The Battle for Accountability in Malaysia and Turkey

Politics is a central aspect of social organization as it represents the activities that aim at coordinating the interests and concerns of citizens. Politics presupposes an agreement on a set of rules to ensure representation of citizens in decision making and governance, and to facilitate peaceful transition of power. In most functional democracies, elected officials are replaced whenever they lose popular support in national elections.

Many Muslim countries have embraced the democratic process, but most have not yet succeeded in overcoming the old politics of palace intrigue that plagued governance in historical Muslim countries. Sheer police and military power, as well as political conspiracy and trickery, is often used by political elites in Muslim countries to seek or maintain power. Malaysia and Turkey are among the very few Muslim societies that are ahead in practicing democracy, and holding their political leaders accountable, as both have a thriving multi-party system and markedly developed civil society.

Recent events in these two countries illustrate the difficult transition to democratic governance in Muslim societies. After a torturous route to political participation, the Islamically-inspired Justice and Development Party (known by its Turkish acronym as AKP) that represents the middle class is locked in a power struggle with nationalist elites. The latter have shown willingness to use the judiciary and the military to undermine the standing of a popular political party that commands 2/3 majority in the parliament. The immediate conflict is over the constitutionality of allowing devout Muslim women to wear head scarf on university campuses.

Rather than recognizing that wearing head cover is a personal choice and religious obligation that must be protected by the democratic principle of freedom of religion, the nationalists accuse AKP of undermining the secular tradition of Turkey, and are considering a ban on the party and its leaders. The party chair and Turkey's current Prime Minister Recep Tayyib Erdogan was imprisoned in the late 90's for reciting a religious poem when he was Istanbul's mayor. The nationalists apparently believe that they can fool the Turkish people by using democratic language and concerns to hide their desire to maintain grip on power and deny their ideological opponents the opportunity to control state institutions through fair democratic competition.

A similar struggle is underway now in Malaysia. The leaders of the ruling party, which has been in power since Malaysia gained independence in 1957, have apparently decided to maintain grip on power by implicating the leader of opposition in a sexual scandal. Anwar Ibrahim, who led the opposition into a major political victory last March and who is poised to become the country prime minister, stands accused of sodomy by a young political aide. Najib Tun Razak, Malaysia's deputy prime minister and long term rival of Anwar, admitted to meeting Anwar's accuser in his residence two days before the later made his damaging accusation. The deputy prime minister is himself linked to the murder of a Mongolian translator, and his political adviser and two of his aides are among those charged with the crime. The current sodomy accusation is a rerun of a similar tactics used in 1998 by the same party to deny Anwar, then the party's deputy president, the right to contest for the highest office.

Both Recep Erdogan and Anwar Ibrahim represent a new breed of democratic leaders in Muslim countries driven by a new vision of politics rooted in Islamic morality that stresses the social accountability of political leaders. Both espouse commitment to religious freedom and to political and social pluralism. And both have shown the willingness to make great personal sacrifices to advance their vision of politics.

The heroic acts of courageous leaders like Anwar and Recep, while greatly admirable and inspiring, would not be sufficient by themselves to transform Malaysia and Turkey into functional democracies. Such transformation requires a new political awareness and activism that take away political power from the exclusive control of political elites and makes fair and equitable governance the concerns of engaging citizenry. It requires the emergence of vibrant and assertive civil-society organizations that reject political trickery and manipulation, and demand that elected officials are held accountable for their statements and actions.

Most importantly, transformation to true democratic rule presupposes a citizenry that is not willing to be fooled by its elected officials. The Qur'an gives a great insight into the source of power enjoyed by dictators and tyrants: their ability to fool the people to garner their support. This ability is, ironically, derived from the willingness of a corrupt people to be fooled into accepting false claims in exchange for gaining personal advantage.

The Qur'an presents the Pharaoh as the epitome of arrogant and arbitrary political power, and attributes his ability to govern with impunity to the willingness of his people to follow him, even when he made fool of them: "[Pharaoh] made fool of his people and they obeyed him, they were truly people given to corruption." While the contemporary ruling elites in nominal democracies may not compare in arrogance with the Pharaoh, the dynamics of retaining political control is often the same.

The efforts by the vestiges of arrogant and arbitrary power in Malaysia and Turkey are trying to maintain their political edge by fooling the citizens of their countries through political games and trickery, thereby turning national politics into circus. Their failure will signal the end of politics as the instrument of power-hungry leaders and the beginning of politics as an exercise in social responsibility. It will also make their two important countries a source of hope and inspiration for future transformation in other Muslim societies.

Will democracy take hold in modern Muslim societies? The next few months are poignant with agonizing fear and great hope, and the answer hinges on whether Malaysians and Turks will succumb to the intimidation of the power hungry or show the maturity and courage worthy of free and principled people.

This article appeared in the following publications:

Official Wire
Media Monitors Network
Alarab Online
Malaysia Kini

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Hijab: Personal Choice Not State Law

Hijab, the head cover Muslim women wear in keeping with their religious traditions, has become in modern times a politically charged issue in several Muslim countries, and more recently in Europe. In the early eighties, Iran imposed hijab on its female citizens, while Syria banned it from schools during the same period. Syria gradually came to term with hijab, as the number of Syrian women who chose to wear it increased drastically during the nineties. Hijab is enforced today in Iran and Saudi Arabia, and banned in Tunisia and Turkey. France banned the hijab in 2004, and far right politicians and pundits are calling for similar ban in other European countries, and have already succeeded in doing so in the Belgium city of Antwerp.

The Turkish parliament passed last week a constitutional amendment that practically repealed early constitutional provisions that allowed the Turkish government to ban hijab from government buildings, universities, and schools in the late nineties. Although the lifting of ban is not in force yet, the confrontation over this issue with secularists who control the military and the courts has already started. Secularist Turks are up in arms, protesting the new amendment, and preparing to challenge it in court.

