Europe and the Arab World: Patterns and Prospects for the New Relationship - Hardcover

Amin, Samir; Kenz, Ali El

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1842774360 ISBN 13: 9781842774366

Publisher: Zed Books Ltd, 2005

Synopsis

Europe and the Arab World is a wide-ranging assessment of the prospects for a new relationship between Europe and the Arab world in the coming years. Samir Amin and Ali El Kenz take as their starting point the significantly shifting balance of political forces within the various Arab countries, including the rise of both political Islam and civil society. They argue that the strategic global hegemony of the United States constitutes a major element affecting the Euro-Arab relationship. They then focus on the European Union initiative, originally launched in Barcelona, to put its relations with the Arab countries of the Mediterranean and Gulf regions on a new footing of equality and mutually beneficial cooperation. The authors provide a detailed empirical account of the initiative as well as an historically contextualized, intellectually critical and politically perceptive analysis of the various realities impacting on it.

Samir Amin and Ali El Kenz conclude that, while considerable dialogue and even institution-building have taken place in order to give substance to this attempt to go beyond the colonial legacy of inequality and dependence, little of a concrete kind has been achieved in transforming the underlying economic and political relationships between the Arab Islamic and European Christian worlds of the Mediterranean. Among the many obstacles identified are the overriding and economically deleterious impact of globalized capitalism, and the determination of the United States to impose its own political objectives on the Middle East.

The timeliness of this book's argument is highlighted by the new tensions that have accompanied the U.S. military occupation of Iraq and the Bush administration's political pretensions to 'bring democracy' to the whole region.

About this title

About the Author

Samir Amin is Director of the Third World Forum in Dakar, Senegal; and a co-founder of the World Forum for Alternatives.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Europe and the Arab World

Patterns and Prospects for the New Relationship

By Samir Amin, Ali El Kenz

Zed Books Ltd

Copyright © 2005 Samir Amin and Ali El Kenz
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-84277-436-6

Contents

Acknowledgements, vi, 
1 The Arab world: a balance sheet of the present situation and struggles, 1, 
2 The Mediterranean-Gulf region: some international policy problems, 50, 
3 Euro-Mediterranean relationships: globalization and regionalization, 74, 
4 On the Euro-Mediterranean partnership, 131, 
Appendix: Basic data on the Arab world, 139, 
Sources and bibliography, 152, 
Index, 158, 

CHAPTER 1

The Arab world: a balance sheet of the present situation and struggles

What follows is an attempt to identify the questions posed by movements and struggles within the Arab world, analysing and assessing their ambiguities and limitations. It takes the inherent contradictions of the system as a starting point, identifying the conditions for popular and democratic progress that might be facilitated by these struggles.

The autocratic state faced with the challenge of modernity

There is no democratic state in the Arab world. There are only autocratic states. Although autocratic, Arab political regimes have not always been – and still are not – without legitimacy in the eyes of their own societies. According to Hashem Sharaby, state power has always been synonymous with personal power, as opposed to the power of the law defining the modern state. This Weber-like descriptive analysis is worth qualifying since the personal (or personalized) powers in question are legitimate only in so far as they are proclaimed as being respectful of the tradition (and especially of the religious shariah) and are perceived as such. From a more in-depth perspective, Sharaby establishes a relationship between autocracy and the 'patriarchal' nature of the system of social values. The term 'patriarchy' is understood here to be more than what is ascribed to the popularized commonplace term of 'male chauvinism' (asserting and practising the marginalization of women in society). The patriarchy in question is a system that upholds the duty of obedience at all levels: school and family education nip in the bud the slightest hint of criticism and hierarchies are sacrosanct in the family system (subordinating women and children), in the business sector (subordinating the employee to the employer), in public service (demanding absolute submission to superiors), in the absolute prohibition of unorthodox religious interpretation, etc. This observation links up with the conclusions that I have drawn from the definition of modernity and from the challenge it constitutes.

