The West, Islam, Islamism and jihad: Undigested modernity and the promise of politics

-By Sami Zemni

April , 2007

The attacks of 9/11, Madrid and Bali, the ‘cartoon’ riots, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the radicalisation and polarisation of numerous societies have all added strength to the idea of an imminent clash of civilizations. Seen from Europe, I argue that we are not heading towards a clash of civilizations but rather confronted with two complex dynamics, largely independent from one another. Firstly, within European countries, we are facing a conflict-ridden but utterly democratic dialogue between the Muslims of Europe and the local authorities. Secondly, on a global level, there is a clash between the ‘ideal of the jihad’ and the ‘rest of the world’. It is the amalgamation of both these dynamics that further polarizes the debates on the place and role of Islam in world politics and the question of the integration of Muslims in their host societies in Europe.

While it is fairly easy to contextualize the dialogue between Muslims and the local authorities within Europe, Islamist movements (and their violent offshoots) are the consequence of undigested modernity. Islamism itself, in my perspective, is not the issue but rather, our ‘political blind spot’ that constitutes the problem of coming to grips with contemporary violent forms of jihad’.

Under current neo-liberal globalisation, the traditional boundaries of inclusion and exclusion within the site of the still powerful nation-state are changing and altering. We are, by and large, living in what the Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek has called a context of post-politics, i.e. the situation in which opposite ideologies grounded in political parties and fighting democratically for the voter’s voice has been replaced by the general consensus that capitalism is the only natural way to go. The result is that politics has become only a question of policy which thereby reduces and obliterates its liberating promises.

The problems of Muslims in Europe cannot be reduced to the bankruptcy of integration or the consequence of Islam. Second and third generation Muslims are engaging in public debate and participating in the civil and political realms of their countries, pressing for the same rights that other groups already enjoy. The Muslims of Europe are channelling their questions, desires and wants within the existing constitutional, legal and political landscapes of the European countries. This accounts for the fact that the debate on Islam in France is quite different from that one in Great Britain.

Muslims are posing their requests by and large through democratic dialogue. And, as we often forget, democratic dialogue is utterly about settling conflict in a non-violent way. Therefore we should not be surprised that with dialogue comes, from time to time, conflict. Ultimately this is proof of the good functioning of democracy. Structurally, this dialogue poses the question as to what space will be allowed for Muslims within the European realm. The fact that Islam is still seen as a religion foreign to Europe inevitably influences the space given to Muslims. From the French model of assimilation to the British multicultural setting, Muslims have organised themselves in different ways, reflecting the local, historically grown, political traditions. It is the allowed space that informs us on the civic and political participation of the Muslims and not specific Islamic theology or doctrines.

Islamism is an ideology that endeavours to appropriate the political space and public sphere through the mobilisation of religious (Islamic) resources and modes of social action ranging from daw’a (predication) to jihad (violence, terrorism) through which certain social groups manifest their desire to control the state, to overthrow or oppose the state and to install an order that is called “Islamic”.

The activism of Islamism, just like other faith-based movements, is a highly modern phenomenon. All forms of fundamentalisms need and thrive on modernity to constitute themselves. Islamism and its radical jihad-form do not stand on the firm ground of (Islamic) tradition but are traditionalised responses to the doubt, characteristic of our modern predicament. It is not Islamic tradition that ‘produces’ Islamism or its militants. It is rather the conscious choice by the militants for what they call Islamic tradition – and one should add the “re-invented” forms of it – that produces Islamism. Islamism in general and its jihad-form in particular, are thus an anti-modern modernity, a way of dealing with uncertainty within modernity and offer a theoretical alternative.

Modernity was ‘imported’ into the Arab world from the second half of the 19th century onwards with the introduction of different institutional, military, legal resources and technologies. This happened within the framework of imperialism (later colonialism), i.e. within the frame of a clear imbalance of power between the two shores of the Mediterranean. This triggered responses of local rulers to try and control the dynamics of their rapidly changing societies.