The debate over hijab is emotionally charged, with secular Turks presenting the move as the first step toward ending democracy in Turkey and forcing all Turkish women to wear headscarf. This alarmist language has clouded the debate and created a sense of panic, as the choices presented are based on the logic of either/or, as if the only choices society can make is that between banning or enforcing the hijab. These are of course false choices, as society can choose neither to ban nor enforce. The third choice is the one available to women in most Muslim countries. In most societies, the decision to wear headscarf, or to take it off, is a personal choice.

Yet, the real problem is not in the decision a woman makes, but in the politicization of that decision. The problem lies in the moral inconsistency and the use of double standards in addressing an issue concerning individual choice and freedom of expression. The only morally defendable position is in denying the state the right to either force or prohibit people to follow practices they genuinely believe to be required by their religious traditions, particularly when these practices do not violate the rights of others.

The argument to ban hijab often rests on a paternalistic attitude derived from the dominant position enjoyed by the group to which the person who advocate hijab ban (or enforcement) belongs. For decades now, anti hijab writers refused to consider it as a personal choice and an individual right, protected under international humanitarian law. Reza Afshari, for instance, insists that wearing hijab must not be seen as a self-expression of Muslim women, but rather as a symptom of a male-dominant culture. He, further, argues that Muslim women have internalized the "male-dominated culture." He even claims that, in addition to being sub-consciously misguided, Muslim women have another reason for wearing hijab, namely to avoid "those sanctioned practices that permit harassment of women in public, forcing them to comply with repressive norms and rewarding them by according them a marked difference in the ways men treat women in public."

The argument is both flawed and sexist. It is flawed because it can be equally used to undermine the right of women who chose not to wear hijab by those who could argue that the latter style of dressing is not a personal choice, but is rather influenced by the dominant culture. The argument is, more importantly, sexist as it assumes that women cannot have a mind of their own, and are always vulnerable to manipulation by male members of their society.

Even if we grant, for the sake of argument, that the above assertion is correct, then the remedy cannot be a decision to ban hijab and deny women the right to personal choices, in violation of equal protection of the law. The remedy must rely on persuasion, education, and enactment of laws that would empower women to act on their on volition, instead of being forced by the state to wear the headscarf of take it off.

A similar argument was recently made by Cheryl Benard in a report that was published by the RAND Corporation in 2004. Benard refused to see the Muslim headscarf as a religious practice, and chose instead to castigate it as a provocative political statement and a challenge to Western democracy. Benard insisted that hijab is worn by women who belong to one of several problematic categories. "In the United States," she claimed, "hijab is typically worn by the following groups: recent immigrants from rural, traditional parts of the Muslim world; fundamentalists; unassimilated traditionalists belonging to the strongly observant minority; the elderly;" and, the author states that when it is worn by "young women," these women "want to get attention and make a provocative statement in their schools, colleges, or workplaces."

What is provocative is not that Muslim women are choosing to wear hijab, but that there are still individuals that lay claim to intellectualism and liberal tradition who, in keeping with Orientalist strategies, continue to deal with the followers of the Islamic faith as silent objects of research who must always be defined by their detractors, but never allowed to define themselves in their own voices. This sad state of affairs was highlighted in an article by Manal Omar that was published in the Guardian in April 2007 under the title "I felt more welcome in the Bible belt."

Manal narrates in the article her ordeal during a short stay in Oxford, England, when she was challenged by an angry man who did not approve of her wearing a swimsuit that covered her body. Not only did the man speak with her in condescending voice, but the newspaper that reported the event with sensation and negative spin refused to interview her, and relied solely on the account of her accuser.

She ellequontly described her painful experience as she was rendered an object of ridicule, and her story was used as a springboard for attacks on multiculturalism and Muslim immigrants as it was debated on an online discussion forum. "Looking back," she wrote, "what disturbed me the most about the debate was that my very identity was reduced to a cluster of cliches about Muslim women. I was painted in broad strokes as an oppressed, unstable Muslim woman. I was made invisible, an object of ridicule and debate, with no opinion or independent thoughts. The fact that I had dedicated the past 10 years to working on women's issues on a global level, led a delegation of American women into Afghanistan in 2003, and put my life on the line in Iraq struggling for women's constitutional rights were clearly beyond anyone's imagination."

Politicians and pundits who question the right of Muslim women to practice their faith do not only ignore the leadership role they play, but also fail to recognize their capacity to be inspired by their faith. The claim that hijab is worn today by oppressed women is seriously flawed, and is remnant of 19th century Orientalim. Many women who chose hijab today are highly educated and actively involved in public life. They include lawyers, journalists, politicians, directors of non-profit organizations, human rights advocates, professors, and leaders of religious groups and grassroots organizations.

It is about time that Muslim women's personal choices are respected and their voices are heard.

This article appeared in the following publications

Media Monitors Network
Middle East Online
Alarab Online
Online Journal
Aljazeera Magazine
Dawn

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Myopic Builders and Elusive Moderates

Building Moderate Muslim Networks is RAND Corporation's second attempt at devising a strategy to help prevent "some Muslim societies [from] falling back even further into patterns of intolerance and violence." And to do that RAND reassigns Caryl Benard, the author of the first report Civil Democratic Islam, to join three more scholars for preparing its new report.

The present report makes little improvements over the previous one, and suffers from the same faulty assumptions and flawed analysis. The new report moves away from overtly relying on "lifestyle" for distinguishing friends from foes, and shifts the emphasis to a set of political values. RAND's new research team uses a list of 10 criteria to separate moderate and radical Muslims. The emphasis is less focused on religious practices, as attention turns to ideology and commitment to free and open society.

The current study recognizes that the entrenched authoritarian governments and the decline of civil-society institutions in much of the Muslim world "have left the mosque as one of the few avenues for the expression of popular dissatisfaction with prevailing political, economic, and social conditions." Yet the authors seem less concerned with the need to withdraw support from authoritarian regimes responsible for destroying civil society in much of the Muslim world. Rather, the authors are exceedingly obsessed with the goal of marginalizing social groups, even the most moderate of them, that appeal to Islamic values as the basis for sociopolitical reform. I have already discussed at length in my response to RAND's early report why this obsession is counterproductive and will only feed into political radicalization, and have nothing to add to this point here.

