Joseph Sopholaos
The powerful uprising of modern Arab Islamist extremism in the 21st century after the Nahda (a term which means in Arabic “risen up”, and generally refers to the Arabic renaissance that occurred during the 19th century), and more specifically after the spread of Enlightenment ideas between Arab intellectuals, questions the reality and validity of any cultural renaissance. This fact poses serious questions concerning the reasons or causes that triggered such extremist behaviours amid Muslims in the current day. How could a culture, that experienced a radical social and political change during the past decade, that fostered in the region a revolutionary worldview, have resorted to a theocratic understanding of the political? Much to the chagrin of Hegelians, one should not look further than the mid-50s or 60s to trace the foundations of Modern Islamic fundamentalism. However, can we speak of a cultural rupture regarding the behaviour and political framework of Al-Qaeda, ISIS and other Islamist factions?
The context examined
The Ottoman Empire was a militaristic hierarchical state, where Sunni Muslims in general held powerful positions in this hierarchical system. This, however, fostered supremacist tendencies within Sunni Arab communities, and ultimately reflected in the post-Ottoman political discourse of Sunni Arab intellectuals, such as rejecting autonomous proposals, denying the cultural rights of minorities, prioritizing Arab/Islamic culture, etc.
During the 20th century, several coups d’états or “socialist revolutions” occurred in Arab monarchies and democratic regimes. Such “revolutions” were generally formulated by leftist ideologies mixed with pan Arabism (i.e. Ultra-nationalism) that involved a minimum level of secularism, that was new, yet not alien, to Islam at that time. Nasser took power after the overthrow of the monarchy in Egypt; The socialist Baath party took control in Syria and Iraq; Gaddafi, Nasser’s long-time admirer, held Libya with an iron fist.... It was in this instance that the Sunni Arab mindset in general became radicalized and susceptible to all kinds of extremist ideologies, including the theocratic ones, specifically the ideologies which upheld Utopian Weltansicht (Worldview).
The Utopian Weltansicht
As it is acknowledged in all the socialist ideologies, apart from the dogmatic differences between them, that the aim of every social or intellectual act is to change, to become, and tacitly to destroy what there is: to reimagine society from a progressive point of view, regardless of the ethical consequences, since the theoretic model is well ordered and organized. Thus, we can imagine a new world, even if we are going to commit war crimes, or destroy the complex social and cultural structures... because, ultimately, the ends justify the means. This, indeed, what happened in the Arab and Islamic countries: minorities were persecuted, freedom of speech was incriminated, and what were once a pluralist and open societies became tightly closed.
But, the socialist rhetoric remained as such, a rhetoric that, blinded by the ideal, overlooked the pragmatic. Rather, the Arabists pursued the most Utopian solutions. In 1958, Egypt and Syria formed the United Arab Republic, conjoining both countries into a singular socialist state. Following its establishment, this nascent state quickly descended into disintegration, culminating in the collapse of the UAR in 1961. The result was much disillusionment for the Muslim Arab populace in general, and in part for the Sunnis, who thought of Pan-Arabist socialism as a favourable choice for their condition amid absolute monarchies and Islamic theocracies. And the fact that they sought a nationalist unification of the Arab countries under socialism with a centralized government, while disregarding personal liberties and dismissing cultural and regional differences, was a fundamental error, not of judgment but of understanding. However, the history of United Arab Republic is of no concern to the subject of this piece, rather it is its aftermath: a supposed cultural shift.
A Paradigm Shift?
These socialist regimes continued to exercise authority by terrorizing their citizens. Even after the fall of the Soviet Union, the Arab socialist propaganda continued airing to the masses the same rhetoric, though not in its past intensity. These socialist regimes, however, proved such fragility that they fell quickly after numerous demonstrations and manifestations in the Arab world (known by the Arab Spring). The void once occupied by socialist ideologies, which resulted in a complete catastrophe, was subsequently filled, but this time by Islamic extremism. This ideology appealed to the Arab Muslim masses, stirring a nostalgic longing for their Islamic heritage, conjuring images of bygone glories of the Islamic Empires. Or such, at least, was the general perception of events.
In fact, the transition was not the result of intellectual rupture, or a power vacuum, rather the Arab Islamic population was quite consistent in its understanding of the political, as if the supposed revolutionary waves never occurred. To the contrary, the cultural paradigm remained as such: new ruling dynasties replaced old ones, albeit under the façade of socialist republicanism; Arab Sunni supremacist tendencies persisted, while being confined solely to the domain of internal politics; even the political rhetoric that once espoused humanist arguments for Arabism, now elucidates them with religious illustrations. Though it might not seem strange for any historian of ideas, given that Humanism is the precursor, if not the progenitor, of European Fascism (for further discussion of this issue I recommend Tony Davies’ Humanism: Routledge, 2nd ed. 2008).
Moreover, one cannot deny that the appeal of Islamism within the Sunni Arab circles was a reactionary movement due to previous military defeats (Arab-Israeli wars) and institutional discrimination (post-Saddam Iraq and Syria), as well as the rise of Shiite Arab dominance backed by Iranian Imperialist aspirations. Yet given the previous Arab Sunni approach to politics, one must not deem Arabism as the precursor of Islamism rather its political compromise. Hence the false claim of this supposed Islamist antithesis being a cultural inversion, whereas the truth is quite evident: it never existed (yet one could argue that Islamic fundamentalism have increased). Rather one should consider intersectionality as a modal to understand the cultural dynamics within the history of the Islamic Civilization
The modern Arab political discourse did not experience any gestalt shift (a fundamental change in perception concerning a certain object, i.e. the persistence of the Arab Islamic supremacist view of the political), and to conclude otherwise is a conscious denial of empirical facts. Although one could correctly assume that the radical policies developed by Arabism, may have inspired indeed certain traits of Modern Islamism, or at least laid its pre-dogmatic foundations, yet its central notions might be found in the early stages of the ideological development of the Islamic State. For example, where critical thinking was forbidden, it would be then of no surprize to observe Arab Muslim societies in general descending further into extremism and societal collapse. No one could ever properly philosophize beyond the confines of ideology, hence the cultural rigidity and the cycle of violence.