonise all Islamists and slither back into authoritarianism. But he has his own reservations about the Islamists. In the end, he says, the moderate PJD and the more radical Adl wal Ihsane both want to create an Islamist state based on sharia. They have just chosen different methods. While Adl wal Ihsane prepares the people patiently for the coming of the caliphate, the PJD works the political system and promotes a softer image. But both are heading for the same destination.
In the absence of a credible secular opposition, all this has a paradoxical result. Mr Ksikes notes that secular Moroccans are forced to hope that the king, of all people, will become the champion of modernity. The king may not actually believe in liberal democracy—what king would?—but has to pretend to believe in it a bit if he is to keep Morocco's relations with its western allies sweet.
In Egypt, too, it suits Hosni Mubarak to have an Islamist opposition at hand. This helps him to persuade the United States that if he falls, Egypt will collapse into fundamentalism. The same argument is made right across the Muslim world, from the kingdoms of Arabia to the dictatorships of Bashar Assad of Syria and Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan.
Kings and dictators point to the Islamists and say that they would be worse than their own regimes. Meanwhile the non-violent Islamists say that they will be replaced by violent ones if the state persists in repressing them. “If we have no democratic process, we will see the resurgence of the extremist groups,” says Mustapha Khalfi, political editor of Morocco's Attajdid newspaper.
In Egypt, argues Bahgat Korany of the American University of Cairo, the staid Brotherhood has become less alluring than the jihadis since September 11th. The younger generation, he says, is less likely to focus on domestic issues alone: they identify beyond Egypt with the position of Muslims at large.
Are Egypt and Morocco typical? They could hardly be more different even from each other. One was the birthplace of Arab nationalism; the other is a monarchy. One is at the centre of the passions that sweep the Arab world; the other is a conservative backwater. But the politics of Islam in these very different countries repeats itself throughout the Muslim world. By throttling the secular opposition, authoritarian regimes have left the Islamists as the only groups with a following. It seems obvious that unless the moderate Islamists are given a fair hearing, disaffected citizens will turn to the violent organisations on their fringes which, since Iraq and Afghanistan, have a potent message of global Muslim beleaguerment to recruit more followers. So why does nothing change?
In this blog, our Lexington columnist enters America’s political fray and shares the many opinions that don't make it into his column each week. The column and blog are named after Lexington, Massachusetts, where the first shots were fired in the American war of independence.
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If the Arabs live in a genuine democracy, their relationship with Islam will be personalized rather than politicized. Most people who politicize Islam today seek answers to their misery. A misery born out of failed dictatorships. Throughout history, there was never an Islamic state. There were corrupt dynasties ruling in the name of Islam. Dynasties like the Umayyad, Abbasids, and Fatimid that abused religion to justify their power grab. In fact, there can never be an Islamic state. By definition, religion is a personal matter. It is between God and each individual believer. It is not a collective relationship. Only a genuine democracy can deliver to the Arab people their political and economic aspirations in a dignified manner.
Lest we forget, for the West, specially in the US with extra short-term memory, that Bush's lecture on democracy for the Arab world was a response and an appeasement to the reaction of its citizens and the world in justifying his Invasion of Iraq!!!! Unless we all have become delusional, neither he nor his cohorts, entirely tied to oil, would dare jeopardize the Middle East stability that directly hurts them financially by deliberately planting the seeds of democracy!!! Just the same as he reacted in response to national economic conditions, as I am sure he was full-aware the results of it will hand him his father's legacy - the unseating of the crown (playground for the 43rd), where he collaborated and constantly came on TV to claim the fruits of his doing declaring the continuous rise of "Home Ownership"! For crying out loud, can we stop thinking in a stove-piped manner and connect dots!
Bush was in fact proved wrong: democracy happens from within, from the people - not by a foreign, invading, occupying army. They held signs in Cairo that read, "Yes we can," not "Bring it on!" They revolted not because Bush & neocons paid lip service to Arab freedom but due to decades of poverty and indignity.
