Written evidence submitted by Professor
Robert Springborg, MBI Al Jaber Chair in Middle East Studies and
Director, London Middle East Institute, School of Oriental and
African Studies, University of London
1. This submission will seek to answer the
following questions:
(a) Who are the Islamist political activists?
(b) What are the relations between them?
(c) Why does Islamism exist?
(d) How do fellow Muslims view Islamists?
(e) What is the Islamist view of the war
against terrorism?
(f) How should the West deal with Islamist
terrorism?
Who are the Islamist political activists?
2. The broad category of Islamist political
activists includes several different types defined by their relationship
to the state, of which only one consists virtually exclusively
of dedicated terrorists. Those are the trans-national jihadis
such as al Qa'ida, Hizb al Tahrir and the so-called Zarqawiyyin
active in Iraq. These trans-nationalists believe that states are
inherently antithetical to Islam, which in their view should consist
of the ummah, or united community of believers. Their Manichean
view sees Muslim states as typically subordinate to non-Muslim,
western ones, hence all are legitimate objects of attack. Their
leadership is not that of trained religious figures, but of political
activists who are themselves opposed to established Islam as represented
by its centres of learning, clerics and officials.
3. A second category of political Islamists
are national liberationists such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad in
Palestine, Hizbollah in Lebanon, some of the Sunni insurrectionists
as well as the followers of Muqtada al Sadr in Iraq, and some
Shi'a activists in the Gulf Cooperation Council states, especially
those in Bahrain. These are believers in the legitimacy of states
seeking not to destroy them, but to "liberate" their
states from occupiers or, in the case of Shi'a activists in the
Gulf, to induce ruling Sunni families to cede considerable, if
not absolute power to Shi'a. The issue of whether or not political
Islamists in this category should be considered and dealt with
as terrorists or otherwise is partly an empirical matter (ie,
when and how do they resort to violence, with Hamas, for example,
being much more reticent to employ violence during the last year
than Islamic Jihad) and partly one of political strategy (eg,
should Hamas, Hizbollah and Sunni activists in Iraq be ostracized
from or incorporated into their national political systems?)
4. National Islamists who are seeking to
Islamicize existing Muslim states constitute far and away the
largest category of Islamist activists and one only rarely thought
of as terrorist. While they communicate and even coordinate with
similar organizations in other countries, their political goals
are primarily national, not trans-national. The Muslim Brotherhood
in Egypt and its offshoots in Jordan (the Islamic Action Front),
Syria, Morocco and elsewhere, Salafis in Kuwait, the AKP in Turkey
and possibly the neo-Khomeinists grouped around President Ahmadinejad
in Iran are the primary examples of national Islamists. A hybrid
category of national Islamists who utilize violent insurrection
and terrorism in attempts to "liberate" their country
from the indigenous regime controlling it can also be identified.
Examples of these Islamist "revolutionaries within one country"
include the Gama'a al Islamiyya and Islamic Jihad in Egypt and
the Islamic Salvation Front in Algeria.
What are the relations between them?
5. At the most abstract level, all Islamists
are seeking the same objective, which is the creation of Islamic
government. The lack of clarity as to what that would constitute,
however, combined with the fragmentation of Islamists nationally,
religiously, and by their preferred ends and means, results in
profound divisions between Islamists. The majority are seeking
the application of Islamic law within a particular Muslim country,
but some are seeking the destruction of those nation-states and
the creation of an ummah. Some believe that the application
of the shari'a should be total, immediate, and compulsory,
while others believe it should be achieved voluntarily, gradually
and over a period that might extend beyond a single generation.
Some believe violence to be legitimate, while others think that
achieving a good Muslim state can only be through al da'wa,
"the call". In sum, there is no unified, global Islamist
revolution, just as there was no communist one, although it came
much closer to so being. While there was a single statethe
USSRthat attempted to dominate and control international
communism, there is no equivalent state in the Muslim world and
no movement, whether the Muslim Brotherhood or al Qa'ida, that
is sufficiently inclusive, united and powerful to speak on behalf
of even Muslims in the Arab world, let alone Muslims more generally.
Why do they exist?
6. The rise of political Islam is sometimes
explained in essentialist terms, namely, that Islam does not admit
of a division between religion and state, so when left to their
own devices, Muslims organize politically within a religious framework.
