Tahir Mahmoud
One of the topics explored by Professor Mearsheimer, among a handful of serious academics in the US, was the power potential of nation-state vs civilization. He offered an insight into these two concepts through the lens of western academia.
Being a proponent of the realist school of international relations, Prof. Mearsheimer emphasized the primacy of the state as the fundamental power and concept shaping global affairs.
He stated: “The concept of civilizations does not take you far. I believe that it is analytically not a powerful concept. The most powerful ideology in the world is nationalism… The planet is filled with nation-states... wars occur among states, not across civilizations.”
While not inaccurate, Mearsheimer’s approach appears somewhat simplistic towards the civilizational angle in global affairs.
By exploring his claims through the Islamic paradigm of international relations, it becomes evident that civilization serves as the primary framework within which states function as instruments to advance civilizational goals. This applies to secular realities of the western world as well.
Theory
Before delving into practical examples from both Islamic and contemporary western secular perspectives, let us briefly outline where the state system fits within the Islamic paradigm.
Power and state are intrinsically linked. There can be no state without power, and without power, a state will quickly collapse.
A fundamental dimension of what constitutes a state and its essence is transnational and pre-dates the contemporary state system. This notion is found in the Qur’an.
Careful reading of the Qur’an reveals its fundamentally transnational message. The Qur’anic vision is profoundly supranational, transcending the confines of borders, ethnicities or nations.
This does not render the state dimension un-Islamic, but it is not the ultimate aim towards which the Qur’an guides humanity.
The Islamic state-building project surpasses the narrow confines of a state, country, or nation. It envisions a grander goal, one that transcends mere governmental control, territorial expansion, or global dominance. Several Qur’anic verses articulate the vastness of this vision, highlighting an Islamic project whose aspirations cannot be fulfilled solely through conventional nation state mechanism alone.
“O people! We have created you out of a male and a female and rendered you into [ethnic] derivatives [of each other] and corresponding communities [to each other] for the purpose that you might come to mutually understand each other. Verily, the noblest of you in the sight of Allah is the one who is most conscious of Allah’s power presence [on earth]. Indeed, Allah is all-knowing, ever proficient” (The Ascendant Qur’an, Surat al-Hujarat, verse 13).
“O you who are securely committed [to Allah]! Be ever dynamic in standing up for social justice, bearing witness to the truth for the sake of Allah, even though it be against your own selves or your parents and kinsfolk. Whether the person concerned be rich or poor, Allah’s claim takes precedence over [the claims of] either of them. Do not, then, follow your own desires, lest you swerve from justice: for if you distort [the truth] or disregard it, behold, Allah is indeed aware of all that you do!” (Surat al-Nisa, verse 135).
“And We ordained for them in that [Torah]: a life for a life, and an eye for an eye, and a nose for a nose, and an ear for an ear, and a tooth for a tooth, and a [similar] retribution for wounds; but he who shall forgo it out of charity will atone thereby for some of his past sins. And they who do not judge in accordance with what Allah has revealed are, indeed, the evildoers!” (Surat al-Maida, verse 45)
Despite his undoubted brilliance, Prof. Mearsheimer is the product of western academia and its inherent presuppositions, many of which are grounded in a non-God-centric, Machiavellian worldview. The political shallowness of this worldview was explained by a prominent Muslim intellectual Bilal Muhammad.
Writing for the Berkeley Institute of Islamic Studies, Muhammad accurately points out the following: “A divergence between Islam and Machiavelli is that the latter strips the moralistic concepts of legitimacy and goodness from rulership…. The paragons of leadership in the Qur’an do not employ the ‘ends justify the means’ model. Whether it is Dhul Qarnayn, Saul, David, or Solomon, the Qur’an does not depict any ruthlessness in the leaders it endorses. There is an emphasis on justice (Surat Hud, verse 85, Surat al-Anbiya, verse 78, Surat As-Saad, verses 21-26), restraint and righteousness’,” (Surat al-Maida, verse 8).
