The Arab "Street" and the Middle East's Democracy Deficit

Even before the events of 11 September 2001, it was already becoming clear that rapidly increasing levels of education, greater ease of travel, and the rise of new communications media were developing a public sphere in Muslim-majority societies in which large numbers of people--not just an educated, political, and economic elite--expect a say in religion, governance, and public issues. State authorities continue in many ways to be arbitrary and restrict what is said in the press, the broadcast media, and in public, but the methods of avoiding such censorship and control have rapidly proliferated. Today, silence in public no longer implies ignorance.

Silence, or apparent acquiescence, is often a weapon of the weak. In some countries of the Arabian Peninsula, a "politics of silence," in which audiences applaud tepidly rather than with enthusiasm, is one of the few forms of public protest available, despite the simulacra of democratic forms offered by repressive and authoritarian governments. (1) For instance, Tunisia's President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali was reelected with 99 percent of cast ballots in 1994, but few Tunisians would take at face value his response to a French journalist's question that such results, far from being "a bit too good," merely reflected "the profound realities of the Arab-Muslim world" and that the vote was "a massive adhesion to a project of national salvation." (2) Public silence in Tunisia in the face of such claims does not equal agreement with them.

Washington policy makers recognized the implications of this new sense of the public in the Arab world well before the 11 September terrorist attacks. Among them, it is called the "Arab street," a new phenomenon of public accountability, which we have seldom had to factor into our projections of Arab behavior in the past. The information revolution, and particularly the daily dose of uncensored television coming out of local TV stations like al-Jazira and international coverage by CNN and others, is shaping public opinion, which, in turn, is pushing Arab governments to respond. We do not know, and the leaders themselves do not know, how that pressure will impact on Arab policy in the future. (3)

The use of the term "street," rather than "public sphere" or "public," imputes passivity, or a propensity to easy manipulation, and implies a lack of formal or informal leadership. Nonetheless, its use indicates that policy makers at least acknowledge that even regional authoritarian and single-party states now have "publics" to take into account.

BEING MUSLIM AND MODERN

The spread of higher education, greater mobility, and proliferating and accessible means of communication have contributed significantly to the fragmentation of religious and political authority, challenging authoritarianism in many domains. (4) This process could lead to more open societies, just as globalization has been accompanied by such developments as Vatican II and secular human rights movements. Many movements show the positive side of globalization, in which small but determined transnational groups work toward goals that improve the human condition. The leaders of such movements in the Arab and the Muslim-majority worlds, including interpreters of religious matters, often lack theological and philosophical sophistication. Some can, however, motivate minorities and at least persuade wider publics of the justice of their causes, changing implicit, practical understandings of ethical issues in the process.

There is also a darker side to globalization. The fragmentation of authority and the growing ability of large numbers of people to participate in wider spheres of religious and political debate and practical action can also have highly negative outcomes. This darker side is epitomized by Osama Bin Laden and the al-Qa'ida terrorist movement. This organization is not noted primarily for its theological sophistication. In quality of thought, Bin Laden and his associates, such as the Egyptian physician Ayman al-Zawahiri, are no match for Thomas Hobbes, Martin Heidegger, Egypt's (and Qatar's) Yusuf al-Qaradawi, or Syria's Muhammad Shahrur. Al-Qa'ida has, nonetheless, demonstrated a public relations genius that--combined with massive and dramatic terrorist acts--caught the world by surprise and reinforced its public declarations of anti-Western sentiments.

The Bin Laden/al-Qa'ida view of world politics gains its power and timelessness by appealing to unity and faith regardless of the balance of power against them, and by attributing the evils of this world to Christians and Jews, as well as to Muslims who associate with them (and thus subvert the goals of the umma, the worldwide community of true believers). Does not the Qur'an say that polytheists should be fought until they cease to exist (Q. 9:5) and that those who do not rule by God's law are unbelievers who, by implication, should be resisted (Q. 5:44)? (5)

These interpretations of scripture are highly contestable and should not be taken as harbingers of a coming "clash of civilizations" or as, in Gilles Kepel's (more ecumenical) phrase, the "revenge of God." (6) This "theology" does not go back to ancient roots or to the Qur'an, although some extremists make such claims, but is thoroughly modern; it is basically an update of the beliefs of Islamic Jihad, an Egyptian group best known for its assassination of Anwar al-Sadat in 1981. Only a tiny minority has been inspired to lethal action by such interpretations. However, that minority builds on a hybrid social base that can bring together the totally different worlds of "uneducated Pashtun villagers and rich Arab city dwellers." (7) Some elements of the al-Qa'ida message--especially accounts of injustices perpetrated against Muslims in Palestine, Chechnya, Kashmir, and elsewhere--capture the imagination of broad circles, although their agreement does not translate into action.