One cannot help but notice that the report consistently places the blame on Muslim societies. It refuses to assign any responsibility for the radicalization of Muslim politics to the cynical strategies advocated by foreign policy experts. These strategies call for freedom and democracy simultaneously as they continue to urge support to friendly authoritarian regimes.

In discussing the Danish cartoon saga, for instance, the report directs the blame for this sad and unfortunate episode to the "Danish imams," who the report asserts "caused the cartoon controversy to spiral into an international conflagration." No blame is placed at the door of the newspaper that published the offensive cartoons, despite the fact that the newspaper was implicated in deliberate efforts to demonize the emerging Danish Muslim community. Blaming the Danish imams is the equivalent of blaming the Rutgers University women's basketball team for complaining about Don Imus’s racial slur and abuse, and for making their indignations known to the public, leading to his ousting from his job.

Among the many faulty assumptions on which the report builds its recommendations is that the Muslim World's Moderates, defined as secularist and liberal Muslims, lack the resources they need to dominate Muslim societies. Moderates, the report asserts, "do not have the resources" they need to create viable networks to counter the radicals. They lack the skills to do that themselves and require an "external catalyst." The United States can, the report continues, serve in the role of catalyst by utilizing the experience it gained "during the Cold War to foster networks of people committed to free and democratic ideas. The United States "critical role" consists in leveling the playing field for moderates."

The reality is that radicals in most Muslim countries constitute small and fringe groups whose impact far exceeds their numbers because they are willing to employ shocking violence in pursuing their goals. Further, many of the Middle Eastern regimes are ruled by elites who are socially secular and liberal, but politically autocratic and authoritarian.

The radicalization of politics in Middle Eastern countries like Egypt, Syria, and Iraq was the result of deliberate efforts by Muslim secularists to impose modern practices on Muslim societies. The reliance on force and iron fist policies to impose “modern” institutions and practices by socially "moderate" but politically radical secularists, who held and continue to hold power in many Muslim countries, has led to the destruction of public debate, the disappearance of civil society, and the radicalization of politics. For instance, the use of violence by state security agencies to silence opposition during Gamal Abdel Nasser and Anwar Sadat of Egypt has paved the way to the rise of terrorism in the 1980s and 1990s.

The report's efforts to take a principled approach to defining the "moderate" proved to be elusive. For even though the report acknowledges that some Islamists satisfy the "moderate criteria," it eventually sides with those who counsel against engaging Islamists. Moderate Islamists, the report contends, should only be engaged as "interlocutors," but never supported even when they espouse democratic values.

The report concludes by giving several examples of moderate Muslims, and surprisingly they include prominent Islam bashers. The list includes Ayaan Hirsi Ali; Salman Rushdie, Taslima Nasreen, Irshad Manji, Basam Tibi, etc. Ultimately, it is not commitment to democratic values and practices, but proximity to Islam, that sets moderates and radicals in the eyes of the authors of the recent RAND report on moderate Islam.

It is not surprising, therefore, that RAND's recommendations feed into the arrogant and unilateralist policies advanced by the neoconservatives in the last six years, policies that resulted in more chaos on the world stage and misery within Muslim societies.

This artricle has appeared in the following publications: Media Monitor Network, Aljazeera.com, Middle East Online, Official Wire, Middle East Time, The American Muslim, iView.com, Milli Gazatte, Islamonline.com, and others

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Cultural Challenges to Democratic Reform in the Muslim World: the Case of Syria

It took a long time before democracy found support in Muslim societies, and continues to be seen today by many in the Muslim world as an alien political system. With few exceptions, Muslim populations have shown little enthusiasm for democratic reforms, even when political leaders and elites are increasingly willing to advocate such reforms. Most recently, Islamists have joined in calling for democratic reform, but their calls go unheeded by conservative Muslims and the larger public. The reluctance to support democracy stems partially from a cynical outlook toward politics, and a deep feeling that political discourse is being used more to manipulate the public than to serve it. Still, at the roots of this reluctance is a cultural attitude and practices that are at conflict with the very basis of a democratic state, i.e. a state based on the rule of law, equal rights, and respect for social and political diversity.

While it is difficult to generalize from the experience of any Muslim society, Syria provides a showcase of the tensions between the drive for democracy on the part of political elites, and the lack of cultural foundation and popular support for democratic practices. Democracy is a demand advanced by many intellectuals and activists in Syria, but is still far from becoming a popular demand. This does not mean, however, that Syrians are content with the current political climate.

Syrians are, by and large, unhappy with their political and economic conditions, and often complain about the monopoly over the economy and politics, by few ruling elites, and the rampant corruption that permeates state institutions.

The Syrian economy failed in the last two decades to catch up with population growth, and corruption in the public sector is rampant, as income growth for public servants fell far short of inflation throughout the eighties and nineties. The economic pressure from within and political pressure from without have encouraged critical voices and led to the emergence of a small but growing opposition.

Discontent with political elites does not, however, immediately translate to a will to political change. Syrian opposition remains elitist, lacking popular support, and opposition leaders have only the will, but not the capacity, to bring about democracy. The Syrian political culture is a major hurdle to democratic change. This is because the two central elements to democratic governance, power sharing and political compromise, continue to be alien to the political culture embraced by the Syrian political elites.

The Post-Colonial Syrian State

Syria has had a short and shaky experimentation with liberal democracy in the fifties right after gaining independence from France. The French colonial rule in Syria succeeded in dismantling the pre-colonial political structure, and introduced the practice of liberal democracy to Syrian society. The exquisite building that currently houses the Syrian Parliament was built during the French mandate. The parliament was not, though, the most developed institution the French colonialists bequeathed to the Syrian people. Rather, it was the military institution that proved to be most resilient and influential in the post colonial era.