The Muslim world, according to this argument, fell under foreign
influence in the 19th and 20th centuries, so abandoned then its
essentially religious forms of political organisation. Political
Islam represents in this view a return to the original and true
nature of Muslim socio-political organisation. Evidence offered
in support of this proposition frequently includes reference to
religiously inspired anti-colonial political movements in the
19th century in various countries of North Africa and the Middle
East.
7. Most contemporary social science explanations
of the rise of political Islam emphasize disempowerment at various
levels as the primary cause. At the international level disempowerment
takes the form of alleged domination by the West of the Muslim
world, as evidenced most importantly and directly for Islamists
by the presence of western forces in Iraq and Israel's occupation
of land conquered in 1967, but also in numerous indirect ways,
such as by alleged gratuitous insults in the western media. With
regard to disempowerment of Muslims at the national level, the
argument is that incumbent, semi-secular regimes are unpopular,
undemocratic, corrupt and subservient to the West. They are strong
enough to subdue the relatively weak secular, liberal opposition,
but not strong enough to repress Islamist political organisation,
which benefits from the sanctity of mosques and the existence
of Islamist social services. Having disempowered their populations
through authoritarianism, these regimes are now extremely vulnerable
to political Islam, a central appeal of which is the application
of religious morality to politics. At the level of family, kinship
and education, some social scientists argue that neo-patriarchal
forms of social organisation disempower young Muslims, who then
seek empowerment in public spheres. Political Islam, in sum, is
seen by most social scientists as a reaction against widespread
political, economic and social disempowerment of Muslims.
How do fellow Muslims view Islamists?
8. Public opinion polls reveal tremendous
variation in attitudes by Muslims toward Islamists and violence
committed by them. The Pew Global Attitudes project released in
July 2005, for example, revealed that 60% of Jordanians expressed
confidence in Usama bin Laden and that 57% saw suicide bombings,
including those against Americans and British in Iraq, as justifiable
in defence of Islam. Yet the Jordanian Institute for Strategic
Studies poll conducted almost simultaneously revealed that only
8% of Syrians and 18% of Lebanese supported al Qa'ida, as opposed
to 41% in Egypt. But 62% of Egyptians regarded the 9/11 attacks
as terrorist, whereas only 22% of Palestinians did. This illustrative
data suggests extremely wide variation in responses, not only
between countries, but from question to question. This variation,
although calling into question the reliability of the data as
a whole, may reflect genuine ambivalence and ambiguity in the
minds of Muslims about political and especially violent Islamism.
Behavioural data, such as that in Jordan, where Jordanians demonstrated
in large numbers against those who perpetrated bombing outrages
on 9 November 2005, could be read as suggesting that while significant
percentages of Muslims might be prepared to support violence perpetrated
by Islamists in the abstract and at a distance, when it is tangible,
close to home and impacts Muslims it is disapproved. The behaviour
of Saudis in reaction to al Qa'ida attacks there and the present
conflict between foreign supporters of Abu Musab al Zarqawi and
native Sunni Arabs in Iraq suggests a similar conclusion. There
is, in sum, no carte blanche approval of violent political Islam
by Muslims and the majority of Muslims seem abhorred by radicalism
and violence within their own countries, but there appears to
be some willingness to condone such violence, at least in the
abstract form of verbal approval, as if to "teach the West
a lesson."
9. But if polling and behavioural data reveal
considerable ambivalence about radicalism and violence conducted
in the name of Islam, virtually all available evidence suggests
that within Muslim communities, especially those in the Middle
East, parochialism and intolerance is triumphing over cosmopolitanism
and tolerance. Public space is being appropriated by religious
practice and symbolism, encroaching further and further into the
life spaces of non-believers. Muslims are retreating further into
their own communities, while members of minority faiths and non-believers
are retreating into theirs. This tendency underpins an us verses
them attitude that is increasingly characteristic of Muslim communities
and that attitude, can in turn, provide support for radical political
Islam.
What is the Islamist view of the war against terrorism?
