Risks of working through un-Islamic political systems

Editor

One thing that revolutionary Islamic movements have largely been clear about since the Islamic Revolution in Iran is that trying to come to power through democratic processes in the political systems established and run by secularist politicians in Muslim countries is a waste of time. The repeated and total failure of the Jama’at-e Islami in Pakistan, the marginalization of Necmettin Erbakan’s Refah-led coalition government in Turkey, and the suppression of the Islamic Solidarity Front (FIS) in Algeria, when it was on the verge of a massive victory in the country’s elections of 1991, are just some of the various ‘democratic’ Islamic experiments and experiences pointing in the same direction.

However, some Muslims point to other experiences and try to reach other conclusions; in fact, some Muslims point to some of the same experiences and try to reach different conclusions. These include both some Islamic movements, and Muslim thinkers committed to democracy and democratic processes. The Islamic Party of Malaysia (PAS) is a case in point. It has ruled the state of Kelantan for some years, with considerable success, and in last month’s Malaysian general elections was also elected to run the important state of Terengganu. The ‘Islamist’ political parties in Turkey (Refah until it was banned, and Fazilat since then) have also built their reputations and records on the basis of successes in local government. In both cases, the reputations of the Islamic movements involved have been enhanced, as their successes have tended to demonstrate at least some of the advantages of Islamic social organization, values and administration.

The question which arises, therefore, is whether these successes disprove the Islamic movement’s general rejection of the political party approach, and justify working through existing political systems. The answer is a barely-qualified ‘no’, and the evidence of Turkey is all one needs to explain the point. Refah successes in local government encouraged Muslims to work through the mainstream political system at the national level. However, a Refah government was totally hemmed in by the institutions and norms of the secular state, and was powerless do anything of its own choosing. The same would have been the case even had Refah controlled a majority of seats in the parliament, rather than being in coalition with one of the most aggressively secular parties in the country. One unfortunate consequence of Erbakan’s failure in government has been that Islamic parties have also suffered in local politics.

The object of any Islamic movement must be the ‘total transformation’ of the society and state from one based on secular and western bases, as exist in virtually every Muslim country today, to one based on Islamic values, principles and norms. Such a transformation cannot be brought about from within a non-Islamic system.

This commitment naturally places limits on the long-term value of participation in local or regional politics. The arguments here cut both ways. Certainly there is the possibility of demonstrating the practicability of Islamic values in collective community affairs, to counter the common anti-Islam propaganda myths that Islam is out-of-date or has no relevance beyond that of a purely personal faith. The fact that Islamic government can make life much better for many people is also relevant; that, after all, is the object of the exercise. However, such local involvement must not become an end in itself, to the detriment of the longer term object of the ‘total transformation’ of the society. One possibility is that the movements become ‘moderated’ by involvement in ‘real politics’ and lose their revolutionary edge, becoming used to the relative ease and short-term rewards of mainstream politics. This process is, of course, encouraged by secular politicians and commentators. Another process leading to similar results is if the workers and activists of the movements are tempted by local successes to try to repeat them nationally.

PAS’s success in winning power in Terengganu, to go with their established record in Kelantan, is welcome, of course. What is worrying, however, is the news that PAS leader Ustad Fadhil Nur has been appointed leader of the national opposition in parliament by the four-party Alternative Front. PAS has long been warned of the dangers of working in the system; they are in danger of falling into familiar traps - again.

Muslimedia: December 16-31, 1999

 

Editor

The hollowness of the west’s ‘democratic revolution’

Editor

West Germans on the Berlin Wall in 1989

The collapse of the communist bloc in 1989 is regarded in the west as the definitive triumph of democracy, a ‘Democratic Revolution’ to rank alongside the other great revolutions of western history, the French (1789), the Russian (1917) and the Chinese (1949). Dating revolutions is never easy, but for historic purposes the Democratic Revolution of 1989 is usually dated by the fall of the Berlin wall, on November 9, 1989. So it was that the 10th anniversary of that event last month was marked not only in Germany but around the world.

At the time, of course, the Democratic Revolution was greeted as a massive triumph, inspiring such grandiose theories as Francis Fukuyama’s ‘End of History’. It was also, inevitably, related to the coming millennium, with the third millennium of the Christian/western era being hailed by some commentators as a coming ‘age of democracy’. In the popular perspective, for the consumption of those who know no better, this triumphalist tone is maintained. Among more considered views, however, this triumphalism has been toned down somewhat, and it was the latter view which tended to prevail as the tenth anniversary of the Democratic Revolution was marked.

The reasons for this change of tone are many and varied. The main one, however, is the realization that the advent of democracy is hardly regarded as good news by most people in the former communist bloc, and that former communist parties, leaders and ideas are increasingly popular. Of course, this is not admitted in the west, where the former communist parties tend to be euphemistically dubbed ‘nationalist’ or ‘conservative’; however, the growth and popularity of these parties is a matter of grave concern to the west.

The reasons for this apparently paradoxical phenomenon are not difficult to find. The Democratic Revolution was based on a lie; the lie that life in the west was some sort of utopia where everyone could live in luxury. (Westerners were equally given a distorted picture of life under communism, focus on low ‘standards of living’ rather than facilities available to people from the state.) People in the communist bloc welcomed the fall of communism because they were promised a consumer revolution, with easy access to video recorders, satellite television, fancy cars, big houses and all the consumer items of modern life. Like any salesman, however, the west was careful to hide the downside of this rosy picture -- the costs and the risks. In the eastern bloc, housing, health care and jobs were guaranteed by the state. In the west, the good life is only available to the minority who can make their own way in a dog-eat-dog environment, and the losers have no safety net to fall back on.

Valdas Anelauskas’s book Discovering America as it is (reviewed in the last issue of Crescent) exposes the bitter realities of American society, where huge numbers of children go hungry, millions of people have no easy access to healthcare, and crime and other social disorders are tolerated as long as they affect only the ‘underclass’ - which underclass is rapidly growing to dominate society. Millions of people in the former communist world are making the same discovery themselves, not by seeing the realities state of western societies, but by experiencing them.

Anelauskas, a former anti-Soviet dissident who emigrated from his native Lithuania to the US shortly before the collapse of communism, now regards himself as a anti-American dissident; which begs the question: what happened to all the other heroes of anti-communism? Where are they now that their people are in so much strife as a result of the Democratic Revolution that they called for and welcomed? Some, like Polish Solidarity leader Lech Walesa, are still struggling for their people’s welfare; but far more, like Slovakian president Vaclav Havel, are living the good life as part of the former communist bloc’s new Elite, enjoying the fruits of their good relations with the west while ignoring the ideals and principles which they once claimed to hold so dear.

Small wonder, then, that most of those celebrating the tenth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall last month were those who have benefited from the Democratic Revolution; while the former east German masses, supposedly liberated, were too busy trying to feed themselves and their children to celebrate.

Muslimedia: December 1-15, 1999