The recent spate of piracy along the coast of Somalia around the Gulf of Aden has refocused international attention on Somalia and for good reason. Somalia is the latest example of how the West’s “Anything but Islamists” mantra has hurt Western interests and the wider Middle East region as well. The piracy off the coast of Somalia is but a symptom of the lawlessness that engulfs the shores of the nation. As pointed out in a recent piece in the New York Times, piracy was virtually eradicated by the governing party, the Islamic Courts Union, which governed most of Somalia and began consolidating its power in 2006 into the entire country.
The Islamic Courts Union is crude and conservative but most Somalis welcomed a government after the lawlessness that has persisted in Somalia with the absence of a formal government since 1991. The United States under the guise of fighting terrorism supported an Ethiopian-backed counterinsurgency that has unseated the government and left Somalia divided once more between warlords. The fear of Islamists has once more driven the West, mainly the United States, to implement policies that run counter to its national interests, which in this case would be the stability of one of the most important maritime corridors in the world, transporting most of the oil destined to Europe and North America from the Middle East.
Similarly, in Algeria, the Front Islamique du Salut won the Algerian elections in 1991 but France supported its secular rival, the Front de Liberation Nationale, to prevent the FIS from assuming power. The French intervention started a ten year civil war that still scars the Mediterranean nation. The civil war also created a vacuum that allowed the birth of Al Qaeda in the Maghreb (Al-Qaeda in North Africa), akin to the birth of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia in Iraq after the invasion of Iraq in 2003.
But Somalia and Algeria are by no means isolated incidents. Fear of Islamists has all but paralyzed Bush’s democratic agenda in the Middle East, after the victory of Hamas and the better than expected showing of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. These moderate Islamists parties tend to have wide popular support because of their organization and lack of corruption. In a region that boasts “Till death do us part” presidents, Islamist parties are the only alternative in town. Their ability to organize in mosques and provide charities for schools and hospitals makes them capable of organizing under the cover of nonpolitical organizations whereas secular political parties are quickly snuffed out. Furthermore, Middle Eastern dictators have smelled the Western aversion to Islamists so they tout their Islamists as the only alternative to their lamentable but necessary rule.
So far Western opposition to Islamists has been based on three main points. First, Islamists are only using democracy to get to power. The famous line during the Algerian elections was that, “Islamists are in favor of one man, one vote, one time”. Well, that may be a risk worth taking. When Hosni Mubarak and Qadafi have been in power since 1981 and 1979, and Bashar al-Assad of Syria took over in 2001 from his father (and these are the republics), then we can risk an Islamist party that may not give up power. Second is that Islamists are anti-Israel. Again, the way that relations between the Arab world and Israel are, not much would change with Islamists coming to power in Arab countries, possibly with the exception of Egypt and Jordan who have peace treaties with Israel. Even that is not a given, the Justice and Development Party is in power in Turkey and has not cut off Turkey’s military and economic ties with Israel. Finally, Islamists do not respect human rights and will impose sharia’ law. The latter is perhaps the worst reason because the secular governments with their contempt for democracy and civil society have curtailed every human right in the Middle East, from freedom of speech to women’s rights, from minority rights to religious freedom.
In Gaza, Hamas did not rush to enforce sharia law and neither did the Justice and Development Party in Turkey, nor is sharia law a part of Hizbullah platform for Lebanon. Islamist parties have shown themselves to be pragmatic and real alternatives to the sclerotic, calcified secular parties of the 1970s. Any road to democracy in the Middle East will have to include Islamist parties because of their popularity and their organization, their relatively blank slates and also due to the fact that secular parties are most ruthlessly crushed by the sitting Arab governments. Islamists coming to power through the ballot box will reinvigorate the civil societies of the region and allow competition for government. The democratic process itself will act as a moderating force and as we have seen with the Republican Party, political parties need to be sent to the wilderness after a long sojourn in power.
Related posts:
- Ethiopia Enters the Somalia Conflict
- Gul Elected Turkey’s President: Who’s Afraid Of The Big Ol’ Hijab?
- The Battle for Mogadishu – Afghanistan Redux?
- Bad Guys Beat Worse Guys For Mogadishu
- Democracy Betrayed
Well, if you put it that way, *yes*, lawlessness is better than letting the Islamic Courts Union take power in Somalia. The form of government they propose is fundamentally illegitimate, and likely to destabilize the broader region. Better no government at all than that one — it’s not only the people of Somalia’s concern (though they’ll suffer plenty under the ICU as well), but the rest of us too.