Many voices and practices in the Muslim world call for or tend toward more open societies and diverse religious interpretations. (8) Even if ignored because they are not heard in English or the major European languages, they are becoming more significant. However, cautious autocracies are hesitant to contest directly the advocates of fanaticism and intolerance. There will always be ideas at hand to justify intolerance and violence, and there will also always be ways for terrorists to manipulate open societies for their nefarious ends; countering radical ideologies and theologies of violence is not easy. Yet the proliferation of voices openly debating the role of Islam in contemporary society contributes significantly to weakening the appeal of terrorists.

One Islamic thinker in the Gulf region, for example, argues that the principle of equality as a foundational idea was firmly established in the U.S. Declaration of Independence in 1776 but that the implementation of the principle took nearly two centuries to achieve. The right for free men to vote on an equal basis was granted only in 1850, and African-American males got the right to vote in 1870. Women got the right to vote in 1920, and the poll tax was eliminated only in 1964. He sees the Islamic principle of shura, or consultation, as identical to democracy and as an idea that can only be achieved incrementally and never fully realized, as in the American case. (9) In a similar manner, Syria's Muhammad Shahrur, in his many books and on satellite television, calls for a rethinking of the Islamic tradition to break the hold of the 'ulama ("the body of learned men"--that is, canonical religious authorities) and popular preachers on Qur'anic interpretation. (10)

Thinkers and religious leaders like Turkey's Fethullah Gülen and Indonesia's Nurcholish Madjid hold that democracy and Islam are fully compatible and that Islam prescribes no particular form of governance, certainly not arbitrary rule. They argue that the central Qur'anic message is that Muslims must take responsibility for their own society. Even the headscarf is not essential, Gülen argues--taking up a theme as politically explosive in Turkey as it is in France--only the requirement of modest dress and comportment. The views of such thinkers (and there are many) are less well known outside the Arab and Muslim-majority world than, for instance, once were the views of Solidarity activists in Poland or the advocates of liberation theology. The courage of those in the Islamic world who advocate toleration, even those who practice it in private without articulating their views, is remarkable. These thinkers recognize that there are many religious differences between Islam and the West, but they also acknowledge many important points in common.

(1) Brigitte Waterdrinker, "Genese et construction d'un etat moderne: Le cas du Sultanate d'Oman," Memoire de DEA Etudes Politiques (Paris: Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris, 1993).

(2) Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, " 'Le integrisme, c'est maintenant votre probleme': Interview with Jacques Jacquet-Francillon," Figaro, 2 August 1994, P. 5. Author's translation.

(3) Edward S. Walker, "The New U.S. Administration's Middle East Policy Speech," Middle East Economic Survey, 25 June 2001, available on the World Wide Web at http://www.mees.com/news/a44n26d01.htm.

(4) See Dale F. Eickelman and Jon W. Anderson, "Redefining Muslim Publics," in New Media in the Muslim World: The Emerging Public Sphere, ed. Dale F. Eickelman and Jon W. Anderson (Bloomington: Indiana Univ. Press, 1999), pp. 1-18; and see Dale F. Eickelman, "Mass Higher Education and the Religious Imagination in Contemporary Arab Societies," American Ethnologist, November 1992, pp. 643-55.

(5) I am grateful to James Piscatori for generously sharing with me an unpublished paper in progress concerning the Bin Laden/al-Qa'ida view of world politics. Qur'anic citations (such as 9:5) refer to chapter (sura) and verse.

(6) Gilles Kepel, The Revenge of God: The Resurgence of Islam, Christianity, and Judaism in the Modern World, trans. Alan Braley (University Park: Pennsylvania State Univ. Press, 1994).

(7) Navid Kermani, "A Dynamite of the Spirit: Why Nietzsche, Not the Koran, is the Key to Understanding the Suicide Bombers," Times Literary Supplement (London), 29 March 2002, p. 15.

(8) See Dale F. Eickelman, "Inside the Islamic Reformation," Wilson Quarterly, Winter 1998, pp. 80-9.

(9) Sadek J. Sulaiman, "Democracy and Shura," in Liberal Islam: A Sourcebook, ed. Charles Kurzman (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1998), p. 97.

(10) For an introduction to the thinking of Muhammad Shahrur, see Dale F. Eickelman, "Islamic Liberalism Strikes Back," Middle East Studies Association Bulletin, December 1993, pp. 163-8. See also Muhammad Shahrur, Proposal for an Islamic Covenant, trans. Dale F. Eickelman and Ismail S. Abu-Shehadeh (Damascus: al-Ahali, 2000), also available online, at http://www.islam21.net/pages/charter/may-1.htm.

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