Forgotten flowering
Wednesday, 31 December 2008
Roula Khalaf
A Muslim Brotherhood supporter pleads with Egyptian riot police outside a closed polling station in 2005. Cairo has since cracked down further
Only two years ago, political Islam was staging a stunning comeback across the Arab world. In the Palestinian territories, Hamas won the 2006 parliamentary elections, routing the secular and corrupt Fatah. That surprise victory followed a strong showing the previous year by Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, which gained 20 per cent of parliamentary seats in spite of fielding only a limited number of candidates.
In Iraq, too, Islamist parties emerged as the dominant force in parliament and formed the first post-US invasion government. Even in Saudi Arabia, which had its first - limited and local - election in 2005, relative liberals were roundly defeated by Islamists. For the first time since the 1991 Algerian debacle, when an Islamist party's victory was thwarted by the army, triggering a decade-long civil war, Islamists who had pressed for engagement in the political process felt vindicated.
But any celebrations were short-lived. For as Islamists flexed their political muscle, they heightened the anxiety of the Middle East's autocratic rulers and their western backers. The backlash has been sweeping.
Some western governments might be tempted to take comfort in the setbacks suffered by groups that often hold deeply anti-American views and promote social policies that would undermine the few rights now accorded to Arab women. Yet it is Arab democracy - and the region's future stability - that has been dealt a blow, given that Islamists remain the main opposition and that a democratic future excluding them is difficult to imagine.
Indeed, analysts say that the danger now is that the setbacks for political Islam will undermine moderate elements within these movements and strengthen conservatives. They are already also contributing to a deepening apathy among voters tired of casting ballots that do not lead to change.
Palestinians were the first to be made to regret their vote, as western governments - and many Arab states - shunned Hamas. Divisions with rival Fatah deepened, tearing apart Palestinian society. In the conservative Saudi kingdom, the results of the municipal vote convinced rulers that the experiment should not be repeated.
Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, meanwhile, has paid a heavy price for its electoral gains. Unnerved, the Egyptian regime has not only intensified its crackdown on the group but also ensured, through constitutional amendments, that the Islamists cannot wrest control of the state. By the time Egypt held local elections earlier this year, the Brotherhood was driven to call for a boycott after the vast majority of the candidates it backed were barred.
No wonder, then, that Islamists are questioning the merits of their embrace of the political process. Although Islamist officials prefer to play down the dilemma they face, analysts point to a debate within top leaderships over whether political participation is worth pursuing. Some officials are arguing that Islamist groups should give up on participating in elections and focus more of their attention on proselytising and social work.
"Political participation has been the strategic choice of most Islamist movements since the 1990s - every option other than political participation, whether overthrowing regimes, or working only in the social sphere, was going nowhere," says Amr Hamzawy, of the Carnegie Endowment's Middle East Centre. "But there is a real debate now - what to do with the fact that the outcome of political participation has also not led to anything."
Even Islamist groups that have faced fewer domestic or international restrictions, as in Jordan and Morocco, are under pressure to justify their political participation to increasingly sceptical followers, having performed worse than expected in recent elections.
In Morocco, for example, the Justice and Development party (PJD), which is recognised by Washington as the most moderate of Arab Islamist groups, scored only modest gains in the September 2007 parliamentary vote - a disappointing showing that its leaders blamed on vote-buying by its rivals as well as a record low turnout. Indeed, the result of the poll was seen, at least in part, as a boon to the more radical Islamist group, Justice and Charity, which refuses to engage in what it maintains is a rigged political game.
Mustafa Ramid, a PJD official, says participation remains the best of the bad choices available to Islamists. But he acknowledges that, given parliament's restricted powers (real authority in Morocco still lies with the monarchy), some of the party's supporters may no longer be convinced of that choice. "When you participate and you notice that the regime does not want a real democracy, you do ask yourself whether participation makes sense - it is a legitimate question," he says.
