Muslim leftism is the only way to ensure that Islam's
individualist revolution doesn't take an even darker turn than it already has.
By Ali Eteraz, guardian.co.uk
I went to a government school in the American south where I
had constant interaction with religious supremacists. Such people believe that
their moral mandate must be given preference, if not outright dominance. In the
south, these people were Christian. Their imperative was to acquire converts
who would eventually help make their political programme the law of the land.
Many times I put up with the noise of evangelical youth
preaching on the steps with a megaphone. I was condemned to hell in class
discussions. English teachers had to tread carefully through 19th century
literature so as not to offend. I had to politely reject, and then oppose,
Bible study groups.
My brother and I were the only Muslims in the school. We
lamented the ceaseless invasion of our personal conscience by "these
fundos".
After a couple of years, a number of Muslim students
enrolled at the school. They were also upset with the endless Christian
proselytising. Since many of them were family friends, they took me aside and
urged me to help them set up an Islamic society. Its primary purpose would be
to hold Quran study circles, correct anti-Muslim propaganda in textbooks, and -
"just like the Christians do" - invite students to learn about their
religion. All on school property. Their goal, just like the Christians, was
evangelism (the Arabic term is da'wa). They presented two white boys with
new Muslim names as proof of their success. As I left, my acquaintances
couldn't understand why I wouldn't help them. "It's just da'wa!" they
said. "It's a free country!"
There it was, in the microcosmic world of high school,
staring at me in the face: the Muslim right. Or, as my brother pejoratively
called them: "Falwell Muslims."
Today, it is undeniable that traditionalist clerical Islam -
which is quietist, meek, and oriented towards the status quo - has lost its
monopoly over Muslims. This is the result of multiple
instances of internal
dissent over a millenia (as well as colonialism). Led by a mixture of
cleric-minded Muslims in the US, UK, and Jordan, traditionalist clerical Islam
is trying to make a comeback and become more relevant - like by writing
a letter of peace to the Pope. Though such efforts are good, it is a
case of too little too late.
Instead, Islam is well on its way towards
an individualist revolution; one that no amount of clerical effort can
contain.
The most attention-grabbing child of this revolution has
been jihadism. However, it is not the most successful. That (dis)honour lies,
in my mind, with the Muslim evangelicals - also known as Islamism, the Muslim
right, or political Islam. It is a great
fallacy to think that jihadists and Islamists are one and the same.
The Muslim right is an ideological movement. Why not? When
rationalism is rampant and clerics can't bind Muslims together, ideology is the
best thing to obtain mass obedience.
Islamism's ideological aim is secular, ie political power.
Yet, despite its secular ends, it makes its political base among a large swath
of religious Muslims. With their religious supremacism - which convinces them
that everyone else's life would be better off if they adopted the same values
as them - these Muslims leave themselves wide open to be preyed upon by savvy
propagandists. Thus, hateful tricks like invoking the dangers of homosexuality,
attacking sexual liberation, demonising religious minorities and foreign
cultures, and censoring anything that smacks of critical thinking, are all used
to keep the ideological base stirring.
With that base in hand, Islamism then agitates for
unfettered democracy. It purports to speak for the "common man" (even
as it preys upon it) and acquires a populist mystique. Islamism doesn't fear
elections because it is the best of the grassroots propagandists.
The Muslim right is international. It played off the Cold
War and in a Machiavellian stroke made
the US its benefactor. It ended up creating a decentralised international
network. Jamat-e-Islami in Pakistan consulted with Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt;
the Brotherhood then, with "tacit support"
from their self-professed enemies, created Hamas. Then the Sunni Islamists went
and assisted Khomeini, pragmatically putting aside their doctrinal
disagreement with the Shia for the sake of shared ideology. Taking inspiration
from these successes, copycats rose up in Gulf and African states. For
publicity and fund-raising purposes, theMuslim
right brought its evangelism to the west. Muslim children coloured by this
ideology ended up in school with me, asking me to help them set up an
organisation that does exactly what Christian supremacists do.
