The Muslim Revival
Last week, while I was on the road with my wife and children – visiting Williamsburg, Jamestowne, Yorktown, and Gettysburg, and having certain unpleasant procedures performed at the National Institutes of Health – Peter Robinson posted a segment of his interview with Victor Davis Hanson and Peter Berkowitz, wherein he asked them to respond to Natan Sharansky’s claim that “the democracy that hates you is better than the dictator who loves you” and to my suggestions that “we are witnessing a strategic shift in the Mediterranean, the younger generation of Arabs is turning to the only cultural force that has purchase in the post-Cold War world, they are turning to Islam. Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Jordan, Bahrain will become more hostile to us, to our European allies and of course to Israel.”
Victor Hanson responded that the two theocratic regimes in the Middle East – Saudi Arabia and Iran – “give everybody as much Islam as they can handle,” adding that “there are people protesting both because they are authoritarian and corrupt and they do not see it as life is so good under the Koran.” In his view, we need to exploit these examples in such a fashion as to “warn” the Arabs against embracing theocracy. It is, however, he insisted, “the Arabs’ moment.” When this is over, they cannot assert that the result was imposed on them by us.
Peter Berkowitz suggested that Sharansky and I are both half-right. Islam is a powerful cultural force, and so is the desire to be free. He was unsure which would win out, and he concluded that
we should pursue things in the spirit of Truman, Reagan and Bush and what we should work on is not in the first place getting elections up and running, whose results can be not just uncertain but quite hostile to our interests and to international or what we should work on, is promoting but with care, with caution, with judiciousness the conditions under which freedom furnishes. That means helping people who want freedom to build independent judiciaries, expand the freedoms of the press, create economic opportunity and certainly not least, extremely important, improve the opportunities for girls to be educated and for the protection of women’s rights.
I am more in accord with Peter than with Victor. The latter is, I think, correct that theocracy is unpopular in Iran – which has a substantial educated, cosmopolitan middle class and a powerful national tradition resistant to complete Islamicization. After all, the Arab conquest of Persia did not eventuate in its becoming yet another Arab-speaking country.
With regard to Saudi Arabia, however, where there is no genuine middle class and virtually all of the wealth is patronage distributed by a government enriched by the export of oil, Victor is, I think, wrong. There is no national tradition independent of Islam. And while there is a great deal of resentment directed at the ruling house, if there were free elections, the theocracy would be stronger than ever.
Although I agree with Peter that elections are not apt to be a cure-all and although I think that the agenda he suggests is worthy of our support, I doubt very much whether, in the short run, we can influence developments to any considerable degree. For more than a decade, I have been of the opinion that the old order was on its last legs. I now believe that it has for the most part come to an end. For a generation – if not for two or three – the interpreters of the Koran will exercise far greater influence in the Arab world than we will. When it has become clear to the Arabs that Islam is not the answer and that a country governed under the Holy Law of the Prophet is not apt to prosper and be strong, then and only then will there be another opening.
Of course, in different countries the results will be different. Tunisia may end up as a semi-secular democratic state. No one knows what will happen in Libya, in Syria, and in Jordan. The monarchy is apt to survive in Morocco, and the country may gradually modernize. Algeria has turned back the Islamic revival – at least for the time being. It could go the way of Tunisia. But Egypt – the most important country in the Arab world? I would predict a gradual drift in the direction defined by the Muslim Brotherhood. Already, I read, we are getting much less cooperation from the intelligence services in Egypt and elsewhere in the Arab world than in the recent past. What I have described as a “strategic shift” will strengthen Al Qa’eda in its war against the West.
In contemplating developments within the Arab world (and in Turkey), however, we should keep in mind the fact that politics is largely generational. The Great Depression and World War II defined a generation in this country; Vietnam defined another. And the difference between the two is clear to everyone who takes a moment to reflect on it.
In Turkey, World War I and the struggle against the Greeks in its aftermath defined a generation. In the Arab world, the period of European dominion in the aftermath of World War I was decisive for a generation. The Turks and the Arabs resisted European dominion by importing European institutions and practices – nationalism among them. But, at least in the Arab world, nationalism delivered nothing but disappointment: defeat on the battlefield, despotism, and corruption on a grand scale. Communism might have presented itself as an alternative had not the Soviet experiment been so obvious a failure. Right now, the only powerful cultural force is the Islamic revival.
There is nonetheless reason for hope. The Islamic revival, which first seized power in Iran thirty years ago, has now for the most part run its course. The theocratic regime can still sustain itself but only by force. And the time will come when the offspring of the theocrats turn on their fathers and grandfathers. In due course, this will also happen in the Arab world.
The most powerful weapon in our arsenal during the Cold War was our example. It was essential that we contain communism. If contained, it would in the face of our example eventually implode. That was our strategy, and it worked. Gorbachev represented a new generation dissatisfied with the achievement of the generation that made the Russian Revolution and grew up in its immediate aftermath. Peter is right. Liberty has its allure.
Today, the most powerful weapon in our arsenal is once again our example. If we put our own house in order and if we act to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, Islamic revivalism will in time follow communism into what Leon Trotsky once referred to as “the dustbin of history.” In the meantime, we must in a judicial fashion wield all of the weapons at our disposal – economic, cultural, diplomatic, and military – against our emerging foe, containing it and weakening it in every way we can.