The reversal of Islamist fortunes testifies to the dogged determination of Arab regimes to monopolise power and the inability of the US to come to terms with the rise of political Islam. It was after the attacks of September 11 2001 that the administration of President George W. Bush held up democratisation as an essential antidote to the radicalisation of Arab societies, pressuring existing regimes to reform their political systems and giving the Islamist opposition a new opportunity.
Yet the administration could not overcome its fear of Islamism. Nor could it accept that democracy would produce parties fiercely opposed to its foreign policy. The experiment was complicated by the fact that, while some Islamists operated in peaceful environments, others were directly involved in the Arab-Israeli conflict. Western analysts had assumed that participation would convince Hamas and Lebanon's Hizbollah, the militant group, which is also a powerful political party, to lay down their weapons. But the Islamists insisted that their military wings are tied to the conflict with Israel, not to the domestic scene.
So, after a brief flirtation with Arab democracy, the US found safety once again in the arms of existing regimes. With its authority in sharp decline as its Iraq occupation unravelled, its Arab allies, most notably Egypt, had a free hand to resort to the old habit of repressing the Islamists.
But that too has its costs. Khalil al-Anani, an Egyptian analyst who was a visiting fellow at the Saban Centre for Middle East Policy, blames the "scorched earth" policy of governments for the growing appeal of the Salafi movement - groups preaching a message that rejects political involvement.
"The Muslim Brotherhood and other moderate groups are losing their appeal before the Arab public perhaps because they are focusing on politics and neglecting religion ... so Salafis are sliding up to centre stage," he recently wrote in Egypt's al-Ahram weekly. "If anything, this is a moment of truth for moderates. Either they connect once again with the public, or they embrace irrelevance."
Perhaps most worrying is that repression has disrupted an evolution among Islamists towards greater acceptance of democratic rules. Though they still define themselves as seeking to establish a state based on Islamic law or sharia, many Islamist groups are less rigid when it comes to the application of their aspirations. According to Mr Hamzawy, Islamists who have been consistently included in the political process, such as in Morocco or Jordan, tend to become more flexible.
"When you participate in a stable manner, there is also a de-prioritisation of issues relating to morality," adds Mr Hamzawy. "While the Muslim Brotherhood is confused over its priorities, 90 per cent of the [Moroccan] PJD's platform [in the 2007 parliamentary elections] was about public policy issues."
Even in Egypt, however, the Muslim Brotherhood's attempt to draft a programme was a sign of political maturity. Last year the group sent a copy of a proposed agenda to dozens of experts, soliciting comment. Some of the content provoked outrage, not least its stipulation that women and non-Muslims be barred from the office of head of state and its call for a religious council that would vet government decisions. Still, the exercise spoke of the Brotherhood's need to act like a political party (even if the authorities would not allow it to form one).
Islamist officials who still advocate the route of political participation insist that they are not as weakened as they appear. They argue that, with a less ideological American administration taking office next month and economic troubles accumulating, governments in the region could come under renewed pressure for political reform.
Nabil al-Kofahi, of Jordan's Islamic Action Front, says that although regimes have stagnated, Arab society has evolved, with greater access to free media and the internet, and this could help the Islamist opposition. "People are more aware today and less dependent on the state, and governments' legitimacy has not improved," he says.
Ali Fayad, who runs a Beirut research centre affiliated with Lebanon's Hizbollah, says the Arab world's political crisis has been overshadowed in recent years by the oil-fuelled boom. Now that the boom is ending, he contends, political troubles will rise to the fore again, and the vulnerability of governments will become more apparent.
Essam el-Erian, a Muslim Brotherhood official, stresses that his organisation - founded 80 years ago and forever in a struggle with Egyptian regimes - can be patient. "Our work is about change in the future," says Mr el-Erian. "We were not in parliament throughout the decade of the 1990s, but our popularity did not suffer. You can disappear from parliament for 10 years but you do not disappear from society."