10. Islamists of all different types tend
to believe that the war on terrorism is conducted by a powerful
opponent and directed at least in part against them, but that
they are winning. The trans-national jihadis believe they are
winning by not losing in Afghanistan and Iraq; by virtue of the
fact that Usama bin Laden, Ayman al Zawahiri, and other al Qa'ida
leaders remain at large; that they remain able to commit violent
acts in various parts of the globe; that they have recruited European
Muslims into their ranks and deployed them on missions of violence;
that the alleged "conflict of civilizations" is becoming
manifest in such forms as riots in Paris and global demonstrations
against Danish cartoons; and that their principal enemies, namely
President Bush and Prime Minister Blair, are suffering declining
popularity for their conduct of the war in Iraq, while their allies
in that war are retreating one by one. National liberationists
base their optimistic assessment on claims that Hizbollah liberated
south Lebanon from Israeli occupation while Hamas liberated Gaza;
that both have emerged as the largest political parties in their
respective national entities; that the West is divided on the
question of how to deal with these alleged terrorist organisations;
that President Ahmadinejad seems to be able to defy the West with
impunity; and that the Iraqi insurrection is winning by not losing.
National Islamists, although not on the receiving end of the war
against terrorism, have similarly optimistic assessments of their
present political circumstances. In Turkey they control government
and in recent elections in the Arab world, including those in
Egypt, Lebanon, Morocco, Jordan, and Kuwait, Islamists have emerged
as the principal opposition force. Moreover, they sense ultimate
strategic victory, for they see the West as committed to democratization,
hence the inevitable electoral success of Islamists in virtually
all countries of the region. In sum, Islamists of all types are
of the view that despite the war against terrorism and western
antagonism to them, they are becoming steadily more powerful and
that success will ultimately be theirs.
How should the West deal with Islamist terrorism?
11. First and foremost the West should clearly
differentiate between Islamists in its conduct of the war against
terrorism. At present there is considerable confusion as to precisely
who the enemies are. Although it is universally agreed that the
trans-national jihadis are the West's enemies, and rightly so,
there is less agreement about Islamist national liberationists,
and rightly so. Some in the West believe Hizbollah, Hamas, Islamic
Jihad, Gama'a al Islamiyya and other such organisations should
be classified as terrorist and dealt with accordingly, while others
doubt the wisdom of this approach, preferring to wean them away
from violence by drawing them into national political systems.
Finally, national Islamists, such as the Muslim Brothers, have
for the most part not been identified as enemies in the war against
terrorism, but equally it cannot be contended that suitable strategies
have been developed in the West to deal with this form of Islamism.
What is clearly needed is an overall strategy built upon differences
between these types of Islamists. The rudiments of such a strategy
might be as follows:
12. Trans-national jihadis should be confronted
with the full array of counter-terrorist tools, while simultaneous
education/information efforts are undertaken to isolate them from
mainstream Islam. Because their views are essentially heretical
and because their leadership is not well versed in Islam itself,
trans-national jihadis are vulnerable to being isolated from and
shunned by other Muslims. This is probably the single area in
which facilitation of dialogue about the true nature of Islam
and encouragement of Islamic liberals is a useful tool. National
liberationists can best be dealt with through a combination of
modifying policies toward Iraq and Israel/Palestine and facilitating
the incorporation of those Islamists into their respective national
political systems. National Islamists can be contained through
their further incorporation into national political systems, by
greater democratization of those systems, and by economic development,
especially that which addresses issues of inequality.
13. In conclusion, the West is engaged in
a war against terrorism in which the primary enemy, which is trans-national
jihadis, seeks to blur distinctions between themselves and other
Islamists as well as Muslims in general in the hope that the West
will respond in indiscriminate fashion, thus alienating more Muslims
and driving them into implacable opposition to the West. It is
vital, therefore, that the war against terrorism be based on a
clear appreciation of the nuances that divide different types
of Islamists and the development of specific strategies for each
sub-category of them. Key to the overall strategy is appreciation
of the fact that the vast majority of Islamists are seeking to
influence national political systems rather than to engage in
trans-national jihad. Their incorporation into those systems through
gradual democratization is likely to moderate, democratize and
possibly fragment Islamist organisations as they seek to broaden
their appeal and form coalitions with other political actors.
Pressure needs to be applied on the Iraqi government to be more
inclusive of Sunni nationalist Islamists and on the Israeli government
not to prevent the inclusion of Palestinian Islamists into the
Palestine Authority and to fulfil conditions specified in the
Road Map. Finally, trans-national jihadis, the primary target
of the war against terrorism, do not enjoy widespread support
and what support they do enjoy is in inverse proportion to their
distance from any given Muslim population. These jihadis are vulnerable
to being isolated from local Muslim populations and the war against
terrorism should seek to do just that.
Professor Robert Springborg
February 2006
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