The end of an ideology

Is it premature to declare Islamism dead? Omayma Abdel-Latif seeks some answers
Perhaps at no time has an examination of political Islam's validity been more pertinent than it is today. While assessments of Islamism and its impact on Arab politics have been underway for some time, the events of 11 September and the subsequent events have lent the task new urgency. Following the attacks, one writer commented that Islamist movements "were buried under the rubble of the twin towers." Others agreed that 11 September demonstrated the moral bankruptcy of an ideology that swept the Arab world for three decades in the form of socio- political groups that invoked the sacred text to serve political ends.
French scholar Olivier Roy may have been the first to declare the death of political Islam. The Failure of Political Islam, published in the mid-1990s, angered many Islamists. In it, Roy spoke of "the poverty of Islamic thought on political institutions" and opined that "the creation of an Islamist polity is almost impossible." He concluded that political Islam as an ideology embraced by groups in the Middle East should therefore be declared dead.
Whether or not this was a narrow Orientalist view, as Islamists considered, it gained greater currency after 11 September. Once more, the debate raged over the fate of Islamism in the Arab world, with many commentators wondering whether this was the dawn of a post-Islamist era. Advocates of political Islam, on the other hand, say their belief system has been declared dead many times before. Moderate Islamists, indeed, argue that their vision has never been both so necessary and so easy to achieve. Such an argument, however, does not reflect the full impact of the way the US has handled the crisis. Some commentators were even reluctant to assess that impact, because the consequences for Islamists are still "incomplete."
In Egypt, however, activists admit that the events have inflicted "tactical damage." Moderate groups, it seems, were the hardest hit by America's war on terror. One such group -- the Muslim Brotherhood -- has been struggling to come to terms with the events. A senior Brotherhood member told Al-Ahram Weekly that the group has lost some of the ground it had gained before 11 September. Its political clout in the street has also been waning, a development he attributed to the "international siege" on political Islam. Since the attacks, the US administration, in its haste to clamp down on "terrorist networks," has targeted many Islamic charity organisations and resistance movements, which feature prominently on the US State Department's list of "terrorists and supporters of terrorist activities." Palestinian resistance movements such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad, as well as Lebanon's Hizbullah, were top of the list. Although the Muslim Brotherhood has not been mentioned so far, the group is not immune to the global crackdown. In October, the State Department ordered the freezing of $750 million in assets belonging to two banks, the Bahamas- based Al-Taqwa and the Somalia-based Al- Baraka, alleging that they were financing terrorist activities. Youssef Nada, Al-Taqwa's president and a veteran Brotherhood member, denied these charges. Brotherhood sources say the group's main aim now is to avoid a US offensive on its structure and financial organisations in Europe, where it has several headquarters, including its Germany-based international branch.
On the local level, official publications accused the Brotherhood of playing godfather to the Arab Afghans and squandering the resources of professional syndicates in the name of jihad in Afghanistan. Last month saw a hardening of the government's stance on the Brotherhood. First, Osama El-Baz, the president's political adviser, repeated the government's refusal that the Muslim Brotherhood form a political party. Arrests in Alexandria followed, with four members accused of belonging to an illegal group that seeks to overthrow the regime. In the same week, the detention of 36 members was renewed on the same charges. The gravest blow, however, came in mid-November, when a presidential decree ordered the trial of 22 senior Brotherhood members before a military court. The trial began this week.
Essam El-Erian, a senior member of the Brotherhood, said the government was being "consistent with its policies. Perhaps 11 September gave governments in the region more leeway to be repressive, but this is merely an extension of a continued policy against Islamists," El-Erian told the Weekly. Press reports, on the other hand, referred to a "secret statement" distributed by Mustafa Mashhour, the group's supreme leader, in which, for the first time, he placed the blame for the recent spate of arrests squarely on a foreign country -- the United States -- which he claimed, is exerting pressure on the Egyptian government to clamp down on Islamists. The media also spoke of US demands for senior members of the group to be extradited and questioned by US authorities on their links with Al- Qa'eda.
Since the attacks, and the subsequent American onslaught on Afghanistan, Brotherhood leaders have been especially keen to distance themselves from Al-Qa'eda. El-Erian, however, does not feel that the defeat of the Taliban and Al-Qa'eda is tantamount to a defeat for political Islam. It is difficult to speak of the defeat of the Islamist project, explains El-Erian, "as long as we do not know what percentage of the masses the Taliban and Osama Bin Laden really represent."
Still, a sense of frustration and disappointment seems to prevail among those sections of public opinion that had hoped for the triumph of the Islamic model as represented by the Taliban. Yet both El-Erian and Rifaat Sid-Ahmed, an expert on political Islam, describe such popular sentiments as "unrealistic," and consider that they are related principally to the anti-Americanism that has been on the rise in most Arab societies since the US launched its first military strikes on Afghanistan.
Abul-Ela Madi, a high-profile Islamist activist since the 1980s, elaborates, describing growing popular support for the discourse of the more radical groups as "a disturbing phenomenon," and one that is gaining ground. "There is a growing sense of radicalism among the masses," Madi told the Weekly. He expressed fears that this might lead to the birth of more radical groups. Madi had first-hand experience of the phenomenon with the young people of his Upper Egyptian hometown in Minya. "They are young men who believed in a moderate vision of Islam," explains Madi. "Now, they see the American campaign targeting only Muslim countries, people, charity organisations and on top of that resistance movements. America has equated terror with all things Islamic, and they resent this," he continued. This kind of resentment, many moderate Islamists believe, will offer fertile ground for intense anti-Americanism in the region.
Though the picture emerging after the attacks seems bleak for political Islam across the Arab world, both Sid-Ahmed and El-Erian downplayed the damage inflicted on Islamism by the US's anti-terror campaign. Sid-Ahmed believes that political Islam goes far beyond the political movements, which are only "the tip of the iceberg of Islamic activism." That activism, he argues, includes large sections of Arab societies that are not politically active, as well as Islamic charities, NGOs and independent intellectuals. "The political organisations may have been affected adversely by the 11 September events, yet such an impact will remain temporary and limited," Sid-Ahmed said.
And the more political Islam associates itself with resistance movements, he argues, the more ground it will gain on the grassroot level -- a level the US will find difficult to reach and control. "These are not militias. These are socio- political movements that cannot be dismantled just because America says so," Sid Ahmed notes.
Most assertions regarding the fate of political Islam in the region remain hypothetical, but some seem more accurate than others. Observers of street politics in Egypt and the region, for instance, have noted "simmering discontent and a great deal of resentment" among the public, caused by the actions the US has undertaken in the name of fighting terrorism. By targeting resistance movements, America has reinforced impressions that it supports Israel blindly, yet has nothing but disrespect for the national and religious sentiments of the Arab peoples. And at the end of the day, in Sid- Ahmed's words: "Political Islam as practiced by Hizbullah, Islamic Jihad and Hamas is resistance, and resistance cannot be equated with terrorism."
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2001 Special Supplement
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