A Muslim Brotherhood supporter pleads with Egyptian riot police outside a closed polling station in 2005. Cairo has since cracked down further
Only two years ago, political Islam was staging a stunning comeback across the Arab world. In the Palestinian territories, Hamas won the 2006 parliamentary elections, routing the secular and corrupt Fatah. That surprise victory followed a strong showing the previous year by Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, which gained 20 per cent of parliamentary seats in spite of fielding only a limited number of candidates.
In Iraq, too, Islamist parties emerged as the dominant force in parliament and formed the first post-US invasion government. Even in Saudi Arabia, which had its first - limited and local - election in 2005, relative liberals were roundly defeated by Islamists. For the first time since the 1991 Algerian debacle, when an Islamist party's victory was thwarted by the army, triggering a decade-long civil war, Islamists who had pressed for engagement in the political process felt vindicated.
But any celebrations were short-lived. For as Islamists flexed their political muscle, they heightened the anxiety of the Middle East's autocratic rulers and their western backers. The backlash has been sweeping.
Some western governments might be tempted to take comfort in the setbacks suffered by groups that often hold deeply anti-American views and promote social policies that would undermine the few rights now accorded to Arab women. Yet it is Arab democracy - and the region's future stability - that has been dealt a blow, given that Islamists remain the main opposition and that a democratic future excluding them is difficult to imagine.
Indeed, analysts say that the danger now is that the setbacks for political Islam will undermine moderate elements within these movements and strengthen conservatives. They are already also contributing to a deepening apathy among voters tired of casting ballots that do not lead to change.
Palestinians were the first to be made to regret their vote, as western governments - and many Arab states - shunned Hamas. Divisions with rival Fatah deepened, tearing apart Palestinian society. In the conservative Saudi kingdom, the results of the municipal vote convinced rulers that the experiment should not be repeated.
Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, meanwhile, has paid a heavy price for its electoral gains. Unnerved, the Egyptian regime has not only intensified its crackdown on the group but also ensured, through constitutional amendments, that the Islamists cannot wrest control of the state. By the time Egypt held local elections earlier this year, the Brotherhood was driven to call for a boycott after the vast majority of the candidates it backed were barred.
No wonder, then, that Islamists are questioning the merits of their embrace of the political process. Although Islamist officials prefer to play down the dilemma they face, analysts point to a debate within top leaderships over whether political participation is worth pursuing. Some officials are arguing that Islamist groups should give up on participating in elections and focus more of their attention on proselytising and social work.
"Political participation has been the strategic choice of most Islamist movements since the 1990s - every option other than political participation, whether overthrowing regimes, or working only in the social sphere, was going nowhere," says Amr Hamzawy, of the Carnegie Endowment's Middle East Centre. "But there is a real debate now - what to do with the fact that the outcome of political participation has also not led to anything."
Even Islamist groups that have faced fewer domestic or international restrictions, as in Jordan and Morocco, are under pressure to justify their political participation to increasingly sceptical followers, having performed worse than expected in recent elections.
In Morocco, for example, the Justice and Development party (PJD), which is recognised by Washington as the most moderate of Arab Islamist groups, scored only modest gains in the September 2007 parliamentary vote - a disappointing showing that its leaders blamed on vote-buying by its rivals as well as a record low turnout. Indeed, the result of the poll was seen, at least in part, as a boon to the more radical Islamist group, Justice and Charity, which refuses to engage in what it maintains is a rigged political game.
Mustafa Ramid, a PJD official, says participation remains the best of the bad choices available to Islamists. But he acknowledges that, given parliament's restricted powers (real authority in Morocco still lies with the monarchy), some of the party's supporters may no longer be convinced of that choice. "When you participate and you notice that the regime does not want a real democracy, you do ask yourself whether participation makes sense - it is a legitimate question," he says.