Posted by Joe | December 7, 2008, 4:35 pmOh, and I’ll put it at the top here so nobody misses it:
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1043795.html
Posted by Joe | December 8, 2008, 4:33 amI agree with Joe. Anarchy is better than Islamists. At least anarchists usually only shit in their own yard, right?
You are right though. Arab/Muslim problems are always the fault of everyone else, not of Arabs and Muslims. That’s part of sharia law, I think. I should get a fatwa from the “Islamic Courts” on it, I suppose.
Posted by programmer craig | December 8, 2008, 7:45 amHey Joe, the Islamic Courts Union is no less legitimate than the governments of Egypt and Saudi Arabia. While it’s true it does not have the legitimacy of being an elected government, it has not threatened any of its neighbors or the broader region of East Africa.
During its tentative hold on power, the ICU was more democratic than Saudi Arabia’s government by virtue of its comparatively lenient form of sharia law. It also afforded Somalis more human rights than did the government of Egypt where Egyptians don’t have the right to assemble or to speak freely or to organize politically. Saudi Arabia and Egypt are the United States’ top allies in the region.
Islamists that forswear violence, such as Hamas, Hizbullah, the Justice and Development Pary, the FIS and the Muslim Brotherhood, in favor of the political process and the ballot box should be allowed to govern, given the utter failure of secular autocracies and monarchies to stem the tide of extremism and mass corruption
Posted by Sama Adnan | December 8, 2008, 9:46 amIslamists that forswear violence, such as Hamas, Hizbullah…
Hello!?
Anyway, I suppose you think the Taliban in Afghanistan was pretty cool too, right?
Posted by programmer craig | December 8, 2008, 11:54 amThe case of Israel is different. Violence by the state of Israel against Palestinians and Lebanese has been retorted to by violence from both Islamists and secularists such as the PFLP and the late George Habash, a notorious Palestinian Christian Militant. It is obvious here that I am talking about Islamists who forswear violence domestically in favor of elections and the ballot box. The debate about the merits or futility of attacking Israel rages in Palestinian circles, whether Islamist or secular. This debate will end with the establishment of a Palestinian state or the formation of a binational state in Israel/Palestine.
As for Islamist parties getting to power, they are just as legitimate as secular parties.
Posted by Sama Adnan | December 8, 2008, 12:41 pmIt is obvious here that I am talking about Islamists who forswear violence domestically in favor of elections and the ballot box.
Again, I say… hello!?
You haven’t been watching the news out of Gaza or Lebanon for the last couple years?
In any case, as a (non-Jewish) American, I could care less about Palestinians and their debate about violence against Israel. I care about Islamists and their violence against me and mine. I fully supported my country’s actions against militant Islamists in Somalia at the time, and I still do. I think my country should take whatever action it can against Islamists, whenever and wherever it can. Religion has no place in politics – particularly when the politically active practitioners of a religion have a recent history of using extreme violence and terrorism to promote their agenda. As I said the first time, I much prefer anarchists who are usually motivated by nothing more than greed and their own self interests. They gain nothing from flying planes into buildings half a world away, so they don’t do it. That’s a major improvement, in my opinion.
Posted by programmer craig | December 8, 2008, 5:17 pmExcellent post
While it is disconcerting seeing the way Islamists are vilified and too often kept from the halls of government, they are far from ideal. Regardless of how many people perceive Islam, politics and religion should be kept separate. I agree that Islamists are not necessarily prone to enforcing their views on others, but their ultimate goal (assuming there are few other problems to address) is the establishment of a political system largely based on their interpretation of Islam. To me, they are a haunting reminder of the Christian rulers of old…
But while I am no fan of Islamists, I do believe they should be given their fair chance just like everyone else (afterall, they haven’t proven to be that good). Perhaps that is most true for Egypt. Unfortunately, the prospect doesn’t look very good.
Posted by Kalash | December 8, 2008, 10:28 pm“”Hey Joe, the Islamic Courts Union is no less legitimate than the governments of Egypt and Saudi Arabia. While it’s true it does not have the legitimacy of being an elected government, it has not threatened any of its neighbors or the broader region of East Africa.”"
