Tharwalizations

Democratize but Stabilize

No one can any longer deny that there is a real and serious need for a concerted well-coordinated multilateral approach to the processes of development, modernization and democratization in the Broader Middle Eat and North Africa Region. Quick fixes are indeed impossible, but a need to shake the status quo is, nonetheless, quite urgent. If the UNDP reports of 2002-4 have served to elucidate anything, it is the necessity of drastic changes in policies in the region, but few of the existing leaders seem willing and/or capable of this. National interest considerations are not at stake here for them, it is their parochial interests, and, in typical cynical human fashion, they tend to override all other considerations.

And there is the rub: if some regimes in the region are not pushed into change, they will not willingly adopt it, and if there were pushed, they will more likely try to bunker down and challenge the world, no matter how foolish the challenge might seem. What the right course of action is in this case is anyone’s guess really. But one thing is clear, the UNDP reports paint a very dark picture of the present and foretells a future with many failed states in the region as a result of lack of the serious lack of development. And the region is just too central and too vital to be left to rot.

A few thoughts on modernity

Many if not most of the main problems facing us in the region and hindering the process of change and modernization therein are psychological in nature. One such problem is the inability of our people to reconcile themselves with the necessity of making that crossover from the traditional to the modern. Instead, most seem to believe that they can keep one leg in each world thus maximizing their benefit, that is, they think that they can avail themselves of all that advantages that modernity has to offer while holding on as hard as they can to traditional values.

Often, this dilemma boils down to a desire to get all the technology but change nothing of the customs, values and mannerisms. Some might go a little further and opt to adopt certain superficial aspects of modernity, such as the modern dress-code for both men and women, but while adhering to the selfsame value system that any run-of-mill Islamist will adhere to, such as arranged marriages and many of the usual restrictions on women, especially with regard to inheritance and chastity. 

This inability to make the break with the past and move forward that has plagued our part of the world for the last century or so is precisely why our societies are now poised at the verge of a complete relapse into pre-modern modes of existence. We have not earned what modernity has to offer, because, one, we have not taken an active part in making for centuries, and, two, because we refuse to embrace it as a whole, on account of its “glaring” imperfections.

Indeed, modernity is not perfect, what human product is? But it also cannot be perfected by people who insist on remaining outside it, or who are not wholeheartedly committed to it, or who continue to look at it with a certain disdain, it being a “foreign” product and all that, and who continue to reject its essence: the insistence on individuality and individual rights.

Indeed, if people in our region can only accept that concept of individual rights, then, each one of them becomes free to create the particular mixture of modernity and traditionalism that best suits the quirks of his/her mind and soul. For a wholehearted embracing of modernity is not synonymous with a complete rejection of everything that traditional values have to offer. On the contrary, it simply gives the individual the right to construct the values system that best suits him/her and to act on that so long as the basic human rights of others are respected. This embedded ambivalence of modernity is what makes it better than traditional value systems with their claims to divine sanctions and inability to tolerate “heretical” views.

But this ambivalence is also modernity’s weak point, one that is often exploited by Islamists, and other fundamentalists, who would protest loudly against any infringements against their basic human rights, while simultaneously and quite knowingly preaching a message that, in effect, denies others their basic human rights.

Be that as it may, every system does have weak points, and the best way to protect the modern system from its main weak point is through vigilance. The temptation to resort to intimidation and establishing legal restrictions on basic freedoms, such as free speech and the freedom of assembly is nothing less than foolish as it will eventually serve to undermine the very system we are trying to protect.

Death by Sect

Indeed, and as this article by Lee Smith illustrates, we need to focus on the real issues in our beleaguered part of the world, namely: the problems and challenges posed by our intricate ethnic and religious diversity and the enduing communal modes of belonging and organization in our midst. The potential for violence posed by our continuing neglect to seriously address these issues is rising by the day as more and more radical forces rush to fill in the vacuum left by the reticence of the moderates. The chances for peacebuilding development and enlightenment are practically non-existing in this climate and this could only spell disaster sooner than we’d like to think. 

Asking all the wrong questions

Ever since the Danish Cartoon Controversy, a spate of alarmist articles and reports on Islam and the Muslim communities in western societies appeared in various newspapers and journals across the world, all warning against the danger posed by Islam as such and all asserting that Islam as a faith is inherently violence.

But, and while I do not dispute the existence of a problem related to a clash between the values espoused by traditional faiths and those advocated by modernity, I find it too simplistic, nonetheless, to make such absurd claims. For like all other traditional faith systems out there, Islamic teachings and holy texts have throughout history lent themselves equally to the pursuit of peace and happiness as to the waging of war against the infidels and the heretics.

As such, the real questions in font of us is not whether Islam is a religion of peace or not, and not whether Europe is being Islamicized through an invasion of hordes of Muslim immigrants, rather the real questions should focus on the nature of the mechanisms that need to be employed for modernizing Muslim societies and of integration Muslims into the fabric of modern existence. The questions should also deal with the various variants of transitional arrangements that need to be involved here.

There are no easy answers here, of course, but that’s in itself a demonstration of the relevance and correctness of the questions being posed. The questions referred to above, on the other hand, can lead to the very simple conclusion regarding the inevitability and necessity of conflict, with all the compromises conflicts usually entail with regards to respect of the basic human rights of the perceived “enemies.”