Islamism
Muslim parties and their allies have suffered election setbacks over the past several years in Algeria, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Morocco and Pakistan. ~David Ignatius
What’s wrong with this sentence? Of course, we know what Ignatius meant to say. He meant to say Islamist, but isn’t it odd that the word he did use was Muslim? Who exactly does he think is marching in Tehran at the moment? Zoroastrians?
Even if he meant to say Islamist, who won the last Iraqi elections? Oh, yes, more “secular” and “nationalist” parties prevailed, because that’s what they claimed they were, even though the personnel and beliefs of those parties had scarcely changed from earlier years. Da’wa is now secular–good to know! This is also the genius of Lebanese politics: practically every party is officially secular, while in reality almost every party represents a specific sectarian interest. That’s the way elections often work in religiously diverse societies, but that doesn’t mean we have to give so much weight to the official designations of these parties.
One more question: if Mousavi’s forces prevail, who will have won? The Islamists or the non-Islamists? Silly question. For all the talk of democracy, the protesters are invoking the legacy of the Islamic revolution, which they believe has been betrayed, and they are employing the rhetoric of that revolution, which is nothing if not Islamist. Indeed, at the moment their hopes rest to a disproportionate degree with anti-Khamenei clerics who might decide to oust him. Should that happen, I hope that we will not be treated to some convoluted explanation that velayat-e faqih is actually a profoundly secular idea embodying the separation of religion and state, but given the commentary of the last few days I wouldn’t be surprised.
I suppose, while I share your cynicism – and indeed, the reality of this “reform” is that it is very Islamic in nature – I still find myself feeling quite hopeful that it is a step both in the direction of better governance for the Iranians, but also toward a less favorable situation for the hawks who desperately want their obvious villains to remain in place…
I thought I had dialed back on the cynicism in this one. My point in pointing out the sectarian and Islamist nature of these movements is not necessarily to say that they are simply awful or unworthy of any sympathy. It was mainly to stress that parties that present themselves as secular may not be all that different from their former sectarian or Islamist selves. AK in Turkey is often called a “reformed” or even “formerly” Islamist party, but its constituency remains largely the same as every Islamist party in modern Turkish history, and that’s to be expected in a Muslim-majority state with a tradition of political Islam. AK had to “reform” itself to get past the deep state’s restrictions and in order to seem more appealing to Europe and the U.S. It has not ceased to be Islamist in important respects, but it is also not the sort of Islamism we tend to fear.