Saudi Arabia’s a harder case to judge (they have what are essentially ‘dirty bombs’ in their *own* oil-fields, so that the fields would become unusable if the House of Saud were ever deposed — They have us by the balls in a way that the Somali ICU doesn’t, legit or no), but Egypt I can speak to a bit more, and yes, Egypt’s government *is* more legitimate than the ICU.
A sham democracy, if secular, provides a better eventual basis for true democracy — both in terms of ease of transition and in terms of keeping up the society until true democracy can be achieved — than a religious dictatorship ever could. Fascist government with ‘Islamic flavor’, of the type ICU ran, leads nowhere but backwards.
Posted by Joe | December 9, 2008, 2:26 pmOh, and as a note to the above — even if they’re supported by a majority, governments influenced by Shari’a inevitably develop the characteristics of fascism, so the fact that they were democratically elected once doesn’t mean they respect democracy. Just as how the Nazi party was democratically elected, but then dismantled the institutions of democracy when they’d lose power at election-time.
A party that makes an outward show of respecting democracy for the one election it wins, but not afterward, is often worse for developing democracy than the party that never pretends to respect it in the first place.
Oh, and to Kalash:
“”I agree that Islamists are not necessarily prone to enforcing their views on others,”"
Please give examples.
Posted by Joe | December 9, 2008, 2:29 pm“”It is obvious here that I am talking about Islamists who forswear violence domestically in favor of elections and the ballot box.”"
Hamas and Hezbollah forswear violence domestically?
LOL.
(Beyond the obvious examples, there’s the blind eye they turn to honor killings… that’s not violence to you?)
“”The debate about the merits or futility of attacking Israel rages in Palestinian circles, whether Islamist or secular. This debate will end with the establishment of a Palestinian state or the formation of a binational state in Israel/Palestine.”"
Sorry, but regardless of your position on I/P issues, this is simply untrue. Both sides have attacked each other since long before 1948, and if you think the establishment of a Palestinian state will magically end the mutual hatred on both sides, you’re drinking fairy dust.
“”As for Islamist parties getting to power, they are just as legitimate as secular parties.”"
Uh, no, no they’re not, because their fundamental vision of society is illegitimate at its core.
Posted by Joe | December 9, 2008, 2:33 pmIslamists, particularly the ones that have been mentioned here do not threaten any of us in the West.
The Palestine-Israeli conflict has nothing to do with hatred. It has all to do with human rights; thus it is correct that a state for the Palestinians or a binational Jewish/Palestinian state would solve the problem. And no, Arabs and Jews have not been fighting for hundreds of years.
“Uh, no [Islamist Parties], no they’re not, because their fundamental vision of society is illegitimate at its core.”
We don’t know what the vision of every Islamist party is. The differences between Hezbollah and Hamas are different. The differences between the Brotherhood and the Justice and Development party are very different. Even the Taliban and Al-Qaeda had radical differences.
Please recognize that these groups are radically different from each other, thus putting them all under the same umbrella would be incorrect.
Don’t be scared of the word Islam, or this newly coined term “Islamist.”
When I spent a year in Egypt, the only groups I trusted and developed a fondness for were the Islamic linked ones. Their money exchange shops were much more efficient, clean, and no one rips you off. There stores were the same way, and so were their soup kitchens and every other thing run by them. Everything about them was clean, punctual, on-time, efficient, and non-corrupt (my few months in Lebanon, made me develop the same exact feeling towards their respective Islamic groups; mainly Hezbollah but there are others as well). This is the reason these groups do so well.
If these Islamists groups do well in stabilizing the economies and addressing many of the social issues of their respective society, then I believe other movements will come to take the place of the stable society that was created by the Islamist groups.
This was a genius post btw, thank you for writing this.
Posted by SuperSayyin | December 10, 2008, 10:14 pm“”The Palestine-Israeli conflict has nothing to do with hatred. It has all to do with human rights; thus it is correct that a state for the Palestinians or a binational Jewish/Palestinian state would solve the problem. And no, Arabs and Jews have not been fighting for hundreds of years.”"
Uh, care to read what I actually wrote? I didn’t write ‘hundreds of years’, I wrote, “Long before 1948″.
Which is, well, true. Arab Muslims and Jews have been fighting one another in the region since long before 1948.
Wikipedia has a great list of the back-and-forth massacres that occurred prior to ’48 in the Palestine region.