So the dilemma for 21st century Islam is that there is a
group of Muslims who with "activists" instead of "clerics"
have reined in Muslim individualism, organised it into a system, injected it
with illiberal values, and then invoked non-violence and freedom of speech as a
shield to hide behind. If I had not seen Karl
Rove do it with American Christianity I could have never realised how
the Muslim right does it with Islam.
So what is to be done?
Well, secular tyrannies are inadequate. Monarchies are
dictatorial. Outright Islamophobia and directly demonising Islam gives fuel to
Islamism. Military confrontation is out of the question for ethical and
pragmatic reasons.
I recommend creating a viable and well organised Muslim
left. It would be an intra-religious movement as
opposed to a universalist one
(though obviously it doesn't shun allies). It would be a cousin of the
international left, but in a Muslim garb. Just as the Muslim right found Islamic
means to justify the destructive ideas from the enlightenment (Fascism,
Marxism, totalitarianism, evangelical religion), the Muslim left should find
Islamic means to justify the positive ones (anti-foundationalism,
pragmatism, autonomy, tolerance).
This Muslim left should also espouse the following basic
ideas, without being limited to them:
• separation of mosque and state;
• opposition to tyranny (even if the tyrant has liberal values);
• affirmance of republicanism or democracy;
• an ability to coherently demonstrate that the Muslim right represents merely
one interpretation of Islam;
• a commitment to free speech and eagerness to defeat the Muslim right in the
marketplace of ideas;
• commitment to religious individualism and opposition to left-collectivism,
specifically Marxism;
• opposition to economic protectionism;
• opposing any and all calls for a "council of religious experts"
that can oversee legislation (even if those experts are liberals); and
• affirming international law.
Muslim leftists will - it is a must - have to be able to
articulate all of these in Islamic terms, in order to persuade the people who
need to be convinced, ie Muslims. This means that a Muslim leftist will, naturally,
also have facility in the Muslim traditions. The real-world paucity of
individuals with such dual facility is indicative of how far behind Muslim
leftism is currently.
Further, in order to advance these ideas, the Muslim left
will have to be sophisticated enough to employ certain strategies. These
include but are not limited to:
a) Popularising the slogan "theocentric, not
theocratic" to counter claims of religious treason that will be hurled by
Islamists;
b) An alliance with supporters of old-school Muslim
orthodoxy who despite their conservative values are not the same as the Muslim
right because they do not like to politicise their faith. These Muslims, by
virtue of doctrine and history, have always supported separation of mosque and
state, and still
do;
c) Having the confidence to call their solutions truer to
the ethos of Islam than the ideas of the Islamists, without engaging in
apostasy wars;
d) An alliance with Marxists and neo-Marxist Muslims without
getting sucked into their collectivist phantasmagoria;
e) Opposing any and all punishments, fines and stigma for
"apostasy," "heresy," and "blasphemy". This
includes opposition to all "sedition" crimes;
f) Accepting that the enthronement of the left through
democratic means might require the intermediate step of the Muslim right
succeeding as well, due largely to its head-start;
g) Supporting arts, literature, agnosticism and atheism
without engaging in derogatory or insulting gestures. The battle against
Islamism isn't a fight against Allah or Prophet; it is against an ideology;
h) Supporting Muslims' right to express their piety with
beards, hijab, niqab in order to draw the moderates among the pietists away
from the Islamists; and most importantly
i) Opposition to all imperial western behaviour. Also,
rejection of any and all alliances and support from the western right.
Muslim leftism is the only thing that will assure that
Islam's individualist revolution doesn't take an even darker turn than it
already has. Some in the Muslim right like to insist that they
are moderate and ready
for pluralism.
That might be a bit of wishful thinking. Without a potent
Muslim left, the right will not have an adequate check, nor any incentive to
make accommodations. This is because political systems that rest on religious
supremacism rarely make compromises. We know this from America. We know it from
the third world as well. After more than two decades the Iranian right has
failed to move significantly towards the centre. If unchallenged, better should
not be expected from the Egyptian, Pakistani, or Gulf nations equivalents.
In the next post in this Islamic reform series, I will share
names and identities of people who qualify to be on the Muslim left, in order
to show how to identify others like them.
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