Modernity is based on the principle that human beings create their history individually and collectively and that, to that extent, they have the right to innovate and to disregard tradition. Proclaiming this principle meant breaking with the fundamental principle that governed all pre-modern societies, including of course those of feudal and Christian Europe. Modernity was born with this proclamation. It had nothing to do with rebirth; it was simply a question of birth. The tag 'Renaissance' that Europeans themselves gave to history in this era is therefore misleading. It is the result of an ideological construction purporting that Graeco-Roman antiquity was acquainted with the principle of modernity, which was veiled in the 'Middle Ages' (between the old modernity and the new modernity) by religious obscurantism. It was the mythical perception of antiquity that in turn paved the way for Eurocentrism, whereby Europe claims to go back to its past, 'to return to its sources' (hence, the Renaissance), whereas in fact, it is engineering a break with its own history. The European Renaissance was the product of an internal social process, the solution found to contradictions peculiar to the then Europe through the invention of capitalism. On the other hand, what the Arabs by imitation referred to as their Renaissance – the nahda of the nineteenth century – was not one either. It was the reaction to an external shock. The Europe that modernity had rendered powerful and triumphant had an ambiguous effect on the Arab world through attraction (admiration) and repulsion (through the arrogance of its conquest). The Arab Renaissance takes its qualifying term literally. It is assumed that, if the Arabs 'returned' to their sources, as the Europeans claim to have done, they would regain their greatness, even if debased for some time. The nahda does not know the nature of the modernity that enhances Europe's power.

This is not the place to refer to different aspects and moments marking nahda's deployment. I will just state briefly that nahda does not forge the necessary break with tradition that defines modernity. Nahda does not recognize the meaning of secularism, in other words, separation between religion and politics, the condition that ensures that politics serves as the field for free innovation, and for that matter, for democracy in the modern sense. Nahda thinks it can substitute for secularism an interpretation of religion purged of its obscurantist drifts. At any rate, to date, Arab societies are not adequately equipped to understand that secularism is not a 'specific' characteristic of the Western world but rather a requirement for modernity. Nahda does not realize the meaning of democracy, which should be understood as the right to break with tradition. It therefore remains captive to the concepts of the autocratic state; it hopes and prays for a 'just' despot (al moustabid al adel) – even if not 'enlightened', and the nuance is significant. Nahda does not understand that modernity also promotes women's aspirations to freedom, thereby exercising their right to innovate and break with tradition. Eventually, nahda reduces modernity to the immediate aspect of what it produces: technical progress. This voluntarily over-simplified presentation does not mean that I am not aware of the contradictions expressed in nahda, nor that certain avant-garde thinkers were aware of the real challenges posed by modernity, such as Kassem Amin and the importance of women's emancipation, Ali Abdel Razek and secularism, and Kawakibi and the challenge posed by democracy. However, none of these breakthroughs had any effect; on the contrary, Arab society reacted by refusing to follow the paths indicated. Nahda is therefore not the time marking the birth of modernity in the Arab world but rather the period of its abortion.

Since the Arab states have not yet embraced modernity, Arabs still accept to a large extent these principles of autocratic power, which maintains its legitimacy or loses it in fields other than its non-recognition of the principle of democracy. If it is able to resist imperialist aggression – or to give that impression – if it is able to promote a visible improvement of the material living conditions of many, if not all, autocratic power enjoys guaranteed popularity. Beyond this non-modernity principle, autocratic power therefore owes its legitimacy to tradition. In some cases, this could refer to a tradition of national and religious monarchy such as that of Morocco or of a tribal monarchy in the Arabian peninsula. But there is another form of tradition – the one inherited from the Ottoman Empire, dominant in the territory between Algeria and Iraq, and therefore influencing the largest segment of the Arab world – which I describe as the tradition of 'mameluke power'. This is about a complex system that associated the personalized power of warlords, businessmen and men of religion. I emphasize men, since women are obviously not allowed to assume any responsibilities. The three dimensions of this organization are not merely juxtaposed; they are actually merged into a single reality of power.