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Comments :
Oct '10
Re: The Muslim Revival
And if we do not put our house in order, it will be we who will find ourselves confined to the dust bin of history!
Sep '10
Re: The Muslim Revival
Thanks for your analysis and sharing the analysis of those who disagree. I hope and pray that Victor Davis Hanson is correct, but fear that your analysis will prove to be the more accurate one.
On our side of the equation, the one thing we are sorely missing is leadership out of the White House. Until Obama is replaced, I don't see America providing the example you suggest.
Re: The Muslim Revival
Standfast: Thanks for your analysis and sharing the analysis of those who disagree. I hope and pray that Victor Davis Hanson is correct, but fear that your analysis will prove to be the more accurate one.
On our side of the equation, the one thing we are sorely missing is leadership out of the White House. Until Obama is replaced, I don't see America providing the example you suggest. · Mar 27 at 4:37pm
Amen.
Dec '10
Re: The Muslim Revival
Glad you are back and hope you are well. Your streams always seem the most relevant to my concerns.
We should act in our own national interest unapologetically and in good faith. e.g.Currently we can concede that Quadafi must go and if the government to follow is not better or willing to act in good faith toward us, then they will be our enemy too. The preponderance of evidence is not recently in favor of Muslim run countries, but they have been pushed back from the gates before.
Re: The Muslim Revival
Professor, I hope the unpleasant procedures yield pleasant results for your health, truly.
While I share your enthusiasm for the agenda that Peter Berkowitz outlines, I'm not sure that I share your conviction that Islamic revivalism will necessarily follow communism in the "dustbin of history." While Communism, which still has it's fans on the left today, might have been followed as devoutly as if it were a religion, it was still secular in nature. After all, Stalin didn't promise 72 young blossoms in the hereafter to conscripts in the Red Army. It's the transcendent nature of religions in general that give them their staying power, yes? I fear Islamic revivalism will not go so easily into the dustbin. I hope I'm wrong.
Jun '10
Re: The Muslim Revival
The barbarism found and practiced in Islamic states needs to be vocally condemned and challenged at every turn. Despite the opportunistic aims of the Muslim Brotherhood and al Qaeda, in some quarters of the pan-Islamic uprising, specifically the disenfranchised and frustrated youth, we may be seeing some signs that strict totalitarian Islamic rule is no longer acceptable in the modern world.
Much like the lies and the unfulfilled promises of Communism of a socialist paradise that was supposed to be around the corner but never materialized for 70 years, there are no doubt millions of younger Muslims who are getting desperate about a better, more prosperous and freer life passing them by. The lack of prosperity, opportunity and freedom for opportunity particularly in the more totalitarian Islamic states is more than just an embarrassment to them. It is crushing them.
We need to appeal to their reason but as has been said it's difficult to do so when our own President subverts and distorts what the American dream is about and articulates that American exceptionalism is merely a jingoistic notion. And of course, it certainly doesn't help the cause when America is on the brink of insolvency.
Re: The Muslim Revival
Dave Carter: Professor, I hope the unpleasant procedures yield pleasant results for your health, truly.
While I share your enthusiasm for the agenda that Peter Berkowitz outlines, I'm not sure that I share your conviction that Islamic revivalism will necessarily follow communism in the "dustbin of history." While Communism, which still has it's fans on the left today, might have been followed as devoutly as if it were a religion, it was still secular in nature. After all, Stalin didn't promise 72 young blossoms in the hereafter to conscripts in the Red Army. It's the transcendent nature of religions in general that give them their staying power, yes? I fear Islamic revivalism will not go so easily into the dustbin. I hope I'm wrong. · Mar 27 at 5:23pm
I agree with you in part. Islam is here to stay. But it is protean. Arab nationalism was a doctrine embraced and propagated by Arab Christians. It caught on among Muslims who wanted modernity as well. My hope is that, when Islamic revivalism fails, as it will, to deliver the goods, there will once again be an openness to modernity.
Jul '10
Re: The Muslim Revival
I beg to quibble with your view on Saudi Arabia on one point. In Saud, the leadership is largely an oligarchy, strongly reinforcing Sharia, but recognized by the population as hypocritical and corrupt. A true theocracy would have no such convenient scapegoat for deflecting blame, but it leaves room for a populist Islamist revolution.
Re: The Muslim Revival
Paul A. Rahe
Dave Carter:
I agree with you in part. Islam is here to stay. But it is protean. Arab nationalism was a doctrine embraced and propagated by Arab Christians. It caught on among Muslims who wanted modernity as well. My hope is that, when Islamic revivalism fails, as it will, to deliver the goods, there will once again be an openness to modernity. · Mar 27 at 5:37pm
From your keyboard to God's ears, Professor. Thanks for the post.
Re: The Muslim Revival
That is precisely what I tried to imply.
Dec '10
Re: The Muslim Revival
Accepting elections in the Middle East as if results were as reliable as union-run votes in their Chicago ward, is like citing opinion polls while ignoring how to manipulate questions to produce the answers.
