[Nettime-bold] democracy and the Koran

["Kermit Snelson" <ksnelson@subjectivity.com>]

Muslims seek a path into 21st century
by Frank Viviano
San Francisco Chronicle, 11 November 2001
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2001/11/11/MN138629.DTL

Cairo -- What do Muslims want?

The question haunts every effort to understand the turmoil in the Islamic
world -- the acute internal crisis -- that has erupted in a U.S-led "war on
terrorism."

The answer is not to be found on the extremes, in the nihilistic violence of
Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda or the medieval barbarism of the Taliban. Nor,
given the diversity of a billion-strong Islamic population scattered over
five continents, can there be a single answer.

But interviews across the Middle East and Mediterranean basin suggest the
events of Sept. 11 have initiated an intense debate among Muslim political
and religious thinkers -- not over the violent rejection of the 21st
century, but over the means of entering it.

At the heart of the debate is the search for a "Muslim approach" to
contemporary democracy, for political reforms that are rooted in Islamic
tradition but that counter the authoritarian systems that today govern
almost all Islamic nations.

"There is no question that reform is necessary," says Abdul Latif Arabiyat,
secretary-general of Jordan's Islamic Action Front, "and that to be
successful it must have an Islamic character."

Any other approach to modernization "will be regarded as something imposed
on our societies from the outside, implanted by force, and is certain to
fail, " says Dr. Esam el-Arian, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. "The way
to achieve modern progress must come from the inside."

Both Arabiyat, a university administrator, and el-Arian, who holds degrees
in medicine and law, are accomplished, modern professionals. Yet both are
working for the establishment of Islamic states and belong to fundamentalist
organizations that have been outlawed or severely repressed by their
respective governments.

The reform movement within Islam has no dominant voice. It includes full-
fledged political parties, such as the Muslim Brotherhood and the Islamic
Action Front, and doctrinal sects that have attracted millions of disciples
in recent years.

What they share, say reformers, is a conviction that Islam contains the
seeds of its own modernization.

"We want to bring Islam back to its uncorrupted essentials, to its embrace
of pure forms of democracy and justice," says Maha Dabbous, a spokeswoman
for the dissident Ahmadi sect in London that has an estimated 150 million
followers worldwide, including a very large following in India.

"You do that with the Koran, not with the sword," says Dabbous, who left a
lucrative career as a civil engineer in Britain 12 years ago to direct
women's programs for Palestinian Muslims in Israel.

GOVERNMENT GUIDED BY PEOPLE

The "pure" democracy endorsed by the Koran -- in which, Muslims believe, the
prophet Mohammed recorded God's directives for the reform of Judaism and
Christianity 14 centuries ago -- lies in a concept known as shura. Its
meaning, explains Jordan's Arabiyat, "is the direct guidance of government
by the people who are governed."

There is disagreement on the interpretation of the Koranic verses that
mention shura, according to Mohammed el-Sayed Said, assistant director of
Cairo's Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies. But their
thrust, he says, "is an injunction that rulers consult their colleagues and
the people at large -- an assertion that human affairs should include
collective engagement in governance."

Grassroots versions of shura have won wide popular support for some
extremist groups. Lebanon's Hezbollah and the Palestinian Hamas -- better
known in the West for their terrorist actions -- have built highly effective
local organizations that encourage public discussion of issues, and offer
health care and educational services to the poor.

They stand in sharp contrast to the authoritarian governments that rule most
states in the Islamic world, where small wealthy elites monopolize the
political process.

"It's not the ideology (of fundamentalism) that attracts people. If
anything, that scares them. What support the Islamists appear to get is due
to the fact that they talk about issues that appeal to the masses," says
Maye Kassem, a political scientist at the American University in Cairo.

NO ANSWERS TO SOCIAL PROBLEMS

How then to explain the resort to terrorism? "In part," says Malek Chebel,
an anthropologist and psychoanalyst who has written extensively on Islamism
in North Africa, "because of the incapacity of Muslim rulers who have not
succeeded in addressing social conflict, mass poverty and, above all, the
corruption of their elites."

The cost of protesting against such abuses, even by organizations that
renounce violence, is steep. Last Tuesday, Egyptian police arrested 21 men
associated with the Muslim Brotherhood, charging them with illegal political
activities. At press time, The Chronicle had been unable to learn if
el-Arian, who has already spent five years in prison, was among them.

The best evidence that institutionalizing democracy can defuse Islamic
extremism, say Chebel and others, is to be found in the large Muslim
communities in Western Europe and the United States.

In a survey conducted by the French Public Opinion Institute after the Sept.
11 terrorist attacks, only 1 percent of those polled among the country's 5
million Muslims agreed that "the rejection of Western values" best
corresponded to their "personal idea of Islam."

JUSTICE, LIBERTY, DEMOCRACY

The three ideas most frequently cited in the survey were "justice,"
"liberty" and "democracy." Seventy percent of respondents supported the
participation of France in "helping the United States uncover the terrorist
networks responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks." Ninety percent said that
those who perpetrated the attacks should not be allowed to call themselves
Muslims.

Beyond the smoke screen of terrorism, believes Iranian sociologist Farhad
Khosrokavar, "a new wind is blowing. The Muslim identity and modernity are
reconciling."


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