Paul Marks
A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. You post is full of half truths and your conclusions are illogical and academically dishonest. I could go point by point but the main point is this. Extreme Islamimists are religious fundamentalists. Communists are godless atheists. Historically, Muslims regard Christian's as 'people of the book' giving them special rights over other groups of 'non believers'. Event extreme Islamists accept Christianity as special in relation to Islam. Further, Muslims have traditionally been a trading people (at least Arab Muslims). There is no deep hatred of trade and forms of capitalism within Islam. So if its an issue of the enemy of my enemy for extreme Muslims, who believe in their religion above all things, atheist communists would be their top enemy. Not capitalists.
This doesn't even begin to address the crazy belief you express that there are active and consequential 'Marxist movements' in the US. The equation of Hamas as being no different than al qaeda or that ect ect.
Please remember. If Glen Beck said it, you can bet it isn't true. This isn't an issue of right vs left. Its fact vs fiction or if you prefer, crazy vs sane. If the crazy conspiracy theory that the Muslims and the Marxists are plotting to get us all and convert the world into an atheist Marxist caliphate (perhaps fascists as well?) then my next request will be to see the studio set they filmed the moon landing on. The real "true believers" are those that believe this type of stuff, not fictional Marxist boogie men.
I agree with LexHumana that revolutions can take unexpected turns. The Russian revolution's evolution from a more liberal democratic initial character that was quickly high jacked by more radical elements willing to voilently exploit the situation is a good example. The french revolution had a similar course as well. Its impossible to know what direction things will go over the next few months in Egypt.
I would like to point out that while the Egyptian economy does need major work, it has been growing at a very high rate (7 percent or more a year). A fact that doesn't seem to be reflected in a few posts below. The comparison of Egypt to China may actually be more apt than some think.
While Egypt does have nearly 40 percent of its population living on $2 or so a day, there is a well established middle class and a strong and educated elite. So far the 'Egyptian revolutionaries' are mainly well educated and seem to be tolerant. Hardly a treat to the west. Its very true that the circumstances of this revolution lend themselves to hijack of the revolution by more extreme elements. However, the strength of Egypt military combined with their seemly pro western nature (many officers are trained in America for example), make a successful hijacking of the revolution by extremists much less likely. Remember that in the Russian revolution for example, there was no player close to the Egyptian army in power and apparent commitment to stability.
Moderate Islamists? Where?
There is no hope for stable democracy in a world in which the majority of the population still believes to this day that 9-11 was an "inside job" concocted by the CIA, George Bush, and Israel. The reason why the anti-American race grievance mongers of the world succeed is because there are oh so many who are only too willing to drink up the chutney flavored Kool-Aid. "So why does nothing change?" Indeed.
@ Paul Marks,
Not to get too bogged down in the historical weeds, but the February Revolution resulted in a coalition government of communists, socialists, the military, the orthodox church, workers parties ("soviets"), middle-class bourgeoise, and others. It was this attempt at creating a pluralistic coalition led by Kerensky that resulted in a weak and ineffective government, which Lenin was able to depose almost bloodlessly in the October Revolution. Kerensky's government was moderate in comparison; it was Lenin that ordered the murders of the Romanov family, and initiated purges or pogroms. Stalin took those methods to a whole new level of barbarity.
There are socialist governments in Europe today, and we don't have much heartburn over them. My point was that had Russia stayed at the February Revolution stage, we likely would have had more amicable relations than we did as a result of a much more radical Lenin taking over. Additionally, without Lenin and Stalin as a model to follow, it is possible that similar leftist revolutions elsewhere may not have been so murderous.
A recent tweet by a protester from Egypt commented that, "the less a Western journalist knows, the more he talks about the Muslim Brotherhood."
Indeed, the protesters in Egypt have consistently voiced outrage at the hijacking of their social reform movement by the Muslim Brotherhood and other groups with marginal support among the young people actually taking to the streets.
I would apply the Pareto Principle to this issue. If 80% of a group wants freedom, justice, and to live in peace with its neighbors, and 20% thinks that murder, bombings and assassinations are acceptable steps on the path to world domination, how do you keep the peaceful 80% from being dominated by the fanatical 20%?
The Febuary/March Revolution in Russia had little to do with the "Communist Party".
As for "paranoia" about Communism - it is hardly "paranoid" to be concerned about a movement that murdered more than ONE AND HUNDRED MILLION PEOPLE IN THE 20TH CENTURY.
