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Lectures
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| Summaries of the participations in contemporary arab reprentations.Critical discourses and political thinking | |
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| The islamist parties ans the democtratic alternative in arab countries, Nadia Yassine
The International University of Andalusia, 14th - 19th June 2004 |
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| The Arab world is not a monolithic block, as neither are western countries. Nadia Yassine, spokeswoman and person responsible for the female section of the Islamic Moroccan movement Justice and spirituality thinks that it is possible to find links between both civilizations which are not, as suggested by Samuel Huntington in 1997, irremediably condemned to confrontation. After the attacks of 11-S in New York and 11-M in Madrid, the approach of Huntington has made an impression in the more conservative sectors of western societies, resurrecting the old culturist and essentialist theses which justified colonialism. "But initiatives such as this seminar", stated Nadia Yassine during her intervention in the fifth day of Contemporary Arab Representations. Critical discourses and political thinking, "help to develop reflection and dialogue space which allows us to overcome prejudices and construct together a future where everybody can co-exist". |
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| Western mass media tends to not differentiate between the radical Islamic movements (easily the minority) and the reformists (with a wide popular acceptance), giving one to understand that, indeed, they are the two sides of the same coin. Thus, it is presupposed that the Islamic world, due to its intrinsic nature, is incompatible with democracy, and instead of favouring debate which analyses in detail the political situation of Muslim countries, a prior verdict is offered which, in the opinion of Nadia Yassine, contains an integral questioning of Islam. As with the orientalism of the 19th century, such new essentialist and culturist approaches arises from the idea that the Arabic world is anchored in a pre-modern social and political structure from which they can only come out (conveniently advised by western countries) if it rids itself of the burden of Islam. |
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| This new essentialist discussion conceives democracy as the "natural and clean" result of the evolution of western society, making it obvious that its existence (which, on the other hand, continues being partial and provisional) derives from a frightful and chaotic historic path full of troughs and diversions. Against the ideal of progress presented by western democracies, Islam identifies itself with something dark and threatening, with the survival of a theocratic system which threatens the stability and prosperity of the civilized world. In the political field, it is presupposed that Muslims are genetically programmed to be submitted to despots and feudal regimes and that the history of Islamic countries has been a kind of "horror museum ". |
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| "The most serious thing", stated Nadia Yassine, "is the fact that this essentialist discourse does not limit itself to the theoretic area, but also expresses by means of determined political actions (as proven by the war decisions of the Bush administration or the Sharon government)". And if the orientalism of the 19th century preceded colonialism, the main fear of Nadia Yassine is that this new political essentialist thinking involves an updating of the culturist tyranny which justified the control of western countries using civilization arguments. We should not forget that in the Islamic world, all this is perceived as cultural aggression, and among wide sectors of the population the necessity of searching a re-affirmation of identity in contrast to western Countries gains importance. Thus is created the perfect atmosphere for a discourse which defends an antidemocratic nature as a sign of identity of the Muslim world. "And not even reformist Islamism", admitted Nadia Yassine, "is completely free of such tendency". |
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| In any case, according to Nadia Yassine, daughter of Sheyj Abdesalam Yassine (founder of the movement Justice and spirituality), the explanation to that reaction should be sought beyond the Islam. In Arab countries, the memory of the recent colonisation (it was scarcely four decades ago that such nations obtained their independence) still remains in the mind of the citizens, whose view of western countries continues being conditioned by this historic event. Nowadays, Muslims still are incapable of defining themselves without such dialectic relationship which separates and confronts the colonizers (the victors, the western countries) and the colonized (the defeated, the East). "Something which", in the words of Nadia Yassine, "limits and blocks us because it obliges us to construct our identity negatively (if western countries are democratic, we are antidemocratic) and prevents us from finding our own way without the obsession of establishing comparisons or differences with respect to western countries". |
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| As indicated by Eyal Sivan during the first day of Contemporary Arab Representations. Critical discourses and political thinking, historic memory can be instrumented (choosing certain items of information and "forgetting" others) and thus favouring the subjecting of a people. The Islamic world has been deprived of a great part of its memory, and that has prevented it from being able to understand many situations of its present and from turning to its own history to find reference models on which to construct its future. |
