Time to stop importing Western solutions to Arab problems
Many early leaders of what was called the Arab and Islamic awakening in the early 20th century went abroad to study in the West. They returned with ideologies they promoted as the best solutions to encourage what they hoped would be a renaissance in the Arab world, to help it wake from its slumber and achieve liberation from European colonial dominance. The trouble, of course, was that much of what they brought were European solutions to non-existent Arab problems. For the next 100-plus years, that fatal mistake only distorted the region’s reality and created more problems that previously did not exist, and missed the real problems the region’s people were facing.
In the 1950s, 60s and early 70s, the main conflict was between communism and socialism on the one hand, and capitalism and free markets on the other. The big question was what ideological framework was best to achieve social justice, a better distribution of wealth, and equal opportunities. Big powers like the US and Soviet Union intervened to further their own geopolitical interests and settle their own rivalries. Naturally, that confused the entire internal Arab debate, diverted it from addressing real Arab needs, and entangled it in the political conflict between these outsiders, framing the entire issue as an ideological conflict that essentially had nothing to do with Arab problems, aspirations or even history.
From the 1980s and 90s to the present day, the issues evolved into a much deeper and far worse conflict between religion and secularism. Political Islamists and civil forces were squaring off, not just intellectually but through political violence, which hardcore Islamists adopted in major Arab cities and in foreign lands. Political Islamists and civil forces also fought for gain, with the active support of the US and the Soviet Union in a desperate struggle to defeat each other via proxies in Afghanistan, even globally.
This running conflict between what is now known as Islam versus secularism has morphed and fragmented over the past 30 years into multiple conflicts that have consumed the entire world. Islamists’ hardline position has driven people farther away from their ideological arguments and caused a global fight against what has become commonly known as political Islam and its advocates.To combat radical Islamist violence and address the challenges facing us, we need a new narrative that can reframe and cast such issues in the light of our own history, culture, and needs, not import ideologies from the West as if we are importing cars or appliances.
Hafed Al-Ghwell
There are two major issues that need to be addressed in this regard. First, we need to unpack what is meant by Islamism and secularism within the Arab context and, second, we need to reframe the debate and root it in what the conflict is actually about and how it has nothing to do with the real problems on the ground.
First, secularism as an idea is quite alien to the Islamic world in general and the Arabic world in particular. In fact, the word itself never appeared in any Arabic text until the early 20th century, when it was coined from European languages. Since then, it has become synonymous with atheism in the minds of many people in the region. The history of Europe, which originated the idea of secularism, is quite different and was easily capable of developing this concept because of the separation between God and Caesar in the Bible, as well as the bloody history of European religious wars, which are now being repeated in our region. Politically speaking, secularism does not mean denying religion, but in fact, as in the US, protecting religion from government interference and political manipulation. It is about establishing the rights of citizenship for all, irrespective of religious belief.
Second, the quest to establish what is called an Islamic government, despite their fragmentation and inner conflicts, rests on the fatal misunderstanding that Islam does not require or even have an Islamic government in its teachings or history. Islam simply requires that Muslims need an Islamic law, not government, to fully practice their religious rights, for example as in the law of inheritance. Islamic history, however, also shows how various Islamic empires accommodated the rights of minorities by also granting them the right to apply their own laws equally among their followers. As Islamists engage in more internal conflicts, they are actually mimicking European history and making the calls for secular politics even stronger.
In the murky confusion of today, now that both sides have become an integral part of Arabic public discourse, the region needs Arabs themselves to search inwardly and come up with their own authentic and indigenous frameworks to solve these issues, not import Western solutions that have nothing to do with Arab problems or their history and culture in order to fight radicalism and terrorism.
To combat radical Islamist violence and address the challenges facing us, we need a new narrative that can reframe and cast such issues in the light of our own history, culture, and needs, not import ideologies from the West as if we are importing cars or appliances.
- Hafed Al-Ghwell is a former advisor to the board of directors at the World Bank Group. Twitter: @HafedAlGhwell
Disclaimer: Views expressed by writers in this section are their own and do not necessarily reflect Arab News' point-of-view
