Select Committee on Foreign Affairs Written Evidence



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 state—the USSR—that 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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