IR4504 Lecture 7

1
IR4504 Lecture 7

• Contemporary Islamist Politics

2
Defining Islamist Politics

• Islamism is not Islam a minority opinion
• While Islam is part of the language of politics
  in the MENA, Islamism is only one possible
  manifestation
• Islamism is a set of political and social
  movements aiming to bring Islam back into
  politics and society.
• Bids for power Iran, Sudan, Algeria, Turkey
• Has populist roots emphasis on lack of
  corruption, authentic values, empowerment and
  resistance to foreign meddling

3
Ideological Aims

• Islam is the solution?
• Response to failure of populist social contract
• Corruption of Western values
• Islamisation of the state
• Change in leadership
• Changes in law in line with sharia
• Changes in foreign policy
• Islamisation of society
• conservative mores through education and
  monitoring
• reclaiming a Golden Age from below?
• Reclaiming a stateless ummah?

4
Islamism in Context

• The new bogeyman of International Relations?
• Green Threat arguments began in early 1990s. Is
  September the 11th an argument in their favour?
• Danger of making Islamism and Terrorism
  synonymous
• The Iranian Model?
• hope of Khomeini that this model would be
  exported and this failed as Iran was bogged down
  in a disastrous war with Iraq for most of the
  1980s
• Efforts through sponsorship of groups like
  Hizbollah
• seen by many Islamists as a model for Islamic
  State but became unpopular in the 8 years of
  reform
• In this sense Islamism has failed to create a set
  of revolutions throughout the region (Olivier
  Roy)
• But groups are varied in goals and tactics

5
Roots of a Regional Movement - I

• Choueiri resistance movements in the name of
  Islam are cyclical in history
• Response to times of economic and political
  crisis
• Modern Islamism born in Egypt in 1920s Hasan
  al-Bannas Muslim Brotherhood (Ikwan)
• Setting up a Muslim state free from imperialist
  meddling (from above)
• Purification of society through Muslim values
  (from below)
• Creation of groups elsewhere to recreate a
  powerful community (ummah)
• Methods education, infiltration of power
  channels, assassination of political leaders

6
Roots of a Regional Movement - II

• The cells structure remains relevant to most
  groups regionally since the early days of
  al-Ikwan.
• 1960s Sayyid Qutb - obligation to overthrow
  governments living in ignorance, radical
  interpretation of Jihad, more explicitly
  anti-Western discourse
• From 1970s economic and political crisis of
  postcolonial development projects means varied
  groups mushroom throughout the Middle East
• 1980s height of economic crisis means growing
  popularity in the absence of other ideological
  alternatives
• 1990s pressures for liberalisation of civil
  society democratisation mean new opportunities to
  get power formally and informally (e.g. trade
  associations), Gulf War 2 is the trigger for wave
  of anti-Americanism
• Post-9/11 backlash regimes have a carte blanche
  to clamp down on all Islamist groups

7
Paths to influence

• Since the 1980s, the profile and power of
  Islamists has grown in the ME and all states been
  affected in some way
• They have been influential in
• putting pressures for changes in the law to meet
  their interpretation of the Sharia. Algeria
  1984
• infiltrating various professions to gain access
  to channels of influence (patronage networks) -
  legal and medical associations, the teaching
  profession, and the army and bureaucracy. Egypt
  1990s
• Running for elections when allowed and winning
  seats even when elections are rigged Morocco,
  Jordan
• Acting as charitable organisations and
  educational channels for the most dispossessed
  for both principled and pragmatic purposes e.g.
  Pakistans earthquake
• Committing acts of political violence esp.
  against Israel
• Violent groups becoming mainstreamed as
  political parties Lebanon

8
Structures

• Islamism is a loose set of movements
• informal connections e.g. former Afghani
  resistance fighters spreading through the MENA
• connections between al-Ikwan groups
• sponsorship links
• No unified regional network
• Violent Groups organised as independent cells,
  creating new cells, etcNo unified leadership
• Non-violent groups organised as social movements
  marketing, education, social welfare
• Some groups have charity and violent wings

9
Islamism and Democracy Debates

• Ties into wider debates about Islam
• E.g. Orientalism Islam encourages despotism
• The Islamist Dilemma (Guazzone)
• If allowed to run for elections, they may win and
  cancel electoral processes once in power
• If not allowed to run, it undermines democracy
• Democracy to fight Islamism? (Bush admin)
• creating pluralism will give more moderate voices
  a chance to dominate politics the
  mainstreaming effect
• Radical Islamism as a response to
  authoritarianism (and external support for it)?

10
Islamism and Violence

• Jihad as a limiting Just War doctrine
• not holy war, but to struggle in the way of
  God (mind, deed, and sword)
• Islamist violence was traditionally targeted,
  self-limiting political assassinations of the
  Ikwan
• Since Qutb radical interpretation of Jihad as
  6th pillar of the faith
• Much wider range of legitimate use of violence
• Defines its violence as a response to oppression
  and imperialism
• Questions prohibition on civilian casualties
• E.g. Hamas all Israelis are in the military!
• Justification of suicide in the name of martyrdom
  
• Terrorist Groups e.g. Al-Jihad (Egypt), GIA
  (Algeria) Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade and Hamas
  (Palestine), al-Qaeda
• Some groups dont use violent means at all.

11
Conclusion

• Is Islamism the radical expression of wider
  grievances?
• Challenge of dealing with underlying issues of
  representation, accountability, and political
  economy
• Islamism is the most potent opposition to
  authoritarian regimes in the MENA
• external and internal policies can help make them
  more mainstream, or radicalise them
• They cannot be exterminated as a political
  movement, a set of ideas
• What is it that makes some groups more violent
  than others? A pragmatic choice according to
  what works, but also a response to state
  repression vs. inclusion.
• Alternative version of modernity? Links with
  global resistance movements?
• What does this mean for our understanding of the
  War on Terror?