In a separate piece titled ‘The State and The Umma’, Muhammad points out that the “the Umma is a different kind of body politic which transcends statehood. It is non-ethnic, it lacks a totalizing government, it is not seen as an equal to existing nation states, it does not arrogate legitimacy through the international system, and it does not have a fixed territory. Yet, it offers rights and duties to its members. In a sense, the closest thing the Umma can be compared to is the Corpus Christi, and even the Prophet Muhammad (s) compared his Umma to a suffering body.[22] The Umma even has the potential to go above states in the international realm, as it is larger than any single state, it has influence over dozens of states, it is not required to behave rationally in competition with states (rat. [rational-ed] choice), and it is not limited to the same rules as states. This would be a controversial suggestion in international relations theory, but it is a suggestion worth being taken seriously.”
When historians study ancient civilizations and try to understand why they failed or prospered, the transnational character of a durable state system is often referred to.
Comparing the durability of the Roman Empire and the empire established by Alexander the Great, Gregory Aldrete, a historian specializing in ancient Rome and military history, accurately highlights how the transnational essence of the Roman imperial project made it so durable. Comparing Rome’s longevity to the short life of Alexander’s empire, Aldrete points out that Alexander’s empire was designed against absorbing people it conquered into its civilizational project.
Contemporary Practice
From 1945 to 1990, the world’s affairs were shaped by the standoff between two imperialist regimes – the USSR and the US. Both regimes were able to exercise global clout by laying claim to being supranational.
The Soviets claimed that their communist project will free the world from the clutches of exploitative capitalists and establish a classless and non-ethnic global system.
Americans asserted that their capitalist-liberal system would provide equal socio-political opportunities for everyone, creating a society where individuals and groups alike could freely pursue their worldviews. This supposed promise extended to all, whether a small state like Singapore or a grassroots socio-political movement.
Unless of course, one was Solomon Islands and wanted to deepen relations with China. Then Washington resorts to the threat of the use of force. Nothing unusual here, political hypocrisy is as American as apple pie.
In Europe, the emergence of the EU once again highlighted that the ethno-centric state system needs to be abandoned if Europe wants to avoid another continental war and achieve progress. Europeans quickly got together and set up supranational institutions.
In the EU’s specific case, the system initially began as a reasonable economic and cultural project. It got subverted by Washington and its protégés into a political-military project with the primary aim of establishing a firm political and military footing in Eastern Europe and the territories of the former Soviet Union.
Today, the EU is in deep trouble because it is regressing into a nationalistic framework, away from the civilizational one.
In West Asia, the Aqsa Flood operation made apartheid Israel face unprecedented economic, political and military pressure. By whom? The Axis of Resistance—a supranational alliance with an Islamic regional vision.
All the above cited examples from the contemporary world clearly show that it is the civilizational goals and political projects which impact global affairs on a grand level. Sure, state systems play a role, but they are driven and made more impactful by grander objectives and frameworks than simple nation state or governmental mechanisms.
When the US bombed Iraq, Afghanistan or Vietnam, it framed its political agenda in civilizational terms. The nation state (USA) with huge numbers of homeless people, inequality, corruption and crime was invading others because it was on a “civilizing” mission.
Washington did not rally its soldiers and population to commit mass violence against Afghans by claiming that Afghanistan had attacked America. Instead, the invasion was marketed as a civilizing mission— “freeing Afghan women” and bringing democracy to Kabul.
What business do the French have in meddling in Lebanon? How does Russia justify its interference in Central Asia, the Caucasus, or Ukraine?
These questions cannot be fully understood through the lens of nation-state dynamics. There is always a broader ideological foundation underpinning such policies—one that transcends the nation-state framework.
In the Muslim world, since the early 1920s, the fixation on nation-states has caused huge problems. It has facilitated the “divide and conquer” strategies that have allowed foreign powers to plunder the region and install illegitimate despots to serve their interests.
Professor Mearsheimer strict focus on the nation-state as the ultimate mechanism of global politics is limited.
The above analysis should not be understood as shunning Islamic participation in nation state framework and government.
To achieve Islam’s grand vision, Islamic governance and state system are one of the necessary mechanisms. It is not the goal in itself; it’s a vehicle for a grander project.
The behaviour of non-Islamic global political entities confirms this to be the universal reality. Islam addresses this reality in a far more authentic and intellectually consistent manner than other worldviews.
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