Frank Viviano Writes Muslims seek a path into 21st century
Cairo — What do Muslims want?- The question haunts every effort to understand the turmoil
in the Islamic world — the acute internal crisis — that has
erupted in a U.S-led “war on terrorism.”- The answer is not to be found on the extremes, in the nihilistic
violence of Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda or the medieval barbarism
of the Taliban. Nor, given the diversity of a billion-strong
Islamic population scattered over five continents, can there
be a single answer.- But interviews across the Middle East and Mediterranean basin
suggest the events of Sept. 11 have initiated an intense debate
among Muslim political and religious thinkers — not over the
violent rejection of the 21st century, but over the means of
entering it.- At the heart of the debate is the search for a “Muslim
approach” to contemporary democracy, for political reforms
that are rooted in Islamic tradition but that counter the authoritarian
systems that today govern almost all Islamic nations.- “There is no question that reform is necessary,”
says Abdul Latif Arabiyat, secretary-general of Jordan’s Islamic
Action Front, “and that to be successful it must have an
Islamic character.”- Any other approach to modernization “will be regarded
as something imposed on our societies from the outside, implanted
by force, and is certain to fail, ” says Dr. Esam el-Arian,
a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. “The way to achieve
modern progress must come from the inside.”- Both Arabiyat, a university administrator, and el-Arian,
who holds degrees in medicine and law, are accomplished, modern
professionals. Yet both are working for the establishment of
Islamic states and belong to fundamentalist organizations that
have been outlawed or severely repressed by their respective
governments.- The reform movement within Islam has no dominant voice. It
includes full- fledged political parties, such as the Muslim
Brotherhood and the Islamic Action Front, and doctrinal sects
that have attracted millions of disciples in recent years.- What they share, say reformers, is a conviction that Islam
contains the seeds of its own modernization.- “We want to bring Islam back to its uncorrupted essentials,
to its embrace of pure forms of democracy and justice,”
says Maha Dabbous, a spokeswoman for the dissident Ahmadi sect
in London that has an estimated 150 million followers worldwide,
including a very large following in India.- “You do that with the Koran, not with the sword,”
says Dabbous, who left a lucrative career as a civil engineer
in Britain 12 years ago to direct women’s programs for Palestinian
Muslims in Israel.- GOVERNMENT GUIDED BY PEOPLE
The “pure” democracy endorsed by the Koran — in which,
Muslims believe, the prophet Mohammed recorded God’s directives
for the reform of Judaism and Christianity 14 centuries ago –
lies in a concept known as shura. Its meaning,- explains Jordan’s Arabiyat, “is the direct guidance
of government by the people who are governed.”- There is disagreement on the interpretation of the Koranic
verses that mention shura, according to Mohammed el-Sayed Said,
assistant director of Cairo’s Al-Ahram Center for Political and
Strategic Studies. But their thrust, he says, “is an injunction
that rulers consult their colleagues and the people at large
— an assertion that human affairs should include collective
engagement in governance.”- Grassroots versions of shura have won wide popular support
for some extremist groups. Lebanon’s Hezbollah and the Palestinian
Hamas — better known in the West for their terrorist actions
— have built highly effective local organizations that encourage
public discussion of issues, and offer health care and educational
services to the poor.- They stand in sharp contrast to the authoritarian governments
that rule most states in the Islamic world, where small wealthy
elites monopolize the political process.- “It’s not the ideology (of fundamentalism) that attracts
people. If anything, that scares them. What support the Islamists
appear to get is due to the fact that they talk about issues
that appeal to the masses,” says Maye Kassem, a political
scientist at the American University in Cairo.- NO ANSWERS TO SOCIAL PROBLEMS
How then to explain the resort to terrorism? “In part,”
says Malek Chebel, an anthropologist and psychoanalyst who has
written extensively on Islamism in North Africa, “because
of the incapacity of Muslim rulers who have not succeeded in
addressing social conflict, mass poverty and, above all, the
corruption of their elites.”- The cost of protesting against such abuses, even by organizations
that renounce violence, is steep. Last Tuesday, Egyptian police
arrested 21 men associated with the Muslim Brotherhood, charging
them with illegal political activities. At press time, barganews
had been unable to learn if el-Arian, who has already spent five
years in prison, was among them.- The best evidence that institutionalizing democracy can defuse
Islamic extremism, say Chebel and others, is to be found in the
large Muslim communities in Western Europe and the United States.- In a survey conducted by the French Public Opinion Institute
after the Sept.- 11 terrorist attacks, only 1 percent of those polled among
the country’s 5 million Muslims agreed that “the rejection
of Western values” best corresponded to their “personal
idea of Islam.”- JUSTICE, LIBERTY, DEMOCRACY
The three ideas most frequently cited in the survey were “justice,”
“liberty” and “democracy.” Seventy percent
of respondents supported the participation of France in “helping
the United States uncover the terrorist networks responsible
for the Sept. 11 attacks.” Ninety percent said that those
who perpetrated the attacks should not be allowed to call themselves
Muslims.- Beyond the smoke screen of terrorism, believes Iranian sociologist
Farhad Khosrokavar, “a new wind is blowing. The Muslim identity
and modernity are reconciling.”
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