Europe, Islamism and Tunisia: Carthage, Rome and Beyond
Nov 27th 2014, 16:00 by B.C.
The Economist
FOR THE governments of Europe, a long-standing dilemma has recently grown even sharper. Ultra-militant groups like Islamic State are threatening both to attack their interests, and with increasing credibility, to recruit their citizens. So how, in this darkening scene, should European states respond to organisations which ultimately share the IS view that Islam offers the ideal form of governance—but also insist they want to be good citizens, engage in democratic politics and oppose nihilist terrorism? Or to put it another way, how should those states deal with organisations on their territory which hew to the ideology and practices of the Muslim Brotherhood?
Things got even more awkward this month when the government of the United Arab Emirates published a list of what it considered “terrorist” groups; the 80 or so organisations included some that manifestly deserve that label, such as Nigeria’s Boko Haram, and others which are considered more-or-less respectable citizens of various Western countries. Quite a lot of the groups listed are considered close to Brotherhood thinking, though that is hard to prove or disprove.
This heavy-handed list caused quite a lot of consternation in Europe. The Union of Islamic Organisations of France (UOIF in French) which comprises 250 smaller groups and organises a vast festival outside Paris every year, expressed its “anger” and “amazement” at being included on the list. The Norwegian government protested over the fact that one of that country’s largest Muslim groups was named. The British government, which has commissioned but not published a report on the Brotherhood’s activities, must feel doubly embarrassed; it faces pressure from the Saudi and UAE governments to crack down on the Brotherhood and its proxies, but it seems reluctant to use the t-word or ban the fraternity. Some would say that lumping the Brotherhood together with out-and-out jihadis is worse than a mistake; it could alienate people to the point of driving them into the jihadist camp.
So what should European governments do? One of the most prominent academic observers of European Islam, Jonathan Laurence, has a suggestion. Those governments should watch closely what happens in Tunisia—to see whether an Islamist movement can become a law-abiding player in the affairs of a multi-party democracy.
Compared with its counterparts in other Muslim and Arab countries, that country’s Islamist party, Nahda, seems moderate and capable of self-restraint. As The Economist has reported, it has suffered some electoral reverses recently, and has apparently accepted these setbacks in good grace, while still hoping for a share in the country’s governance.
Mr Laurence, a professor at Boston College, has argued that Nahda may be in the process of making an “historic compromise” similar to the one made by the Italian communists in the 1970s. Just as Italy’s Reds hoped to acquire legitimacy by severing ties with the Soviet-led bloc of Leninist parties, the Islamists of Tunisia may be willing to seek respectability by cutting connections with harder-line advocates of political Islam, including the Brotherhood. And if they do so, they presumably deserve a chance to prove their sincerity.
As Mr Laurence, who is also a fellow at the Brookings Institution, put it to me, a good outcome in Tunisia could have a benign knock-on effect in Europe:
European countries don’t face Islamism as a domestic electoral phenomenon. But the presence of Brotherhood-originated networks, and their reach over prayer spaces and imams, is a consistent source of tension. A Tunisian spirit of compromise could permeate the European religious scene where secularists and Islamists are currently scuffling over issues like religious education, headscarves and imam training—and need reminding of their true common enemies who are recruiting IS soldiers amongst their youth. A compromise in Tunisia would also vindicate pragmatic [rather than confrontational] approaches to Brotherhood organisations, which have fallen out of favour because of their religious rigidity and conservative gender politics.
Is Mr Laurence right to compare 21st century Islamism with 20th century European communism? Yes, in the following sense. Some European Marxists did fully accept liberal democracy, and became, for example, the German Social Democrats. Some did not; they continued to plot violent revolution, while half-concealing their agenda and making sham alliances with “useful fools”. It was not always possible to predict in advance how each Marxist group would behave. That is an argument for keeping an open, but wary, mind when observing the evolution of political Islam in democratic countries, in Europe or beyond.
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| Tunisian voters cast their ballots for president. |
The Economist
FOR THE governments of Europe, a long-standing dilemma has recently grown even sharper. Ultra-militant groups like Islamic State are threatening both to attack their interests, and with increasing credibility, to recruit their citizens. So how, in this darkening scene, should European states respond to organisations which ultimately share the IS view that Islam offers the ideal form of governance—but also insist they want to be good citizens, engage in democratic politics and oppose nihilist terrorism? Or to put it another way, how should those states deal with organisations on their territory which hew to the ideology and practices of the Muslim Brotherhood?
Things got even more awkward this month when the government of the United Arab Emirates published a list of what it considered “terrorist” groups; the 80 or so organisations included some that manifestly deserve that label, such as Nigeria’s Boko Haram, and others which are considered more-or-less respectable citizens of various Western countries. Quite a lot of the groups listed are considered close to Brotherhood thinking, though that is hard to prove or disprove.
This heavy-handed list caused quite a lot of consternation in Europe. The Union of Islamic Organisations of France (UOIF in French) which comprises 250 smaller groups and organises a vast festival outside Paris every year, expressed its “anger” and “amazement” at being included on the list. The Norwegian government protested over the fact that one of that country’s largest Muslim groups was named. The British government, which has commissioned but not published a report on the Brotherhood’s activities, must feel doubly embarrassed; it faces pressure from the Saudi and UAE governments to crack down on the Brotherhood and its proxies, but it seems reluctant to use the t-word or ban the fraternity. Some would say that lumping the Brotherhood together with out-and-out jihadis is worse than a mistake; it could alienate people to the point of driving them into the jihadist camp.
So what should European governments do? One of the most prominent academic observers of European Islam, Jonathan Laurence, has a suggestion. Those governments should watch closely what happens in Tunisia—to see whether an Islamist movement can become a law-abiding player in the affairs of a multi-party democracy.
Compared with its counterparts in other Muslim and Arab countries, that country’s Islamist party, Nahda, seems moderate and capable of self-restraint. As The Economist has reported, it has suffered some electoral reverses recently, and has apparently accepted these setbacks in good grace, while still hoping for a share in the country’s governance.
Mr Laurence, a professor at Boston College, has argued that Nahda may be in the process of making an “historic compromise” similar to the one made by the Italian communists in the 1970s. Just as Italy’s Reds hoped to acquire legitimacy by severing ties with the Soviet-led bloc of Leninist parties, the Islamists of Tunisia may be willing to seek respectability by cutting connections with harder-line advocates of political Islam, including the Brotherhood. And if they do so, they presumably deserve a chance to prove their sincerity.
As Mr Laurence, who is also a fellow at the Brookings Institution, put it to me, a good outcome in Tunisia could have a benign knock-on effect in Europe:
European countries don’t face Islamism as a domestic electoral phenomenon. But the presence of Brotherhood-originated networks, and their reach over prayer spaces and imams, is a consistent source of tension. A Tunisian spirit of compromise could permeate the European religious scene where secularists and Islamists are currently scuffling over issues like religious education, headscarves and imam training—and need reminding of their true common enemies who are recruiting IS soldiers amongst their youth. A compromise in Tunisia would also vindicate pragmatic [rather than confrontational] approaches to Brotherhood organisations, which have fallen out of favour because of their religious rigidity and conservative gender politics.
Is Mr Laurence right to compare 21st century Islamism with 20th century European communism? Yes, in the following sense. Some European Marxists did fully accept liberal democracy, and became, for example, the German Social Democrats. Some did not; they continued to plot violent revolution, while half-concealing their agenda and making sham alliances with “useful fools”. It was not always possible to predict in advance how each Marxist group would behave. That is an argument for keeping an open, but wary, mind when observing the evolution of political Islam in democratic countries, in Europe or beyond.
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