Syria experienced high political instability between 1948 and 1970, as it went through six military coups, ending with the coup that was led by the late Hafiz Assad in 1970. Since then Syria has experienced stable government. The stability of the Assad government stems from two factors: the introduction of a complex state security apparatus and support from rural Syrians. State stability was achieved, however, at the cost of individual freedom, the autonomy of civil society organizations, and society’s ability to hold political leadership accountable. Hafiz Assad succeeded in strengthening the power of the presidency by dividing the security function among a multitude of security and military organizations, putting an end to the ability of ambitious military and security officers to seize power. Since security power is divided among autonomous agencies, with their heads reporting directly to the president, no single officer could muster the resources needed to mount a coup. Yet the stability of the Syrian state does not rest fully in its coercive power. It is, equally, derived from the support of its rural constituency.

Three political groups emerged to compete in the post-colonial period: The Muslim Brotherhood, the Communist Party, and the Baath Party. The Muslim Brotherhood promised to revive the past glory of Islam, the Communist Party pledged to bring down the Syrian Bourgeoisie and empower the proletariats. Eventually, the Baath Party, who espoused a nationalist and socialist agenda, was able to capture power through the military, and moved quickly to marginalize the Brotherhood and the Communist Party. The Brotherhood were allied with the urban small-business class, who was worried about the socialist measures introduced by the Baath, while the Communist Party could rely mainly on the support of the Syrian Kurds (and other non-Arab minorities, such as the Sharkas), alienated by the Arab nationalist fervor of the Baath.

The Baath Party could also rely on the support of the feminist movement and religious minorities who found more commonality with the Baatists than with the conservative Brotherhood or the radical communists. The greatest support came, however, from the rural population, which was the beneficiary of the Baath rule. The Baath’s support for, and reliance on, the impoverished rural population were less the result of a reformist vision and moral commitment to justice and equality, and more the outcome of the determination of its leadership, who had a predominately rural background, to undermine the power and influence of the urban centers, and shift the national wealth to the new elites.

However, the desire to get rich fast led many in positions of power and influence to misappropriate state resources, or use political influence to generate immediate wealth. Corruption at the upper echelon of the political leadership soon trickled down to the bureaucracy, putting the Syrian economy and society in jeopardy.

Calls for Reform in Syria

The current interest in reform in Syria stems from Bashar Assad’s inaugural address as the new president of Syria, in 2000, right after the death of his father. The young president outlined a new vision of Syrian politics that emphasized the need for reform and development. Although Bashar Assad’s reform was clearly focused on the bureaucracy and the economy, it was erroneously read by several opposition leaders as an invitation to a sweeping democratic reform.

Countless political groups started an open and vigorous debate that was quickly elevated to loud demands for sweeping changes, and occasionally an open insult of the Baath regimes and its symbols. The new political awakening is often referred to as “Damascus Spring.” The budding opposition boldly demanded a new constitution, free press, and multiparty system. However, it became immediately clear that the reinvigorated opposition had matured little over the last two decades. The opposition demands were drastic and uncompromising. With the exception of Riad Saif’s efforts, there was little practical proposals on the part of the opposition to engage the government or to limit its demands to a level that does not appear threatening to the current Syrian political authorities. The opposition did little to pick up on the anti-corruption campaign started by Bashar Assad prior to assuming the presidency, a campaign that he later abandoned after being sworn in as the new president.

Not only did the opposition misread the intentions of the new president and the direction of the reform he wanted to pursue, but it overestimated its own ability to impact the regime. Apparently, the opposition was riding more on the weave of the renewed international interest in democratic reform in the region and on external pressure, and less on popular support. Indeed, the opposition could garner little support from the population, as most Syrians have grown cynical toward political discourse and action, and would give little weight to the language of progress, freedom, and democracy.

The three opposition forces vying for power lack strong and clear popular support. The Brotherhood has lost credibility as a capable political actor after a bloody and unsuccessful bid in early 1980’s to overthrow the Baath regime by force. The Brotherhood political base inside the country has, further, been devastated as a result of the violent confrontation with the regime, and it is doubtful whether the organization has any support left. The communist party, led by Riad al-Turk, has lost its old vision with the collapse of communism, and is yet to produce a new vision for political and economic reforms. After spending almost three decades in prison, al-Turk is in no mood to compromise, or to engage in a political process with the established power. The liberal democratic forces, represented in the efforts of Riad Saif and the vision of Burhan Ghalioun, is still a budding force comprised of young intellectuals and activists with no evident popular support or political clout.

The opposition’s call for reform is squarely rooted in the moral indignation against rampant corruption, and the lack of political freedom to expose it and put an end to it. The fact that no popular movement has emerged and no loud demands have been made to end corruption makes it difficult to translate a moral position into a political will.

A non-Democratic Political Culture

Corruption in Syria is a chronic problem, touching every facet of the political and social life. Bribery and kick backs are widely practiced, not only by pubic officials, but ordinary citizens who resort to them to sidestep established laws and regulations, and to satisfy the demands of an impoverished bureaucracy whose members require kick backs to perform their duties and fulfill their legal obligations. Bribery ceased to be an abhorrent practice and is even privately accepted by religious authorities as a necessary evil for survival.

The spread of bribery and kick backs in Syria in the eighties and nineties has given the final blow to any remnants of respect for the rule of law in the country. This new reality has complicated the struggle for political and economic reforms. Syrian political culture is today the greatest hurdle in the road to democratic reform. Democracy presupposes key political attitudes and moral commitments, foremost among them are the notion of “the supremacy of law,” “respect for mutual freedom or equal rights,” and “the promotion of common good.” None of these receive any attention by the education system or the political discourse that shape the consciousness of millions of Syrians.

Rather, the education system and the political discourse of both the establishment and opposition tend to promote the notion of the “super-hero” who can reshape society and history through his individual will, the notion of “power” as the measure of all virtues and human worth, and the notion of “glory” as the overriding goal of human endeavor. This unbalanced emphasis on heroism, power, and glory has turned aspiring leaders into adventurers who are consumed with power and fame, and who look with contempt on all endeavors that require the subordination of individual will and interest to a higher will and interest that place the common good over individual glory.

It is this culture of hero-worship and obsession with an illusive glory that makes it difficult for political leaders to compromise and become content with power sharing and political succession. And as long as the notions of law, equal freedom, and common good continue to be alien to the Syrian culture, political change is bound to replace one set of autocrats and dictators with another.

