Is the Military Bulwark against Islamism Collapsing? Part II

 

by David Bukay

2^nd part of 2

 

Islamism and Democracy: Mutually Exclusive?

A growing number of mainstream foreign policy voices—former New Republic editor Peter Beinart and Carnegie Endowment scholar Robert Kagan, for example—advocate for engagement with the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamists.[17] While Beinart and Kagan may be swayed by the rhetoric of democracy and appeals to electoral fairness, the new Islamic wave could undercut not only the stability of traditional military regimes but also meaningful reform and liberal opposition.

The problem distills to conflicting concepts of legitimate, authoritative government. In the West, in the mid-eighteenth century, Jean Jacques Rousseau outlined the concept of a social contract between a people and its government. Islamists, however, reject the idea of a social contract in the Western sense. According to Arab culture and many Islamic tenets, legitimacy is granted exclusively to the leader.

While some majority Muslim states—Egypt and Iran, for example—have long and cohesive histories, many others, whether in Africa, the Middle East, or elsewhere in Asia, have weak national identities easily rendered weaker by clerics appealing to ties with the Muslim umma (community) rather than national sentiment.[18]

Civil society cannot defend itself against Islamism enforced and protected by the military. Especially within the Arab Middle East, civil society is weak. The problem is not the absence of organizations but rather their independent function. Even if there are political parties, professional and civic associations, and opposition groups, they have little influence on governance and decision-making. Parties operate more on behalf of the regime as mass organizations for political mobilization while opposition is mostly illegitimate and works underground. The 2002 Arab Human Development Report, for example, found deficits in freedom, knowledge, and opportunities for women.[19] In Arab states, Iraqi Kurdistan, and Iran there are few independent nongovernmental organizations. Most groups describing themselves as NGOs are, in reality, "GONGOs," government-operated nongovernmental organizations.[20] Nor are labor unions in the region independent of government control.[21] Social suspicion and political cynicism are dominant, and the cultural inclination is toward conformity of thinking and operational loyalties to the extended family and clan. When the chips are down, identifying oneself with kinship is much deeper and more significant than identification with any other group, including the state or its political institutions.[22]

With the exception of the West African nation of Mali, no majority Muslim state is considered "free" in Freedom House's Freedom in the World survey.[23] Democratic forces in Arab countries are either nonexistent or lack the power to be credible.[24] There are many values in Arab political culture that contradict democratic principles,[25] and the Middle East and North Africa have proven particularly resistant to democratic transition.[26] What distinguishes the Middle East from other regions is not only the phenomenon of enduring authoritarianism but also its density and the absence of successful democratization.[27] Much of this appears rooted in the cultural influence of Islam.[28]

Western political culture is participatory. It represents the norms, attitudes, and values of the individual and the group towards political institutions and the state. In Arab society, political culture is, in the best case, subjugated at the center and parochial at the periphery. Cultural values of honor and shame hamper Arab political culture. Traditional political culture and ethnic divisions pose a barrier to the development of effective parliamentary government and democracy.[29] Underneath the modern veneer, the older realities of ethnicity and desert values persist.[30]

The principles of Islam are in contradiction to the values of civilian society and democracy.[31] The source of authority and sovereignty is neither a social contract nor the will of the people but God. There is no egalitarianism between leader and subject, between man and woman, Arab and non-Arab, Muslim and non-Muslim, or even between segments of society.[32] The concepts of democracy and liberalism are rejected ab initio.

The Western temptation to engage moderate Islamists is misguided. The absolutism of political Islam—and the extra-constitutional rejection of those who do not accept its precepts—raise the danger of one-man, one-vote, one-time scenarios. Many Islamist movements readily embrace the rhetoric of democracy but fail to follow its principles when no longer convenient. This was the case with Algerian Islamists who, upon winning the first round of elections in December 1991, spoke openly of changing the constitution and abandoning the democratic process. Erdoğan, while mayor of Istanbul, summed up this problem when he quipped, "Democracy is like a streetcar. When you come to your stop, you get off."[33]

Engaging Islamists undercuts democracy in other ways. Egyptian-American sociologist Saad Eddin Ibrahim described the dichotomy that exists between autocrats and theocrats. "We have had autocrats in our region, fifty years or more of autocracy, in many of our countries; actually, nearly all of our countries. Who in due course generated their mirror image? Theocrats, the Khomeinis, the bin Ladens, the Zawahiris, the Zarqawis … who are challenging the autocrats, but who also are participating with the autocrats in an unholy, unintentional alliance to squeeze and to crush the budding democrats."[34] When Western officials embrace Islamists—even those they deem moderate—they contribute to oxygen starvation for liberals and those truly committed to democracy.