The mamelukes are men of war who owe their legitimacy to a certain concept of Islam that places emphasis on the opposite of Dar El Islam (the Muslim world – a community governed by the rules of peaceful management)/Dar El Harb (extra-Muslim world, the place for the pursuit of jihad, 'Holy War'). It is not by chance that this military concept of political management was fabricated by the conquering Seljuk Turks and the Ottomans, who called themselves 'Ghazi' – conquerors and colonizers of Byzantine Anatolia. It is not by chance that the mamelukes' system was built from the era of Salah El Dine, liberator of the Holy Lands occupied until then by the Crusaders. Populist powers and contemporary nationalists always mention the name of Salah El Dine with respectful admiration without ever considering or making any allusion to the ravages of the system from which it originated. At the end of the Crusades, the Arab world (which became Turkish-Arab) entered into a military feudalization and isolation process reflecting a decline that put an end to the brilliant civilization of the early centuries of the Caliphate while Europe was beginning to discard feudalism and preparing to embark on the invention of modernity and move on to conquer the world. In compensation for this service as protectors of Islam, the mamelukes gave the men of religion a monopoly in the interpretation of dogmas, of justice rendered in the name of Islam and in the moral civilization of the society. Relegated to its purely traditional social dimension – respect for rites being the sole important consideration – religion is absolutely subjugated by the autocratic power of men of war. Economic life is then subject to the mood of the military-political authority. Whenever possible, the peasantry is directly subjected to the whims of this ruling class and private property is jeopardized (the related principle being indisputably sacralized by the fundamental texts of Islam). The proceeds of trade are also sequestered.

The mameluke ruling class naturally aspired to the dispersion of its autocratic power. Formally responsible to the Sultan-Caliph, the mamelukes took advantage of the long distance then separating them from the capital (Istanbul) to personally exercise full powers within the radius of the land under their control. In areas with an age-old tradition of state centralization, such as Egypt, there have been successive attempts to discipline the whole military corps. It is not by chance that Mohamed Ali established his centralized authority by massacring the mamelukes, but only to re-establish a military-real estate aristocracy under his personal authority from that time onwards. The Beys of Tunis tried to do likewise on a more modest scale. The Deys of Algiers never succeeded in doing so. The Ottoman Sultanate did so in turn, thereby integrating its Turkish, Kurdish and Armenian provinces of Anatolia and its Arab provinces of historic Syria and Iraq under an authority 'modernized' that way. Just modernization? Or just a modernized autocracy? Enlightened despotism? Or just despotism? The fluctuations and variants are situated in this range, which does not usher in anything making it possible to go beyond it. Certainly, the typical autocratic model of mameluke had to reckon with the numerous and diverse realities that always defined the real limits. Peasant communities that took refuge in their fortified mountains (Kabylians, Maronites, Druzeans, Alawites, etc.), Sufi brotherhoods almost everywhere and tribes obliged the dominant authorities to reach a compromise with and tolerate rebellious groups. The contrast in Morocco between Maghzen and Bled Siba is of a similar nature.

Have the forms in which power was exercised in the Arab world changed so much as to justify the assertion that those described here belong to a distant past? The autocratic state and the related forms of political management certainly exist to date. However, they are beset with a profound crisis that has already curtailed their legitimacy, as they were increasingly incapable of meeting the challenges posed by modernity.

Political Islam

It would be a fatal error to assume that the emergence of mass political movements identified with Islam is the inevitable outcome of the rise of a culturally and politically backward people who cannot understand any language other than that of their quasi-atavistic obscurantism. Muslims and Islam have a history, just like that of the other regions of the world. It is a history fraught with diverse interpretations concerning linkages between reason and faith, a history of mutual transformation and adaptation of both society and its religion. However, the reality of this history is denied not only by Eurocentric discourses but also by the contemporary movements associated with Islam. In fact, the two entities have the same cultural bias whereby the 'specific' features ascribed to the different careers of their own peoples and religions are allegedly intangible, infinite and transhistorical. To the Western world's Eurocentrism, contemporary political Islam opposes solely an inverted Eurocentrism.

