The Struggle Between Democracy and Fundamentalism [Archives:2001/09/Focus]

DEVIL’S ADVOCATE
By Sharif Akram
Throughout the modern history of the Middle East there are two sovereign states: Turkey and Iran. These two countries have played a decisive role in the future of the Middle Easterners. Today, these two are again resuming their inescapable roles as the major powers of the region. The regimes in both, in their present form, were founded by revolution – the secular Republic of Turkey and the Islamic Republic of Iran. Both are inspired by revolutionary ideologies, which might be named after their founders as Kemalism and Khomeinism. And both ideologies, albeit in very different ways, are under attack at home.
Most of the Middle Eastern countries alienated from their present rulers, are turning their thoughts or loyalties to one or other of these two ideologies – liberal democracy and Islamic fundamentalism. Each offers a reasoned diagnosis of the ills of the region, and a prescription for its cure.
Fundamentalism disposes of several advantages. It uses language that is familiar and intelligible, appealing to the vast mass of the population in a Muslim country. Fundamentalists also have an immense advantage over other opposition groups in that the mosques and their personnel provide them with a network for meeting and communication, which even the most tyrannical of governments cannot suppress or entirely control. Indeed, tyrannical regimes help their fundamentalist opponents by eliminating competing oppositions.
The exponents of democracy in contrast offer a program and a language that are unfamiliar and for many unintelligible. They have the further disadvantage that the name democracy and those of the parties and the parliaments through which it operates have been tarnished in the eyes of many Muslims by the corrupt and inept regimes that used these names in the recent past.
All in all, Muslims are learning to distinguish between Islam as an ethical religion and way of life, and fundamentalism as a ruthless political ideology. In countries where the fundamentalists oppose the regime, such as Egypt and Algeria, fundamentalist terrorists have shown a callous brutality that shocks and repels ordinary, decent believers. In countries where they rule, such as Iran and Sudan, they are, perhaps inevitably, disappointing the hopes that they evoked. It is no surprise that the most serious challenges to the regime in Iran comes form its own ranks and not from outside.
It is also becoming increasingly clear that, whatever political and propaganda successes they may achieve, fundamentalist movements and governments have no real understanding of, and therefore no real solutions for the pressing problems of modern society. Their diagnosis is moral. The importance of morality and law is immense and obvious, but it does not suffice in confronting the pressing economic and social problems of the modern world. The future of these regimes will become more critical if these problems persist until the time when oil revenues are no longer available.
In the struggle between democracy and fundamentalism for power in Muslim lands, the democrats suffer from a very serious disadvantage. As democrats, they are obliged to allow the fundamentalist equal opportunity to conduct propaganda and to contend for power. If they fail this duty, they are violating the very essence of their own democratic creed. The fundamentalists are under no such disability. For them, winning an election is one of several possible roads to power – and it is a one way road on which there is no turning back. Once in power it would be their solemn duty to eradicate elements and ideas contrary to the law of God, and to enforce that law against all transgressors. The strength of the democrats, and the corresponding weakness of the fundamentalists, is that the former have a program of development and betterment, while the latter offer only a return mythologized past. The problem is that the weakness of the democrats are immediate and obvious; their strengths are long-term and, for many obscure.
Some speak about possible compromise between the rival extremes – a type of representation democracy not formally secular, with a moderate, but not fundamentalist Islam. There is a little sign of any such compromise as yet, and at the present time it seems unlikely that any will emerge. But the idea of a combination of freedom and faith in which neither excludes the other has achieved some results among the Christians and may yet provide a workable solution for the problems of political Islam.
The struggle between democracy and militant fundamentalism is not limited to the Arab and Islamic world. It is becoming increasingly important in Israel. Religion as such has always played an important part in Israeli life. It is, after all, the core of the Jewish identity and therefore also of Israeli statehood. In the past, political life in Israel was more or less along European lines -between socialist left, a conservative right and a liberal centre. There are signs that this is changing (eg. Sharon and Liqud Party) and that the fault line in Israeli politics in the coming years will be less European and more Middle Eastern. This means the major confrontation will not be between right and left in the conventional Western sense of these terms, but between secular democracy and religious ideology.
In Israel as in the Muslim lands, the threat to democracy comes not from religion as such, but from a religiously expressed ideology imbuing old terms with new meanings and using – or misusing – the faith and hope of the devout in order to gain and retain power. Faith and piety are perfectly compatible with an open democratic society.

*This article is an adapted summary of the book titled “The Future of Middle East” by Bernard Lewis published by Phoenix Publishing in 1997.

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