But looking beyond that, why do you suppose it is that many Arab states expelled the Jews in the 20th century?
“”The Palestine-Israeli conflict has nothing to do with hatred. It has all to do with human rights; thus it is correct that a state for the Palestinians or a binational Jewish/Palestinian state would solve the problem.”"
That’s fun to assert, but it’s time to deal with the counter-factual; what if you’re wrong? What if, after such a deal, rockets continue to rain on Sderot? What should Israel do then?
Posted by Joe | December 11, 2008, 2:41 pm“”If these Islamists groups do well in stabilizing the economies and addressing many of the social issues of their respective society, then I believe other movements will come to take the place of the stable society that was created by the Islamist groups.”"
Except that their positions on many of these ‘social issues’ are fundamentally illegitimate, as they’re drawn from a religious rather than a secular understanding of the world and are willing to impose that faith-based understanding by force.
Posted by Joe | December 11, 2008, 2:43 pmI am sorry Joe but no double standards here. I am a secularist and a vehement advocate of seperation of religion and state but that does not mean that faith-based parties should be automatically disqualified from the political process. This is not the case of Western democracies (Christian Democrats of Germany, Flams Block of Flanders, Belgium, our own Republican Party) and neither is it a litmus test in eastern democracies (BJP Hindu Nationalist Pary of India and some Shintu Japanese parties). Why shouldn’t Islam-inspired parties have a part in the democratic process? I agree with you that the institutions and the state should be secular as not to discriminate against religious minorities but that does not mean parties should have no religious basis, whatsoever.
Posted by Sama Adnan | December 11, 2008, 5:26 pm“”that does not mean that faith-based parties should be automatically disqualified from the political process.”"
You’re muddling your terms. There’s a difference between a faith-based party (an ‘Islamic’ party, let’s call it), and a party that wants to govern based on that faith (an ‘Islamist’ party). The Christian Democrats in Germany, for instance, don’t make any real attempt to restructure society according to the laws of Christianity. I’m not a big fan of the Republicans, but they at least make their arguments to the electorate in predominately secular terms.
They’re also not seriously attempting to dismantle the very wheels of democracy that brought them to power in the first place; Hugo Chavez in Venezuela is problematic for precisely that reason, independent of religion.
Also, in case you haven’t noticed, the BJP are BATSHIT INSANE and fucking up all sorts of things. Great role models you’ve got there.
Posted by Joe | December 12, 2008, 7:22 pmThe author of this article has it best I believe. The others appear to be displaying the atypical Western attitude to any political problem. Venezuela is evil because they work against the United States, Cuba is evil for this and that. But you never like to mention how they can rival you in terms of Literacy, and how they have more women in public office than your country does. All of this, and they are embargoed and face constant trial and struggle. But yes, of course, they do not allow their borders to be opened so they can start speaking american and watching MTV. Right, that’s real freedom.
I would also like to add to the comments here in terms of Religious parties being elected. They may not impose religious laws on the populace, but if you follow their ideology, they certainly try, and to some extent they are successful.
I would not consider myself a supporter of the BJP, but seriously, the way you remarked on that just shows that you aren’t open-minded to anything that hasn’t been sanctioned by the CIA Factbook.
Aside, I really like the image you used in this article, very well-writtern, and also very well-defended. Keep up the good work.
Posted by A Basa | March 1, 2009, 2:30 pmWe shouldn’t boycott Islamic parties in a democratic society. The whole point of a democracy is to have multiple political parties competing with each other for the vote of the people. In order to do that they have to cater to the whims of the people.
Islamic based parties will probably win most elections in most Muslim countries if they were to suddenly become democracies.
HOWEVER, this isint a bad thing. By putting these parties in the spot light and forcing them to actually make do on all the promises they made they will be either “exposed” for what they are or they may help the country move forward. In either case its a win-win situation for the people. If the Islamic party does not deliver then they will be voted out in the next election cycle.
Look at Iraq for example. In the first election the religious overwhelmingly won the most seats etc. Now, in the next cycle of elections, more secular based parties are winning the elections.
Allowing popular grassroots groups to thrive is essential, even if they are “Islamic based.”
After all the more you repress something the more radical it gets. So its best to deal with them as a political party rather than as revolutionary group.
Posted by Arayus | March 7, 2009, 6:05 pm