The Way Out: Empowering Civil Society

The question that I want to—and must—raise in conclusion is the obvious one: is there a way out of the current political and cultural impasse?

The Syrian opposition espouses a range of ideas that vary from the claim, harbored mainly by Abdul Halim Khaddam, that the regime is led by an inexperienced leadership and is distant to collapse under its own weight, to those who see democracy coming to Syria through the process of regime change, advocated mainly by Farid Ghadry, achieved through US military intervention. Both scenarios arise more from the wishful thinking of their advocates, and less from the informed analysis of the Syrian reality.

Far from being non-deliberative, the Syrian regime has shown a great capacity for measured action, and displayed considerable flexibility and pragmatism. The decision to withdraw from Lebanon and to reinforce boarder patrol on the Iraq boarders when pressured by the US are examples of the regime’s pragmatism. The regime has shown, however, little desire to relax its stronghold on political power, as control over media and political debate remains tight, and the regime continues to resist calls to open up the political space and allow a multiparty system.

Relying, on the other hand, on US intervention, or even pressure, has its own limitations, as the United States' interest in democratization continues to be a function of US government’s concerns over its own economic and strategic interests, as well as Israel’s security. There is no consensus in Washington over the best course of action with regard to Syria, and the Bush administration’s key demands on the Syrian government relate primarily to Israel's interests, namely ending support for Hezbollah and dismantling the Palestinian resistance organizations in Syria. An increased external pressure and lack of alternative options could force the Syrian government to abandon its support of Israel’s enemies, but is unlikely to lead to real democratic reform.

This leaves us with one viable path to reform, and one that addresses the core obstacles to democracy: working to empower civil society and to gradually expand the margin of freedom for pursuing cultural and political reforms. In other words, the goal of the opposition must shift from regime change to power sharing and to developing a genuine interest in strengthening civil society organizations that provide public services alongside government agencies. The Syrian government has recently recognized its inability to provide public services at the level needed to develop the country, and seems to be willing to cede control over important social functions, including education, finance, and media. The pace of governmental reform in these areas is extremely slow and the implementation of the new laws has been disappointing, yet movements on these fronts have already started.

The opposition needs to focus its demand on reforming the bureaucracy and the judiciary, and on requiring a relaxation of state control over both print and electronic media. Similarly, the Syrian government should avoid taking stiff and defensive postures towards critical voices, and should give more latitude to political gatherings and organizations. The Syrian government needs to learn to listen to constructive criticism regarding its policies and the various positions it takes concerning internal and external events.

Another important, but underutilized leverage for reform comes from the large Syrian expatriate communities. The Syrian government recognizes the importance of the Syrian expatriates for the future development of the country, and has established a cabinet position and department to improve relations with them and encourage investments. The usefulness of the Syrian expatriates is not limited, however, to providing investment opportunity, but expatriates can play a crucial role in introducing democratic culture and experience to the Syrian society. Indeed, both the Syrian government and Syrian expatriates have, apart from political considerations and moral obligations, a practical need to promote democracy. Investment requires a robust legal system capable of protecting the long term interests of investors. Democratic practices are essential for maintaining independent judicial system capable of safeguarding individual rights and ensuring that the rule of law is supreme.

This article appeared in the following publications:

Official Wire
Open Democracy
Media Monitors Network
Cham Press
The American Muslim
Naseeb Vibes

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The Politics and Morality of Apostasy*

[This article is a summary of a longer paper, whose url is provided below]
The issue of apostasy under Islamic Law (shari'ah) brought recently to public attention in the widely publicized case of the conversion of an Afghan citizen raises troubling questions regarding freedom of religion and interfaith relations. The Afghan state's prosecution of an Afghan man who converted to Christianity in 1990 while working for a Christian non-governmental raises in the mind of many the question of the compatibility of Islam with plural democracy and freedom of religion. Although state court dropped the case under intense outside pressure, the compatibility issue has not been resolved because the judge invoked insanity as the basis for dismissing the case.

The case was presented as an example of conflict between Islam and democratic governance, but in many respects the case is rooted in, and influenced by, the forced secularization of Muslim society, and the absence of free debate under authoritarian regimes that dominate much of the Muslim world.

The issue of apostasy, like many other issues stemming from the application of shari'ah in modern society, is rooted more in the sociopolitical conditions of contemporary Muslim societies than in Islamic values and principles. More particularly, it is rooted in the incomplete transition from traditional to modern sociopolitical organization. It is rooted in the decision of many post-colonial Muslim countries to abandon traditional legal codes informed by Islamic law (shari'ah), in favor of European legal codes developed to suit modern European societies. The new laws where enforced by state elites without any public debate, and with little attention for the need to root legal code in public morality.

Islam is the foundation of moral commitments for the overwhelming majority of Muslims, and is increasingly becoming the source of legitimacy for state power and law. Yet the post-colonial state in Muslim societies has done little to encourage debate in the area of Islamic law. The increased interest in adopting legal codes based in Islamic values, leave the majority of Muslims with outdated legal codes that was intended for societies with markedly different social and political organizations and cultures.

The apostasy controversy highlights the importance of allowing Islamic reformers more say in public debates about political and legal reforms, and demonstrates the extent to which world powers undercut cultural and religious reforms by backing autocratic regimes the crack down on Muslim reformers in the name of combating political Islam. To legitimize their political rule and enlist the support of religious voices, autocratic rulers often align themselves with traditional religious scholars, who perpetuate rigid and anti-reform agendas in Muslim societies.

Traditionalist scholars have long embraced classical positions on apostasy that consider the rejection of Islam as a capital crime, punished by death. This uncritical embrace is at the heart of the drama that was played in the case of the Afghan convert to Christianity, and which would likely be repeated until the debate about shari'ah reform and its relevance to state and civil law is examined and elaborated by authentic Muslim voices.

