September 11, 2013
Syria
is the most dramatic moment of the Middle East today, as we await an American
military strike against the ruling Assad regime—but it is not the most
consequential political development in the region today. That honor would have
to go to the current attempt by the interim Egyptian government to ban the
Muslim Brotherhood organization and its political party.
I
say this for two reasons, related to Syria and Egypt. The first is that an
American attack on Syria would be normal operating procedure in light of the
last century of Western powers’ frequent military forays into the Middle East,
usually to whack Arab or Iranian powers that were becoming too strong and
independent-minded for the likes of the United States, UK, Israel or others. So
one more Western power attack against one more Arab military dictatorship would
merely confirm and perpetuate a legacy or Western militarism in the Middle East
that we have lived with for over a century.
Egypt
also matters more than Syria because developments there represent a dramatic
new shift in how indigenous forces of power, identity and governance interact
with one another. The two most powerful forces in society—the military and the
Muslim Brothers—face off in a direct battle at a seminal moment in modern Arab
history when indigenous populations seek to reconfigure their governance and
state systems and write constitutions that truly reflect national values.
The
confrontation between the armed forces and the Muslim Brothers reflects a much
older tension in the Middle East that can be traced back to the early days of
Islam over fourteen centuries ago, and even further back to the dawn of urban
society in the Bronze Age: How do citizens define the balance between the
authority of the religious leadership and the role of secular governors who
deliver basic services to the citizenry?
Legitimacy
of authority among religious and civic figures to ensure societal well-being
and public order has always been hotly debated and contested in Arab, Persian,
Turkish and Asian Islamic societies. Towering forces such as Shari’a law, the
Caliphate, the ‘ulama, the armed forces, the civil service, and the business
and civic elites continue to compete for primacy in ensuring the wellbeing of
the community, i.e., in governing.
For
more background on this issue I strongly recommend a splendid new book that
reviews the many legacies and controversies of “statecraft” in Islamic
traditions, Mirror for the Muslim Prince: Islam and the theory of
statecraft, edited by Mehrzad Boroujerdi (Syracuse University Press, 2013).
Boroujerdi notes that “there is no unitary ‘Islamic’ position on important
issues of statecraft and governance…. Islam is a discursive site marked by silences,
agreements, and animated controversies (not to mention denunciation and
persecutions).”
And
so, here we are in 2013, with new controversies, denunciations and persecutions
in Islamic realms, as assorted Islamists square off against each other, the armed
forces, secular nationalists and other political groups to determine who
governs the state and who shapes the national, civil, social
and religious nature of the state as defined in the constitution. The latest
development in Egypt sees the armed forces and allied civil groups that removed
the Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohammed Morsi from the elected presidency now seek to
ban the Muslim Brotherhood completely, both as a political party and a social
non-governmental organization. This week a panel of Egyptian judges recommended
the complete dissolution of the Muslim Brotherhood, following the last month of
the government’s jailing hundreds of Brotherhood members after killing other
hundreds during street demonstrations, and now putting Morsi and fourteen other
brotherhood leaders on trial for inciting violence.
The
Muslim Brotherhood will soon redefine its strategy for engagement in public
life. What is certain beyond any doubt is that it will remain as a potent force
in society and political-public life, precisely because of the trends we
witness across the Arab world, including Syria, that make people turn to
religion when the state fails them. These trends include police state Arab
regimes that will destroy their own countries in order to remain in power, regular
foreign military assaults against Arab lands, and massive economic stagnation
and poverty across the region. The continued hemorrhaging of Syria, where two
million refugees abroad and another four million internally displaced, means
that fully one-third of the population has seen their lives shattered. Not
surprisingly, Islamist groups of various kinds have suddenly mushroomed across
Syria, to fill the void left by the retreating state.
When
the state and its armed forces try to outlaw religious elements in public life
at the social-community or national-political levels, we can expect a robust
clash between the two greatest forces that have contested public authority,
national identity, and civil order in the Middle East for roughly the past five
thousand years—deities and defense ministers. The outcome of this battle will
be remembered long after Barack Obama and Bashar Assad have left the scene.
Rami
G. Khouri is Editor-at-large of The Daily Star, and Director of the Issam Fares
Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American
University of Beirut, in Beirut, Lebanon. You can follow him @ramikhouri.
Copyright © 2013 Rami G. Khouri—distributed by
Agence Global