Expecting Persian capitulation to the hegemony of Arabs, like Republican leadership to the intimidation of Democrats—as if political appeasement, go-along-to-get-along collegial pusillanimity, and cocktail circuit camaraderie in Washington mirrors the corridors of power in the Middle East where tribal leaders are more likely to encroach, like a camel’s nose under the tent, with customary hostile intent, than to compromise for the sake of comity—defies the history of desert bargaining.
Counting on Egypt to lead the Middle East as if the influence of another OPEC quadrupling of the price of their oil accrues more to Egypt than to the Islamic Republic of Iran and Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is to exalt a blind faith in windmills to recharge the batteries powering our cars.
Abandon the Middle East to their primitive habits; pursue our well-earned modernity by exploiting the wealth of our petroleum deposits, and return to harvesting our traditional homegrown freedom away from centralized government's collectivist plantation.
Jul '10
Re: The Muslim Revival
Most people don't want Freedom. If they did, then We could just kill the despots and leave.
Most people don't want to live under the rule of a despot, but they don't want the responsibility for their own success or failure. As proof, look at the growing number of Americans eating out of the public trough.
Generally speaking, most people want to be told what to do without the threat of violence.
Jan '11
Re: The Muslim Revival
For the most part I entirely agree with you; let's get out of the way, let the Arab states have their Islamist governments and let the people figure out for themselves that living under Sharia is not such a great deal. Actually I don't think we have much choice in the matter.
I'm just not entirely optimistic about the part where they decide that Sharia-based governments don't work. I'm afraid there is a vicious cycle here.
(1) Islamic law cripples education and development
(2) Citizens of Islamic states look at the comparative freedom and wealth of the West and feel inferior. Blaming colonialism worked for a while, but like "blame Bush," it has an expiration date. Another explanation is needed.
(3) Aha! Western civilisation is irrelevant because we believe in a pure, perfect, unchangeable Islam that cannot be compared to anything else.
4) See (1).
Feb '11
Re: The Muslim Revival
This isn't just something that applies in the Middle East or in Islamic nations in general. The argument is increasingly being made in America that "too much choice is bad for people." There have been quite a few stories lately about British women converting to Islam--usually the more stringent forms thereof--because it gives them a sense of structure to their lives.
I think most people do want freedom, but they also want a sense of meaning, and the second often trumps the first. Arthur Koestler addresses this, and much else besides, in his sadly-neglected novel Age of Longing, which I reviewed here: sleeping with the enemy.
Jul '10
Re: The Muslim Revival
Paul: Violent agreement. Thanks!
Margaret: Television destroyed the hold of government on the Eastern Bloc in the Cold War. The Iranian government plays whack-a-mole with all the satellite dishes for television trying to block erosion there. Materialism has not proven a deterrent for Muslims raised with property, but what about those who have never enjoyed the benefit?
David: Post Vatican II, Christianity as a whole seems to have gone more toward "do your own thing" and away from "here is the virtuous path". When the Archbishop of Canterbury calls for adoption of Sharia in Anglo-Muslim communities what is left for the lost souls to cling to?
Nov '10
Re: The Muslim Revival
A big part of the problem which I don't think gets enough attention is that Arabs in general have not had good experiences with secularism. When Arabs hear the word "secular" they don't think of Jefferson or Reagan, they think of Hussein, Assad, and Mubarak. The comparisons to Iran in 1979 are instructive in this sense, as a lot of Arab revolutionaries are set to make the same mistake the Persians did, assuming that a god-fearing dictatorship must be better than a godless one. I'm reasonably optimistic that when the majority of Arabs claim to want Sharia, they're thinking about interest free loans and female modesty, not stoning rape victims.
As for Jimmy Carter's point, I think most people do want freedom for themselves. It's getting them to accept freedom for people they don't like that's a problem.
Jul '10
Re: The Muslim Revival
Jimmy Carter: Most people don't want Freedom. If they did, then We could just kill the despots and leave.
Most people don't want to live under the rule of a despot, but they don't want the responsibility for their own success or failure. As proof, look at the growing number of Americans eating out of the public trough.
Generally speaking, most people want to be told what to do without the threat of violence.
Most people want some semblance of order and a reasonable chance that they and theirs won't be shot, arrested, starved, or robbed. And if they see themselves as having a reasonable shot at life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, boom. Being poor in Egypt, in Libya, in Tunisia, means being hungry, being weak, literally. Too few calories. Despair isn't a sin in these cases, it is destiny. A hungry man will gravitate toward the promise of food. A man with hungry children all the more so.
At that point the only question is whose net were they swept up in, if any. And the mosques are easily found.
Re: The Muslim Revival
Geçmiş olsun, Paul--which I think is my political comment as well.
Re: The Muslim Revival
I agree with Margaret Ball that we do not have all that much choice in this matter. The old order is rotten to the core, and its leaders are for the most part octogenarians. We will have to cope with the new and impose constraints as best we can.
Re: The Muslim Revival
Thanks for this. I am awaiting the results of certain tests. I will in due course blog on my experience at the National Institutes of Health -- which some on Ricochet may find of genuine interest.