At the heart of the apparent conflict between Islamic and democratic traditions is a static and stagnant approach to understanding Islamic law. The conflict stems mainly from a literalist understanding of the revelatory sources, i.e. the Qur'an and Sunnah (the Prophet tradition), and the body of Islamic jurisprudence derived from them through the exercise of juristic reasoning. With the marginalization of Islamic juristic learning and the restriction of public debate on Islamic law by the state, and the traditionalist jurists allied with it, a literalist approach of Islamic law has become rampant in many Muslim societies.

Under such climate, the most rigid and literalist interpretation of Islamic sources prevails, while enlightened and reformist views are suppressed and marginalized. The voices of many enlightened contemporary scholars who reject the literalist interpretation of the Islamic sources are pushed to the side.

Islamic law (shari'ah) is essentially a moral code with few legal pronouncements, and the question of which precepts are purely moral and which that have legal implications are determined through the theory of right.

The theory of right devised by late classical jurists - around the eighth century of Islam - emphasizes that people are ultimately answerable to God in all their dealings. However, by using the term rights of God to underscore the moral duty of the individual, and his/her accountability before God, classical jurists obscured the fact that rights are invoked to support legal claims and to enforce the interests of the right-holder. Because the Qur’an makes it abundantly clear that obeying the divine revelation does not advance the interests of God, but only those of the human being, the phrase “rights of God” signifies only the moral obligations of the believers towards God, and by no means should they be taken as a justification for legal claims.

It follows that the rights of God which are exclusively personal should be considered as moral obligations for which people are only answerable to God in the life to come. As such accepting or rejecting a specific interpretation or a particular religious doctrine, and observing or neglecting fundamental religious practices, including prayer or hajj, should have no legal implications whatever. A legal theory in congruence with the Qur'anic framework should distinguish between moral and legal obligations, and should confine the latter to public law that promote public interests (constitutional, criminal, etc.) and private law that advances private interests (trade, family, personal, etc.).

Unless the above legal reform is undertaken, there is no way to ensure that takfir (charging one with blasphemy) and zandaqa (charging one with heresy) claims would not become a political weapon in the hands of political groups to be used as a means to eliminate rivals and opponents.

*This article is a shorter version of more elaborate paper entitled “Apostasy and Religious Freedom.” The paper can be viewed on line at: http://lsinsight.org/articles/Current/Apostasy.htm

This full article appeared in the following publications:

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The American Muslims
alt.muslim
iviews
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Naseeb Vibes

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Danish Cartoons: Free Press or Hate Speech?

Freedom of speech is central to both democratic government and human dignity. A society whose people are unable to speak freely and criticize established powers and traditions is doomed to stagnation and servitude. In the absence of critical voices to point out corruption and mismanagement, national wealth would be plundered by those who are trusted to protect public interests. And in the absence of critical minds, innovation and creativity would surely vanish, and science and art would inevitably die.

The modern West emerged from medieval Europe by fighting a political regime which, in the name of order, subordinated vast societal resources to the whims of a careless aristocracy, and by opposing an established church which, in the name of faith, has suffocated free thinking and scientific progress.

It took great sacrifices by many courageous people to establish basic civil liberties that today form the foundation of modern democracy. Foremost among which is free speech which must be protected to ensuring that people can point out with relative ease both corruption and ignorance that erode social fabric and undermine creative thinking.

It is this most important liberty that the editor of Jyllands-Posten cited in justifying the publications of the 12 provocative cartoons, depicting Prophet Mohammad in negative light and insulting Islam and its followers. But was the decision to caricature the Prophet of Islam an exercise in free speech? Or was it an exercise in bigotry and hate speech dressed as free expression?

Flemming Rose, Jyllands-Posten's culture editor who commissioned the 12 cartoons, made the following comment in providing a rationale for his provocative initiative. “[Some Muslims] demand a special position,” Rose wrote, “insisting on special consideration of their own religious feelings. It is incompatible with contemporary democracy and freedom of speech, where you must be ready to put up with insults, mockery and ridicule. It is certainly not always attractive and nice to look at, and it does not mean that religious feelings should be made fun of at any price, but that is of minor importance in the present context.”

The paper’s editor-in-chief further insisted that the objective of publishing the cartoons was to overcome “self-censorship” exercised by writers and cartoonists when depicting Islam. This explanation turned out to be disingenuous as The Guardian revealed that the same paper turned down anti-Christian cartoons submitted earlier by Christoffer Zeiler. In rejecting the cartoons the paper's Sunday editor, Jens Kaiser, wrote the following: "I don't think Jyllands-Posten's readers will enjoy the drawings. As a matter of fact, I think that they will provoke an outcry. Therefore, I will not use them."

Kaiser’s words reveal a healthy sense of responsible freedom, as they underscore the importance of avoiding provocation and insult whose aim is sheer mockery. But why was not the same logic brought to bear on the decision of commissioning and then publishing the anti-Muslim cartoons?

It is evident that Jylland-Posten’s editors exercised “self-censorship” when they believed that making fun of religious feelings has a “high price.” The freedom of press they claim was at bottom a thin façade hiding an ugly bigotry directed particularly against Danish Muslims. Indeed, a 2004 report by a Danish watchdog, the immigrant rights lobbyist organization ENAR, claimed that 19 out of the 24 Jyllands-Posten's editorials on "ethnic issues" published between September 1 and November 20 2004 were negative, while 88 out of 120 op-ed pieces on "ethnic minorities" were negative, and 121 out of 148 letters to the editor on “ethnic minorities” were negative.

Jyllands-Poten was less interested in critically engaging the Islamic faith on the intellectual, social, or theological levels, and more in insulting its prophet and humiliating the Danish Muslim community. The freedom of speech invoked by the Jyllands-Posten editors does not represent a courageous stand against an established and powerful group. Nor is it a responsible freedom that aims at engaging in a serious criticism of Islamic doctrines or practices. Rather, it is a mean-spirited statement against a marginalized minority that could only serve to demonize a faith that is little understood by European societies, and greatly misrepresented by European media.