The emergence of movements claiming to be Islamic is actually expressive of a violent revolt against the destructive effects of actually existing capitalism and against its attendant unaccomplished, truncated and deceptive modernity. It is an expression of an absolutely legitimate revolt against a system that has nothing to offer to the peoples concerned. The discourse of the Islam proposed as an alternative to capitalist modernity (to which the modern experiences of historical socialisms are clearly assimilated) is political by nature. The heralds of the said 'Islamic Renaissance' are not interested in theology. Hence, what they understand by Islam appears to be solely a conventional and social version of religion limited to the formal and integral respect for ritual practice. The Islam in question would define a community to which one belongs by inheritance, like ethnicity instead of a strong and intimate personal conviction. It is solely a question of asserting a 'collective identity' and nothing more. This is the reason why the term 'political Islam' – instead of 'fundamentalism' – is certainly more appropriate to qualify all these movements in Arab countries. The proposed Islam is in this case the adversary of every liberation theology. Political Islam advocates submission and not emancipation. It was only Mahmoud Taha of Sudan who attempted to emphasize the element of emancipation in his interpretation of Islam. Sentenced to death and executed by the authorities of Khartoum, Taha was not acknowledged by any 'radical' or 'moderate' Islamic group, and neither was he defended by any of the intellectuals identifying themselves with 'Islamic Renaissance' or even by those who are merely willing to 'dialogue' with such movements.

Modern political Islam had been invented by the orientalists in the service of the British authority in India before being adopted intact by Mawdudi of Pakistan. It consisted in 'proving' that Muslim believers are not allowed to live in a state that is itself not Islamic – anticipating the partition of India – because Islam would ignore the possibility of separation between state and religion. The orientalists in question failed to observe that the English of the thirteenth century would not have conceived of their survival either without Christianity! Abul Ala Al Mawdudi therefore took up the theme, stipulating that power comes from God alone (wilaya al faqih), thus repudiating the concept of citizens having the right to make laws, the state being solely entrusted with enforcement of the law defined once and for all (the shariah). Joseph de Maistre had already written similar things, accusing the French Revolution of inventing modern democracy and individual emancipation. Refuting the concept of emancipatory modernity, political Islam disapproves of the very principle of democracy – the right of society to build its own future through its freedom to legislate. The shura principle is not the Islamic form of democracy, as claimed by political Islam, for it is hampered by the ban on innovation (ibda), and accepts, if need be, only that of interpretation of the tradition (ijtihad). The shura is only one of the multiple forms of the consultation found in all pre-modern and pre-democratic societies. Of course, interpretation has sometimes been the vehicle for real changes imposed by new demands. However, the fact remains that by virtue of its own principle – denial of the right to break with the past – interpretation leads into deadlock the modern fight for social change and democracy. The parallel claimed between the Islamic parties – radical or moderate, since all of them adhere to the same 'anti-modernist' principles in the name of the so-called specificity of Islam – and Christian Democrat parties of modern Europe is therefore not valid, strictly speaking, even though American media and diplomatic circles continue to make allusions to the said parallel so as to legitimize their support of possibly 'Islamist' regimes. Christian Democracy is an element of modernity of which it upholds the fundamental concept of creative democracy as the essential aspect of the concept of secularism. Political Islam refuses modernity and proclaims this fact without being able to understand its significance. Moreover, these movements' discourse solely reflects Wahabite Islam, which rejects all that the interaction between historical Islam and Greek philosophy had produced in its epoch, as it merely turned over the unimaginative writings of Ibn Taymiya, the most reactionary of the theologians of the Middle Ages. Although some of his heralds qualify this interpretation as 'a return to the sources', it is actually a mere reference to the notions that prevailed two hundred years ago, notions of a society whose development has been stalled for several centuries.

(Continues...)

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Edition details

• Publisher: Zed Books Ltd
• Publication date: 2005
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1842774360
• ISBN 13: 9781842774366
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 176