The ideological paradox

By Imtiaz Alam

The Muslim world, in general, and Pakistan, in particular, is gripped by an ideological paradox that undermines the alignment of Muslim countries with the West in its war against terrorism. Although the Muslim states, barring few exceptions, have had taken the path of 'modernisation'- however contradictory that may have been - they face an ideologically revivalist backlash that has become more pronounced after the cataclysm of September 11. The debate between modernism and revivalism has taken a very distorted turn after Osama bin Laden has so effectively thrown his spanners in the works; with anti-Americanism providing greater refuge to Islamic extremism.

What is quite problematic is that even many of the 'modernists', in their populist anti-American rhetoric, are inclined to join forces with the extreme religious right over what they perceive as 'principal enemy'. Ironically, they borrow their ideological arsenal from the erstwhile East-West, Cold War divide while forging a 'joint front against imperialism' with the clergy in its sacred war against the infidels, ie, modern civilisation, in general, and US-led West in particular. In what may turn out to be a very dangerous political gamble, or opportunism, they take comfort in the untenable nature of the fundamentalist project while becoming the tail of a most reactionary revivalism. The ideological paradox is so acute that even many of the so-called organisations of civil society, the NGOs in particular, who are in fact both the practitioners and beneficiaries of neo-liberalism, have also been swayed by 'anti-imperialist' populism. Not to mention the old-time leftists who seek catharsis by venting their frustrated anti-Americanism.

As the ideological compromise breaks up between the clergy and the state wherever it was tenuously sustained in the Muslim world, such as in Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Sudan, the ideological paradox has become much more pronounced than the modernist authoritarian countries, such as Turkey and Egypt, who had effectively separated the state from religion. In the post-Cold War times, the clergy in the Muslim world has gone through a political metamorphosis posing a serious threat to its benefactors of yesteryears, most importantly the US, the Saudi monarchy and the Pakistani establishment. It has also added a very parochial and divisive dimension to the causes of national liberation movements in the Muslim world, such as of Palestinians and the Kashmiris, helping in fact the forces of occupation and annexation.

The biggest casualty is the nascent democratic movement in many Muslim societies that universally suffer from authoritarianism, segregation of women and discrimination against the minorities. The movement for the democratisation of both the society and state in the Muslim world had to face the greatest disadvantage at the hands of not only the erstwhile rivalry between the two super-powers, but also imperial strategic interests and designs of the current sole-superpower. Even in the new alignment against terrorism, the democratic movement stands to suffer in many of the allied states. Many of its variants, such as most of the components of Alliance for Restoration of Democracy (ARD) in Pakistan, finds it expedient to join with the forces of revivalism, who reject democracy as a political system and undermine nation-state as such, rather than align with the objective ally, the Western democracies.

In a state of frenzy and defiance, many variants, and sects, of Islam have coalesced in the populist, anarchist and adventurist trend of jihad, a fard-i-kaffaya (not compulsory article of faith), that has been alleviated to the level of binding imperative of faith (fard-i-ain). The jihadi trend is unifocal, and sadist, that precludes everything else, including spiritual self-purification and permitted gratification, presupposes destruction of all modern structures and pushes the Muslim world into a sorts of inquisition. It is predicated on the exclusion of all the best intellectual traditions and creative adaptation of Islam to the genius of modern world through the article of ijtehad. A lack of very dynamic movement of reform within Islam for the last many centuries and decline of scholarly reconstruction of religious thought in Islam, has paved the way for the Talian or Wahabi version of Islamic revolution that is insistent upon taking the Muslim world back to the Middle Ages.

Since it presupposes and supports the destruction of all that is modern, it tends to combine the most reactionary elements of the traditional with the theocracy (that Islam in its true spirit abhors). By scuttling the scope of Islam to pre-industrial, pre-modern and authoritarian stages, the Mullas in fact want to consign Islam, that claims to be for all times to come, to what has become history. Even in pure military terms they want to take on a most devastating modern war machine with almost arrows and clubs. The world of Islam is faced with the worst period of its history and may be playing into the hands of those who want to consign it to the Stone Age, thanks to Osama's misadventure and barbaric simplicity of Taliban and their ilk. The model Islamic state, we are told, is the Islamic Emirates of Afghanistan, doomed to destruction, if not Iran who had much oil to subsidise its experimentation.

No doubt many failures of transition from traditional to modern, which is often interwoven and stunted by the ruling oligarchies, marginalising and demonstrative effects of globalisation and, of course, hegemonic designs of a sole-superpower - both illusionary and real - provide impetus to the forces of religious revivalism. However, it doesn't mean that the Muslim world abandons the path of much needed modernisation and democratisation. The modernist course, in all emancipating and rewarding ramifications, has to be pursued while fighting revivalism at every level. The problem is that, as was during all historical transitions from the traditional to the modern, the theocracy always resists, as is the case in the Muslim world. But the struggle between theocracy and democracy, obscurantism and rationalism and modernism and revivalism cannot wait for a reform movement within Islam. It has to be fought now since the history won't wait for our self-clarification or care for our regression.

On the other hand, the West must be ready to let the horizons of freedom and opportunity expand than prohibit or monopolise them. The deep sentiments of frustration and injustice that the Muslim masses are expressing have to be addressed since the present global system cannot simply afford a 'clash of civilisations'. This global village of ours will have to be most pluralistic and represent multilateralism rather than the exclusionary world of one hegemonic power targeted, among others, by suicide squads. The war against terrorism has to be fought, but cannot be won by exclusively attacking the symptoms. If freedom and opportunity are universal, then they have to be shared and strengthened universally.

The struggle for modernisation and democratisation in the East is what the West had successfully fought earlier. The West had been even more barbarous than the East had ever been. If the East had shown once the way to the West, why can't the West show us the way now? The role in history has been changing. Ours is a twin-front situation when we in the East are faced with the forces of revivalism, on the one hand, and a monopolistic West, on the other, not yet ready to fully share or return what it had sucked out of our veins. The choice is between catching up with the historical lapses and regressing in a world of sorrow. The West may not do it for us, even though it suits it, we will have to do it ourselves not for a modern and humane East alone, but also to humanise the West.

[republished with permission by the author from www.jang.com.pk]

Date/Time Last Modified: 6/3/2004 7:11:43 AM

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