Freedom of press is not absolute, and must be used responsibly by those who claim it. Those who appreciate the importance of free speech for maintaining free and open society must ensure that it is not used by bigots to insult, insinuate, and marginalize. Rather than expanding the critical space to talk about religion in general, and the integration of Islam to Danish society in particular, Jyllands-Poten has irresponsibly used free speech to encourage hate-mongering. Such reckless use of a cherished freedom would only make an open discussion more complicated, and could practically make Danish people less free to address critical issues for social interaction and cooperation.

It is, therefore, vital that leaders on all sides of the issue take the initiative to calm the inflammatory situation, and bring the confrontation to a halt. The emotional exchange between the Western and Muslim worlds would further embolden the bigots in both camps. Western bigots are busy presenting current protests as an instance of “Islamic imperialism,” and a step in bringing the world under the control of Islam. Muslim bigots, similarly, find in the current stand off an opportunity to inflame anti-Semitism in Muslim societies.

A peaceful and orderly expression of indignation falls within democratic traditions, and represents a legitimate endeavor to influence political decision and debate. Resorting to violence, threats, and intimidations, on the other hand, undermines democratic principles, complicates political exchange, and closes public debate, and must therefore be rejected and opposed. While most protests over the publication of the insulting cartoons have been orderly and peaceful, albeit indignant, several unfortunate instances have led to loss of life and property. There is now more evidence that extremists are intent on turning the protests into a weapon to further deepen the divide between Muslim and Western societies, and to turn cultural and ideological differences into a religious stand off and a “clash of civilizations.”

The Danish cartoon episode reaffirms the intimacy of freedom and responsibility and is a powerful reminder that a reckless use of freedom is the surest way to undermine both.

This article appeared in the following publications:

Indianapolis Star
Official Wire
iViews
Media Monitors Network
Middle East Online
The Dawn
Daily Muslims
Naseeb Vibes
The American Muslim
The Milli Gazette

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Democratic Reform in Muslim Societies: The Case of Egypt

The Bush Administration has made education reform in Muslim societies a key demand, and has earmarked considerable sums of money to fund democratic education. The substantial funds allocated to democratic education in Muslim countries have attracted many organizations involved in democratic training in South American and East Europe. The decision to spend money on democratic education signals a positive change in attitude, and the Bush Administration should be applauded for taking this forward-looking initiative, and for increasing the pressure on the autocratic Middle Eastern regimes to undertake democratic reform.

Democratic reform will not, however, come about by merely pouring cash and making demand from outside. The reform will ultimately emerge as a result of popular demands and reformist steps by internal political players. Outside pressure by democratic nations should compliment, rather than displace, the ongoing internal social and political struggle in place long before the menace of global terrorism hit the United States.

The temptation to champion democracy in the Middle East by micro-managing the reform process is counterproductive, and is likely to play into the hands of anti-democratic forces intent on stemming out the fledgling democratic forces under the rubric of safeguarding national independence and countering foreign interference. Rather than pressuring autocratic government to change school curricula and superimpose a set of abstract criteria through state apparatus, US government should use its influence to increase the margin of freedom for political expression and action by civil society organizations. The forces of reform and modernization are already at work in Muslim society, and have, despite severe limitations imposed by the state on their actions, made considerable strides to effect educational, cultural, and political reforms.

The struggle for democracy in Egypt provides us with a good insight into the dynamics of reform in this key Middle Eastern country, and underscores the need for a new approach by the Untied States and Europe to facilitate the emergence of stable and sustainable democracy. The country is ruled by a political party that wears a liberal democratic garment, but protects the interests of a corrupt oligarchy, and rules with an iron fist. The party tightly controls the press, has continuously supported emergency laws, and enjoys full monopoly over the licensing of new political parties. The party has, for years, marginalized opposition, and refused to legitimize any political group that advocates Islam as the foundation of social and political reform.

For years, the ruling elites of Egypt have refused to recognize the Muslim Brotherhood group as a legitimate political actor by invoking secularism. Excluding an Islamic party that has not clearly defined how it plans to protect the constitutional rights of religious minorities is justifiable, though the state has never set clear standards and qualifications to explain its position. However, using religious adherence of party members and leaders as a ground to exclude parties that promote a non-religious national platform is a clear violation of democratic principles.

In 1996, the committee in charge of licensing political parties, an arm of the Egyptian’s national congress, turned down the application of a new political party, the Wasat Party, co-founded by a Muslim and a Copt. Egyptian security forces arrested the founders, accused them of being a front for the banned Muslim Brotherhood. Notwithstanding that the party leaders were acquitted by a military court, the Egyptian government persists in denying the Wasat Party's application, and continues to curtail political freedom and prevent the emergence of popular political opposition. The Wasat Party has fairly moderated views, and is open to people regardless of their religion and gender. It has a good number of Christian Copts and women, both in the Party’s leadership and the rank-and-file.

The Wasat Party, and other popular groups, is castigated for insisting on grounding their reformist message in Islamic values and traditions. Yet it is this kind of work, in which the basic cultural and religious assumptions and traditions are challenged from within, and through reference to Islamic values and normative sources, that is essential for advancing the process of democratization, and fostering a spirit of openness and tolerance. Islamic sources emphasize the values of equality, religious freedom, respect of diversity, and fair dealings, essential for any democratic reform. And reform movements must appeal to Islamic values that form the moral sub-terrain of contemporary Muslim cultures.

For over half a century, Western democracies have relied on the power of Middle Eastern states to effect modernization by imposing modern forms on their populations. The result has been scandalous. Political systems that silence opposition, and use an iron fist to transform religiously rooted traditions and introduce modern lifestyle, have created police states that foster corruption and breed extremism and violence. Nothing can stem the tide of extremism, except a political environment that promotes dialogue, freedom of press and association. In a society in which ideas are allowed to compete, extremism will be forced to move from the center stage to the fringe of society, and moderate voices and practices will prevail.

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Islamic Law, Modern Critique, and Moral Choices

The democratization process in Nigeria, ushered with the demise of Gen. Abacha in 1998, brought with it new demands for the implementation of shari'ah (Islamic Law). By 1999. several Northern Nigerian states announced plans to adopt shari'ah code. The announcements created an uproar and civil strife, and resulted in fatal clashes between Muslims and Christians.