Islamist groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood or Tablighi Jamaat can be dangerous in other ways. Even when they say they eschew violence, they often serve as a "recruiting agency" for more radical groups or terrorist causes.[35] Tablighi alumni have gone on to join Al-Qaeda affiliates, for example, and many of those who joined the Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated Kurdistan Islamic Union continued, after further indoctrination, to join more radical and violent movements such as the Islamic Movement of Kurdistan or Ansar al-Islam.

 

Conclusion

The Middle East is far less stable than the White House and many European leaders believe. There is little social and economic development. Both military regimes and pro-Western monarchies are shaky. The departure of U.S. troops from Iraq may not only lead to a vacuum in that country filled by both Sunni and Shi'i militias, but the perception that the West is weak might embolden other Islamists and lead nominally pro-Western regimes to make accommodation with Islamism. Security is declining in both Afghanistan and Pakistan. Only the Ethiopian army prevents a whole-scale Islamist takeover in Somalia.

Washington bases its policy toward the Arab Middle East on the pillars of alliances with Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey. The population in each country, however, is fiercely anti-American.[36] While Turkey appears stable in the short term, both Egypt and Saudi Arabia face uncertain succession. Both have already weathered Islamist threats to their security with their government secured only through significant military and security investment. Al-Qaeda continues to target both. Bin Laden's deputy Ayman al-Zawahri comes from Egyptian Islamic Jihad. Bin Laden has repeatedly denounced the Saudi government as illegitimate and called for its overthrow. On March 1, 2003, for example, he called for Muslims to revolt against Saudi Arabia and, the following year, complained, "In Saudi Arabia, it is the king and not God who commands sovereignty and complete obedience … I advised the government two decades ago to remedy the situation ... but it has not changed at all," he declared in a December 2004 statement.[37] The Islamic Republic of Iran, meanwhile, is overconfident. Iranian leaders already feel themselves the paramount power in Iraq and, perhaps, Lebanon. The Supreme Leader has referred to Iran as a "superpower."[38] Over the past year, Iranian officials have expanded their influence in Gaza and have questioned the sovereignty of Bahrain, a majority Shi'i sheikhdom ruled by a Sunni leader. Islamist terrorist groups are well-established in Somalia and increasingly active in Yemen, and together threaten the Gulf of Aden and, by extension, access to the Suez Canal.

Scholars and policy experts find attractive the notion that political Islam is a spent force.[39] Repeatedly, they have been proven wrong. Today, Islamism is rising not only in Egypt and Pakistan but also in once-secular countries such as Turkey. In of each these cases and in states including Algeria, Tunisia, and Saudi Arabia, only the military prevents further Islamist gains. But like the proverbial boy with his finger in the dike, armies dependent upon recruits for ever more conservative societies cannot forever hold off the flood. It is quite possible that the Middle East and South Asia might look quite different a decade from now. It would be wise for Western policymakers to consider the possibility rather than continue to assume that the militaries that imposed security in the past will continue to repel Islamism in the future.

 

David Bukay is a lecturer at the School of Political Science in the University of Haifa.

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

 

 