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| The essentialist discourse uses this instrumentalization of history in order to argue that Muslims are natural enemies of democracy. Some European expert on the east in the 19th century, such as H. Laoust, produced good descriptive work on the historic origin of the big schisms of Islam and the creation of the Sunni and Shiite groups. But Nadia Yassine thinks that they remained on a very superficial level, without understanding the complexity of many of those founding events, to the extent of interpreting that the authoritarian regimes of Islamic countries during the last few centuries implied the logic continuity of the teachings of the Prophet (when, in her opinion, it is just the contrary). |
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| On the other hand, the Islamic world lacks its own theory of power which might have reflected on the mechanisms used by it to legitimise and perpetuate itself. Besides, the few authors who have treated such issue have also conceived the "autocratism" as the most suitable political system for Islamic societies. For example, Ibn Taymya (a very influential theologian in wahhabism) even affirmed that he preferred a year of despotism than only one night without governors. In this sense, Ghassan Salamé wondered in his book Democracies without democrats what "internal fragility" there was in Arab societies which made those authors confuse the understandable necessity of authority with the justification of despotism. For his part, the Shiite thinker of Yemeni origin, Zayd Bnou Ali Lwazir, reminds us in his work Al Fardya that there is nothing in the words of the Prophet which is incompatible with current democratic rules. |
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| "In fact", indicated Nadia Yassine, "the Prophet conceived power as an instrument of social cohesion to guarantee the spiritual development of the individual and public justice". In the Koran there is recognized the notion of the community -whose unity should reflect the absolute oneness of divinity- and sovereignty as a sacred legitimacy. At the same time, in the time of the Prophet (a period including the first five caliphates) the necessity was already assumed for the organization and formalization of power to have to evolve starting from the adaptation of the text to the context (that is, taking into account the sensibilities and the circumstances of each period). Thus, for example, during the mandate of Omar (634-644), technical innovations in the administration of public finances were adopted and a separation of powers was proposed. "That is", pointed out Nadia Yassine, "a look at the origins of the Muslim religion shows us that democracy and the Muslim faith are compatible". |
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| However, with the Moawya rebellion there was an investment -both on a political and a theological level- of this process of democratic liberalization based on the teachings of the Koran. If in the time of the Prophet, what was sacred was popular sovereignty, after that investment it was the power itself which started to become sacred. "The power", pointed out Nadia Yassine, "which was until then at the service of the Message, put the Message at its own service". The Koran verses were instrumentalized to make possible the consolidation of the new emerging power and the love for consensus which had been proclaimed by the Prophet was used to confront internal dissidence and avoid political debate. The period of the first two Caliphs (Abu Bakr and Omar)are disproportionately idealized, underlining the sacred and unmovable character of the text (which, therefore, does not have to adapt to the context). |
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| Such transference of the sacred was carried out by means of two main instruments: the creation of a tainted administrative and bureaucratic network depending on the interests of a series of clans and families with influences; and the beginning of a sophisticated system of propaganda (based on both calumny and the manipulation of ideologies as well as on violence) which used religious spaces (especially the sermons on Fridays in the Mosques) to spread itself. In order to consolidate this autocratic power, the work of the Ulemas has also been instrumentalized, which represented a kind of civil society in the Muslim world. In its origins, the function of the Ulemas was to mediate between the citizens and the Authority, exercising a certain contrapower which prevented abuse from the governors. But progressively they have been abandoning this function and, in the name of unity and consensus, they have limited themselves to plugging the gaps of power, becoming, in many cases, accomplices of the authoritarian governments. |
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| There has been, therefore, a series of historical handicaps (lack of own political theory, survival of the autocratic and corrupt regimes, colonialist oppression...) which have implied the non-existence of "intellectual antibodies" in the Islamic world against despotic power. Besides, in the face of the danger of cultural uniformity which involves globalisation, wide sectors of Muslim society have recurred to an identity withdrawal which rejects any external influence, including democracy, which is perceived as a western interference. "But that does not mean", insisted Nadia Yassine in the final phase of her intervention in Contemporary Arab Representations. Critical discourses and political thinking, "that the Muslim world, due to its own idiosyncrasy of Islam, is condemned to autocratism, since, as stated by Zayd Bnou Ali Lwazir, there is nothing in the words of the Koran which is incompatible with current democratic rules". According to Nadia Yassine, author of the book Toutes voiles dehors, the development of the democracy in the Islamic world shall only be possible by means of the claim for a collective identity which allows Muslims to rid themselves of the perverse influence of culturist discourses and policies and, at the same time, to form their own theory of power. |
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