The issue of the implementation of shari'ah resurfaced again in 2002, when a shari'ah court sentenced Amina Lawal to death after being found guilty of adulterous relationship. The case generated great interest, and the shari'ah court's decision was met with international protest and condemnation. Many in the West saw death as an excessive and cruel punishment for an act that falls within the realm of individual and private choice in modern culture.

The opposition to the shari'ah court's ruling was not confined to western societies, but was shared by many Muslims. Muslim scholars and jurists of repute found many flaws in the shari'ah court's judgment. The court did not, for instance, give due attention to due process, including a forced confession the police took from the accused. Although the lower court decision was overturned by the court of appeal, the case generated fierce debate, and the suitability of Islamic law for modern application became an issue.

To address this issue, the Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy (CSID) and the Centre for Islamic Legal Studies (CILS) organized a conference on the implementation of shari'ah, held in Abuja, Nigeria, in July 2004. The proceedings capture the important debate that revolves around Islamic law and its application. The debate touches on a wide range of issues that are likely to define the direction and nature of the profound transformations taking place in Muslim societies, which have also far-reaching implications for the future development of Western society.

At the heart of the debate lies the question of how democracy relates to law, Islamic values, and culture. The Nigerian experimentation with shari'ah is directly linked to the popular choices in various Muslim societies, and to the right of Muslims to embrace a legal system rooted in their moral choices and cultural heritage. These popular choices are the source of apprehension among Western policy makers, as they provide a reminder that increased demand for democracy in Muslim societies are likely to bring about norms and practices rooted in Islam and Islamic law and morality. Democratization in Nigeria, Iraq, Iran, Malaysia, and Turkey has been associated with the affirmation of Islamic choices.

More particularly, Western apprehension relates to the radical expression of Islam, including the implications of reasserting Islam and adopting shari'ah for non-Muslims and women. While these concerns are legitimate, and have been highlighted by actual developments on the ground, they are greatly exaggerated, and apparently influenced by faulty interpretations, extrapolation from one socio-cultural experience to another, as well as cultural and ideological distortions.

In the mind of many, shari'ah is associated with severe penal code that includes stoning, hand cutting, and corporal punishment. While the penal code is part of the historical shari'ah, it does not encompass the entire realm of shari’ah ruling, but rather constitutes a small and limited area of Islamic law. Shari'ah also covers basic Islamic values, including emphasis on fair treatment, honesty, charity to the poor and needy, care and support of neighbors and kin, honor of promises and contracts, obligation to parents, children, relatives, and spouses, etc. Shari'ah, further, includes prohibition of extra marital relations, of usury, mispresentation, exploitation, etc. Some shari’ah principles have moral bearings, while others have legal consequences as well.

The challenge facing modern Muslim society is how to reapply the principles of shari'ah in markedly different social and political context than those existed during the historical articulation of shari'ah. This aspect of shari'ah is debated in academic and intellectual circles in Muslim societies. However, in the absence of an open political debate, little has been done to educate the public on these issues, and to deliberate the relevance of shari'ah to cultural and legal practices. In addition, there is a significant debate in academic quarters about the historicity, even the authenticity, of certain historical pronouncements of shari'ah. For example, there is a credible evidence and considered opinion to suggest that stoning and apostacy punishments are not an intrinsic shari'ah principles, as they have no basis in the Qur’an, the most fundamental source of Islamic norms.

While some opposition to the implementation of shari'ah comes from quarters opposed to Islam, Muslim scholars and jurist have expressed genuine and profound concerns regarding any direct and uncritical application of historical shari'ah rules. Concerns include the lack of clear delineation between the moral and the legal in Islamic law. What parts of shari'ah are moral, and hence fall within the realm of education and voluntary compliance, and what parts are legal, and can therefore be enforced by society? The question of delineating the legal and moral also relate to the issue of state intrusion into individual privacy, and to what extent can the state police individual morality? Also of concern is the question of due process, rules of evidence, and individual privacy. To what extent can the court rely on circumstantial evidence to convict a person of a crime he or she has not voluntarily confessed? Is it proper for a shari'ah court to make ruling without ever considering mitigating circumstances? This latter concern emerged in the case of Amina Lawal, and in a previous case in which a Nigerian Islamic court convicted a woman of committing adultery, discarding her plea that she was raped.

As the debate in the Nigeria Conference reveals, the scope of the contending perspectives is wide, and ideas about how Islamic norms and heritage relate to modern society are as varied as those debated in Western societies. The debate should be encouraged and must continue, as openness and dialogue are the best guarantor that radical expressions do not go unchallenged, and that claims to authenticity by extreme voices are addressed and handled appropriately. Open debate, and the freedom to put popular choices to the test of time, as long as they do not infringe on human rights and human dignity, have been crucial for the maturation of Western democracy. The maturation of Islamic democracy and law requires similar space of freedom and democracy. The dialectical relationship between theory and practice, as experienced through trial and error, is crucial for political and legal development, and can only proceed if sufficient moral and political space is created within the political system of Muslim societies.

Nigeria Conference on the implementation of shari'ah reveals deep awareness by major players in Nigeria of the historicity of shari'ah rules, and the need to contextualize the rule making process, and critically examine sources and methods. Indeed, a great deal of confusion about shari'ah rules and their application comes from the failure to recognize that shari'ah rules and doctrines are essentially moral, and that legal rules were historically derived from local customs and moral choices rooted in community practices.

Finally, Western societies and policy makers need to understand that Muslim societies and law makers have every right to reconcile their legal system and moral values. This basically means that westerners should cease using alarmist tone and sweeping condemnations of shari'ah, and should pay a closer attention to the lively debate taking place within Muslim societies on law and morality. While every human being, regardless of their nationality and religion have every right to be critical of practices they deem immoral, inhumane, and degrading to human life and dignity, no culture or religion has the right to dismiss off hand the capacity of other religions and cultures to develop, through an open political process and engaging dialogue, their own moral and legal systems.

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