[1] The Economist (London), Nov. 16, 2006.
[2] See, for example, Rupert Emerson, From Empire to Nation: The Rise of Self-Assertion of Asian and African Peoples (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1960); Samuel P. Huntington, Political Order in Changing Societies (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1968).
[3] Howard W. Wriggins, The Ruler's Imperative: Strategies for Survival in Asia and Africa (New York: Columbia University Press, 1969).
[4] Michael Bratton and Nicholas van de Walle, Democratic Experiments in Africa (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), pp. 82-97; Houchang Chehabi and Juan J. Linz, "A Theory of Sultanism," in Chehabi and Linz, eds., Sultanistic Regimes (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998), pp. 3-48.
[5] Amos Perlmutter, The Military and Politics in Modern Times (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977), pp. 104-5, 145-7; Michael Herb, All in the Family: Absolutism, Revolution, and Democracy in the Middle Eastern Monarchies (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1999), pp. 21-50.
[6] Al-Hayat al-Jadida (Ramallah), July 17, 2006.
[7] Zachary Abuza, "Jemaah Islamiyah Adopts the Hezbollah Model," Middle East Quarterly, Winter 2009, pp. 15-26.
[8] H. Osman Bencherif, "Algeria Faces the Rough Beast," Middle East Quarterly, Dec. 1995, pp. 31-8.
[9] Steven A. Cook, Ruling but Not Governing: The Military and Political Development in Egypt, Algeria and Turkey (Baltimore: John's Hopkins University Press, 2007), pp. 13, 133-8.
[10] "Islamizing Egyptian Education," Middle East Quarterly, Summer 2009, pp. 76-7.
[11] Ido Zelkowitz, "Fatah's Embrace of Islamism," Middle East Quarterly, Spring 2008, pp. 19-26.
[12] Michael Rubin, "Who Is Responsible for the Taliban?" Middle East Review of International Affairs, Mar. 2002.
[13] Daily Times (Lahore), Mar. 2, 2007; Najmuddin A Shaikh, "Analysis: Implications of the Swat Deal," Daily Times, Feb. 22, 2009.
[14] David Caprezza, "Turkey's Military Is a Catalyst for Reform," Middle East Quarterly, Summer 2009, pp. 13-23.
[15] Financial Times, July 31, 2003.
[16] Soner Cagaptay, "Turkey's Secret Power Brokers," Newsweek International, Mar. 30, 2009.
[17] Open Letter to President Obama, Mar. 10, 2009.
[18] Albert Hourani, Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age: 1798-1939 (London: Oxford University Press, 1970), pp. 291-323.
[19] Arab Human Development Report 2002 (New York: U.N. Development Programme, 2002), pp. 2-5.
[20] Moisés Naím, "What Is a Gongo?" Foreign Policy, May/June 2007.
[21] Sharq (Tehran), Jan. 2, 2006; Halim Barakat, The Arab World: Society, Culture, and State (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), pp. 273-5.
[22] Dankwart Rustow, "Transition to Democracy: Toward a Dynamic Model," Comparative Politics, Apr. 1970, pp. 350-1.
[23] "Map of Freedom in the World, Tables and Charts: Combined Average Ratings: Independent Countries, 2008," Freedom in the World, 2008 (Washington, D.C.: Freedom House, 2008), accessed Apr. 20, 2009.
[24] Mustapha K. al-Sayyid, "The Concept of Civil Society and the Arab World," in Rex Brynen, et. al., eds., Political Liberalization and Democratization in the Arab World (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 1995), pp. 131-48; idem, "International Dimensions of Middle Eastern Authoritarianism," in Oliver Schlumberger, ed., Debating Arab Authoritarianism: Dynamics and Durability in Nondemocratic Regimes (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2007), pp. 215-6.
[25] Elie Kedourie, Democracy and the Arab Political Culture (London: Frank Cass, 1994), pp. 103-5.
[26] Eva Bellin, "Coercive Institutions and Coercive Leaders," in Marsha Pripstein Posusney and Michele Penner Angrist, eds., Authoritarianism in the Middle East: Regimes and Resistance (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 2005) pp. 21-41.
[27] Marsha Pripstein Posusney, "The Middle East Democracy Deficit in Comparative Perspective," in Posusney and Angrist, Authoritarianism in the Middle East, p. 2; Nicola Pratt, Democracy and Authoritarianism in the Arab World (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 2007), pp. 189-204.
[28] Frederic L. Pryor, "Are Muslim Countries Less Democratic?" Middle East Quarterly, Fall 2007, pp. 53-8.
[29] Michael Herb, "Princes, Parliaments, and the Prospects for Democracy in the Gulf," in Posusney and Angrist, Authoritarianism in the Middle East, pp. 169-91.
[30] Fouad Ajami, The Dream Palace of the Arabs (New York: Pantheon Books, 1998), p. 155; Philip Carl Salzman, "The Middle East's Tribal DNA," Middle East Quarterly, Winter 2008, pp. 23-33.
[31] Daniel E. Price, Islamic Political Culture, Democracy, and Human Rights: A Comparative Study )Westport: Praeger, 1999), pp. 137-56, 177-86.
[32] Bernard Lewis, Race and Color in Islam (New York: Harper and Row, 1971), pp. 28-36, 54-61, 85-91; idem, Race and Slavery in the Middle East: An Historical Enquiry (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), pp. 1-6.
[33] The New York Times, May 11, 2003.
[34] Saad Eddin Ibrahim, "Dissent and Reform in the Arab World," conference transcript, The American Enterprise Institute, Washington, D.C., Jan. 13, 2006.
[35] Alex Alexiev, "Tablighi Jamaat: Jihad's Stealth Legions," Middle East Quarterly, Winter 2005, pp. 3-11.
[36] "America's Image Slips," Pew Global Attitudes Project, Washington, D.C., June 13, 2006.
[37] International Islamic News Network, Dec. 16, 2004; Rediff India Abroad, Dec. 16, 2004.
[38] Abrar (Tehran), Nov. 27, 2008.
[39] See, for example, Ray Takeyh, "Islamism, R.I.P," National Interest, Spring 2001.