The reversal of Islamist fortunes testifies to the dogged determination of Arab regimes to monopolise power and the inability of the US to come to terms with the rise of political Islam. It was after the attacks of September 11 2001 that the administration of President George W. Bush held up democratisation as an essential antidote to the radicalisation of Arab societies, pressuring existing regimes to reform their political systems and giving the Islamist opposition a new opportunity.
Yet the administration could not overcome its fear of Islamism. Nor could it accept that democracy would produce parties fiercely opposed to its foreign policy. The experiment was complicated by the fact that, while some Islamists operated in peaceful environments, others were directly involved in the Arab-Israeli conflict. Western analysts had assumed that participation would convince Hamas and Lebanon's Hizbollah, the militant group, which is also a powerful political party, to lay down their weapons. But the Islamists insisted that their military wings are tied to the conflict with Israel, not to the domestic scene.
So, after a brief flirtation with Arab democracy, the US found safety once again in the arms of existing regimes. With its authority in sharp decline as its Iraq occupation unravelled, its Arab allies, most notably Egypt, had a free hand to resort to the old habit of repressing the Islamists.
But that too has its costs. Khalil al-Anani, an Egyptian analyst who was a visiting fellow at the Saban Centre for Middle East Policy, blames the "scorched earth" policy of governments for the growing appeal of the Salafi movement - groups preaching a message that rejects political involvement.
"The Muslim Brotherhood and other moderate groups are losing their appeal before the Arab public perhaps because they are focusing on politics and neglecting religion ... so Salafis are sliding up to centre stage," he recently wrote in Egypt's al-Ahram weekly. "If anything, this is a moment of truth for moderates. Either they connect once again with the public, or they embrace irrelevance."
Perhaps most worrying is that repression has disrupted an evolution among Islamists towards greater acceptance of democratic rules. Though they still define themselves as seeking to establish a state based on Islamic law or sharia, many Islamist groups are less rigid when it comes to the application of their aspirations. According to Mr Hamzawy, Islamists who have been consistently included in the political process, such as in Morocco or Jordan, tend to become more flexible.
"When you participate in a stable manner, there is also a de-prioritisation of issues relating to morality," adds Mr Hamzawy. "While the Muslim Brotherhood is confused over its priorities, 90 per cent of the [Moroccan] PJD's platform [in the 2007 parliamentary elections] was about public policy issues."
Even in Egypt, however, the Muslim Brotherhood's attempt to draft a programme was a sign of political maturity. Last year the group sent a copy of a proposed agenda to dozens of experts, soliciting comment. Some of the content provoked outrage, not least its stipulation that women and non-Muslims be barred from the office of head of state and its call for a religious council that would vet government decisions. Still, the exercise spoke of the Brotherhood's need to act like a political party (even if the authorities would not allow it to form one).
Islamist officials who still advocate the route of political participation insist that they are not as weakened as they appear. They argue that, with a less ideological American administration taking office next month and economic troubles accumulating, governments in the region could come under renewed pressure for political reform.
Nabil al-Kofahi, of Jordan's Islamic Action Front, says that although regimes have stagnated, Arab society has evolved, with greater access to free media and the internet, and this could help the Islamist opposition. "People are more aware today and less dependent on the state, and governments' legitimacy has not improved," he says.
Ali Fayad, who runs a Beirut research centre affiliated with Lebanon's Hizbollah, says the Arab world's political crisis has been overshadowed in recent years by the oil-fuelled boom. Now that the boom is ending, he contends, political troubles will rise to the fore again, and the vulnerability of governments will become more apparent.
Essam el-Erian, a Muslim Brotherhood official, stresses that his organisation - founded 80 years ago and forever in a struggle with Egyptian regimes - can be patient. "Our work is about change in the future," says Mr el-Erian. "We were not in parliament throughout the decade of the 1990s, but our popularity did not suffer. You can disappear from parliament for 10 years but you do not disappear from society."