Nor is either "Lenin" or "Stalin" the real problem - the problem was the doctrines of KARL MARX. The Marxist revolution doctrines still supported by many organizations in the United States (and around the world today). The anti private property DOCTRINE is the root of the problem - not Joe Stalin not being a nice guy. Bill Ayers, Van Jones (and vast numbers of others) are born in the United States - but that does not make them any better than Marxists born in Russia (to think otherwise is just a form of racism).
As for Egypt.
The idea that the Muslim Brotherhood "gave up violence in the 1960s" is absurd. For example, Hamas is part of the same movement - it looks to the same spiritual leaders, and its founding documents are the same ideology as that of the Muslim Brotherhood.
As for "Moderate Islamists" - someone is either an Islamist or they are not. They are either for WORLD CONQUEST or they are not.
One can not be a "moderate" Islamist, and as for "world conquest" that is made perfectly clear by the founding documents of these organizations.
They are NOT Sufi mystics dancing to gain a personal spiritual relationship with God. They are hard headed practical KILLERS.
It is no wonder that American Marxist organizations are so fond of them (and the evidence is overwhelming that American Marxists such as Mr and Mrs Ayers have actively cooperated with groups such as Hamas).
"Parania" - thanks Richard Hofstader (dead but not forgotten), a Marxist (follower of Marxist "Authoritian Personality" Theodor Adorno) telling people it was "paranoid" to believe in Marxists (one might as well believe in witches.......), arguing against one's own existance (which is basically what Hofstader and Adorno were doing) takes some nerve.
Anyway organizations like Code Pink BOAST of their links to Islamist groups (such as Muslim Brotherhood/Hamas) so it is hardly "paranoid" to repeat their own boasts.
The state socialism introduced to Egypt by Nasser (and not really got rid of by Sadat or Mubarak) is no good.
But the Muslim Brotherhood (with its Marxist allies) is hardly going to be an improvement.
Why should Marxists and Islamists ally?
"The enemy of my enemy is my friend" - and the enemy of both Marxism and "Islamic Socialism" is "capitalism" (which is their name for private property based civil society - i.e. civilization).
I'd like to see an Egypt that embraced its glorious past and tried to emulate it in a modern way. There is no reason the Egyptian people couldn't rapidly become a beacon of light to the arab world. I picture an Egypt with modern infrastructure and a booming transportation economy. They already have the Suez, and are well positioned to be a hub for sea and land transport into Africa. For most of the last millenium arab traders were the conduit between the west and India and China, and they could again. Maybe throw in some armed protection of the Somalia area. It would be in China's and America's best interest for Egypt to become wealthier as it would surely entice other countries to follow their lead, so they should invest after the current troubles are over.
I agree with Lex Humana on this. Contrast China and Egypt. Both have repressive governments that disallow democratic governance. But China has a vibrant economy, low unemployment, and economic opportunities for its graduates. Even if Mubarak is overthrown a truly democratic government takes his place, it's unlikely that this government will be able to do much to rehabilitate Egypt's economy. When the people are not only dejected, but also cynical about the efficacy of moderate and democratic governments, you can begin worrying.
If the old Soviet Communist party had been made up of only the February Revolution, I think the U.S. might have not been so paranoid about communism. The problem is that Lenin subsequently led a more radical October Revolution, and the guy that subsequently took his place was a despot named Stalin.
I am sure there are a great many moderate Islamic political movements run by very nice people. The problem is that those very nice people don't stick around forever (or get removed prematurely), and there are a great number of radicalized individuals lurking in the wings waiting to steer such movements in their own direction.
Well said.
As you know, the US tends to see itself as the center of all things and one its oddities - a strength and a weakness - is an obsession over what we've done wrong, why we didn't somehow manage the world to act as we want. It's a weird combination of egotism and self-criticism.
In this context, knowing that Arab countries like all countries are run by their own people and aren't mere actors in an American play, I've found it hard to understand exactly how we should have done things. The idea that we could magically support secular opposition is not only egotistic but would have endangered our relations in toto. Before the end of the USSR, there was a clear alternative but there are always alternatives to being much of an ally of ours, not counting throwing in with Iran. How would the Saudis have felt about our undermining authoritarian regimes in the Arab world and how would that affect things as vital as our oil supply?
Jimmy Carter tried to make morality a central part of foreign policy. I don't think that works, but it is something we like to criticize when the opportunity arises.