During the ensuing direct forms of colonisation several forms of resistance emerged. During the Nahdha or Arab renaissance, Arab thinkers sought an answer to the question why the Arab world was weakened and overrun by powerful European countries. The responses were diverse and multifaceted but two arguments were repeatedly stressed. One had to admit and accept that the weakness was a consequence of certain ‘backward’ aspects of Islam, or one had to admit that it was the consequence of not following the ‘right Islam’. Islamic reformist thinkers argued that Islam was buried underneath a century-old layer of dust of ‘wrong traditions’. This way, a restoration of the so-called Golden Age was started and a modern religious, social and political movement emerged.

We are today, not confronted with a clash of civilisations but with a confrontation between the ‘ideal of jihad’ and the ‘rest of the world’. The contemporary ‘ideal of jihad’ is a rigid and dogmatic form of Islam in which all deeds and actions of the believer are ‘weighed’ against an imagined authentic Islamic ideal. This ‘ideal’ is however not an ideology nor a culture, let alone a civilization. It is not an ideology because it does not carry a positive vision for a future society. It is not a culture because this ‘new ideal’ endeavours to destroy all particular and local forms of culture. Hence their pathological attacks on local forms of music, traditional ceremonies of marriage or other rituals. The groups fighting ‘jihad’ are aiming their violence and destruction towards anyone against them, in the first place, against other Muslims.

The causes of the violence are to be found in the political problems throughout the Arab and Islamic world. By focussing on Islam, we evacuate the role of politics. By being blind to the local, historical and specific causes of conflict and diluting them in rhetoric of good and evil, we depoliticise these conflicts. As a consequence, we seem to be less and less capable of understanding why, under certain circumstances, people use violence as a political means. Therefore we also put less and less attention on the numerous forms of injustice and poverty that subsist throughout the world. Hence it becomes easy to put the blame on Islam and portray it as the ‘new enemy’ while doing nothing to tackle the root causes of the problems. This policy is just like a bad doctor who would treat the symptoms of an illness but not the illness itself. The consequence is more violence and more insecurity.

The more Islam and Islamism (as its political offshoot) are reduced to their sectarian components or extremist trends we are putting political solutions aside and opting for a military logic. The ‘military’ option undoubtedly feeds the ‘evil’ that it tells us it wants to eradicate. The miserable consequences of such a policy can sadly be seen in the ruins of Iraq, Lebanon, Afghanistan or the Palestinian Occupied territories.

The ‘triggers’ of Islamism and violent jihad are not to be discovered in Islam or its theology but in the human agency manipulating and thus re-creating and re-inventing the ‘Islamic theologies’ while it posits itself as being authentic and pristine.

At the basis of the revolt lies the disgruntlement with the unjust world in which we live. Then, and only then (when the need for a radical change is felt), the vast historic deposit of Islam is manipulated so that it evolves into a new logical system – at least in the eyes of those who follow it – capable of dealing with the modern world’s problems. This happens through the exclusion of the ‘Other’ who becomes the enemy that has to be killed as he epitomizes Evil. The problem of coming to grips with the phenomenon of jihad lies not in its supposed archaic, nihilistic or ‘barbaric’ character but in our political ‘blind spot’. The answer lies not in a hereafter but in the realm of politics and thus, it suggests that in the violent revolt against our modern condition emerges a new form of politics that transcend the political action and that which is only concerned with self-interest.

If a new, invigorated form of humanism does not succeed in combining Western self-criticism with empathy for the rest of the world, we are headed towards more violence and incomprehension. To get to know each other without reducing the Other (whether Muslim or not) to a threat, we should learn to depoliticise and stop dehumanising this Other.

If Europe keeps focussing on ‘Islam’, it will not be able to find solutions for the numerous political problems. Inter-religious and intercultural dialogues can reduce suspicions and tensions between people but cannot stop the violence, as this violence is not the consequence of religious antagonisms but of political conflicts. It is time that we talk less about Islam and more about the concrete movements and parties that prevail in our modern times. To understand is nothing more than the first step in reaching for constructive solutions. Let us not wait too long. The world is in need of it…