Julian Symes

'Islamism': a Muslim reacts to Sandra Halperin

Can there be any useful understanding of the present crisis without a serious attempt to comprehend the core precepts of Islam, and their projections in the political dimension? Surely not, but it is taking a while for the penny to drop, for much public commentary in the last few weeks has either studiously avoided the subject, or been cast in terms of the polarised caricatures of Muslim political consciousness provided by apologists and politicians, and echoed in lazy and complicit journalism.

For example, Sandra Halperin told us of the evils of "Islamism", a term that must surely be defined very carefully, particularly in the current climate, if what is said is to be more help than harm. But, through the footnote explanation and her use of the term, she presented us with a notion so nebulous as to cast serious doubt on the value of her remarks, as I will now try to explain.

As a Muslim I find no real distinctive significance in terms such as "Islamism", "Islamic fundamentalism", "theocracy", and so on, and I question the motives underlying their use in respect of the current situation. The term Islamism, for instance, too easily becomes simply a heading under which to collect all those aspects of Muslim thought and behaviour which one finds problematic, without any credible attempt to determine the true nature and extent of their relationship with either core Islamic ideology or its contemporary mainstream interpretation, and then to attack them as though they were all merely aspects of a single, deviant, interpretation of Islam. All the while it is maintained that one has nothing against ‘true’ Islam or Muslims in general. I believe Sandra Halperin, like so many of our politicians and journalists, uses her terms in this latter way – to sidestep the real issues. Furthermore, I suggest that a serious-minded attempt to get to grips with the actual diversity of political thinking amongst present-day Muslims, particularly on such issues as the legitimacy of armed struggle or the requirement for religious government, will reveal that it cannot be rationally analysed in the simplistic way suggested by the use of such press terms. And it is worth remembering that all mainstream interpretation of Islam assert a universal bond of brotherhood between Muslims, a bond that does not depend on agreement as to political specifics.

Of course it would be convenient if ideological criteria could be found which would place clear water between "good" (West-friendly?) and "bad" Muslims (so as to minimise risk of collateral damage?) but that simply isn’t the way things are. To put some flesh on that claim, I assert for example that a huge number of Muslims, whilst they would find no religious justification whatsoever for the World Trade Center atrocity, and would condemn it outright, would nonetheless regard working toward the establishment of Islamic law (shariah), at least in governance of their own communities, as an absolute religious obligation. And yet so many commentators seem, with no justification at all, to link the two, terrorism and appetite for shariah, as though they are twin aspects of the same "phenomenon", to which they give names like Islamism and Islamic fundamentalism.

The ease with which this false connection between terrorism and desire for religious law is made is not always just the result of prejudice and sloppiness. I believe there is a perception, quite probably correct, that the political values of Islam and those of the West are at the end of the day incompatible. This creates a climate of fear, mostly born of ignorance, in which it is seen as important for Western interests that religious Islamic states are not offered any support, unless as in the case of Saudi Arabia the alternative is an even more religious state, and that repressive West-friendly regimes in the Middle East (which may also be taken to include Saudi Arabia) are propped up in the face of desire for more popular, which often means more Islamic, forms of government. (The last thing the United States wants in the Middle East right now is a mass outbreak of democracy.) The thought of a well-armed and well-organised stable alliance of popular Islamic regimes is one that I believe the West finds truly frightening – but why, exactly? Is there a prior reason to suppose that, whatever the ideological incompatibilities, which I suspect are a good deal less than in the case of Soviet Communism, the two "worlds" cannot coexist in practice. I ask that as an open question, but one view is that neither side needs, nor should wish, to destroy or repress the other, in either ideological, political or military terms. The differences are there, but they can be lived with: there need be no Clash. Unfortunately the US’s continuing pursuit of its narrow self-interest, together with its apparent need for an ideological foe, has poisoned the atmosphere to such an extent that it is hard to find reason for optimism.

Clearly many Muslims, even here in the UK, find it hard to construe the current Anglo-American military and diplomatic action as anything other than an attack on Islam. But even if the assurances to the contrary may be taken at face value, the situation is presenting chances for opportunist ideological strikes against mainstream Islamic beliefs, and these chances are not being missed. For example, by repeated use of phrases like "far right wing" Sandra Halperin invites us to judge and respond to events and actions in the Middle East according to the extent to which they offend or placate our cultivated Western sensibilities. Surely this is exactly what must be avoided, if there is to be any possibility that our world can be shared with those whose fundamental conceptions of life and its meaning differ significantly from our own.

This notion of Islamism allows us to bracket Osama Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda with regimes as diverse in policy and practice as the Taleban militia in Afghanistan, the hybrid revolutionary govenment in Iran, which mixes Shi’ite clerical authority with a form of parliamentary democracy, and the hereditary monarchy of Saudi Arabia. But this identification stretches the limits of comparison, to say the very least, and would probably raise eyebrows, if not laughter, in those countries in question. The only thing they really seem to have in common is an ostensible commitment to religious law as such, so it seems reasonable to suggest that perhaps it is actually the notion of government according to Islamic law to which Sandra Halperin is hostile. If this is so, then does she really hold that it is a perverse and recent misinterpretation of Islam?

So "Islamism" is the disease and, apparently, "Democracy" – in some Western interpretation of the notion - is the cure. But it may require the helping hand for which the current crisis provides the opportunity (or excuse?). The patient’s consent is immaterial, since its absence would merely signify mental incompetence. As I have tried to indicate above, it is a terrible mistake to assume that the ordinary people of the Muslim lands, whatever may be their woes and grievances with their particular regimes, are crying out to be more like "us". The memory of those lost in the recent events is in no way served by using the situation as the excuse to open up broader political and ideological fronts against an unfamiliar belief system, particularly when there has been thus far so little real effort to comprehend it.

Finally, we can, as the meeting showed, spend our time reaching considered judgements as to how we fell into the hole. But the opportunity is there for the academic community at large to play a crucial role in the infinitely harder job of getting us out. It will, though, need unprecedented levels of creativity, radical thinking and, dare one say, modesty, and the establishment of much closer intellectual links with those with whom one might believe one has little in common. (Surely this is the best basis for intellectual progress.) Resources should be diverted towards dramatically increasing the levels of unprejudiced and genuine understanding between Islamic and Western social and political culture and heritage, at all levels. This is something that can practically be done, and it can be done now. Who knows, it might even be interesting.

Julian Symes spacross@pavilion.co.uk

5 November 2001