About ideology

Blair has a plan. He will use the force of reason to combat Islamism.

I have no doubt that Blair is well meaning enough, and in his weaker moments feels that if we could all just be nice, we would all get along and happiness and security would prevail. But we are not all nice, and it's not unreasonable to think so.

Okay, I do have doubts. I can't believe Blair is stupid. He shows every sign of at least low cunning, if not great intelligence. He must have read about the ideology of Islamists, what they believe and why they believe it.

Point one that he must know is that they are literalists (what is often called "fundamentalist" but a distinction ought to be drawn between "literalism", which would be the belief that a scripture is literally the true word of your god, and "fundamentalism", which would be the belief that religion must be returned to its basics, which are generally the aforesaid scripture). Islamists are fundamentalists, of course, but what matters in this context is their literalism.

Is it unreasonable to draw the conclusions that Islamists draw from a literal reading of the Qur'an? No, it is not. The Qur'an sets out a (basically) humanist description of what to the Bedouin eye would look like a utopia. I am not suggesting that it's my idea of one: I am a Western liberal and I have different ideas about women from Mohammed's. Even so, his ideas on women were reasonably liberal in his day. Most of the oppression that women face in the Muslim world is the outcome of practices that predate Islam. I don't excuse it by saying that, but merely note that the Qur'an is not wholly to blame.

Point two is that he must be aware that the Qur'an does not suggest that elections are a good way to choose leaders. Is that unreasonable? Not really. Elections are a very poor way to choose people to lead. The leaders so elected are not accountable in the way a leader is in the Muslim world. His authority is personal, not vested in his office (I am speaking generally of the ideal, not of the practice, because of course, Islamic countries do have presidents and the like). He has authority in the Roman sense. He is listened to because of the wisdom of what he says, not who he is.

Point three is that many Muslims look back on the Caliphate as a golden age. Urban Muslims felt that they were part of a greater polis, a broad community that they were a citizen of before they were a citizen of any more specific entity. The Muslim world was rich -- far richer than the West, whose material culture had nearly collapsed, literate, liberal and tolerant.

There is much more to be said about what Islamists believe, but these three points are enough for Blair's task force to confront.

Point three is the impelling force for the bombing of London. Blair denies that the attacks were anything to do with Iraq and our forces there, even though the Islamists have said over and over that those who are there will be attacked. The Islamists believe that the Muslim world would recover to its former glory were it left alone. They believe that when Islam was not part of the Western sphere, it prospered, and once it became an object of the lust for wealth of the West, it began to slide into ruin. The latter is partly true. Western meddling in the Middle East has caused far more problems than it has solved, and still does. Israel is a Western invention, a child of Western thought planted in the near East. I don't know whether Israel would have had an easier time of it were it more recognisably part of its region but the notion must be at least considered. Not that I think that would excuse the treatment Israel has suffered. The bottom line with Israel is that it exists, and will continue to exist, and those who live alongside must learn to love it (and it too must learn to be more loveable). Otherwise, Western involvement in the Middle East has been calamitous. We have destroyed and remoulded nations -- creating artificial and extremely unreasonable nations such as Iraq, pilfered its resources and interfered in its internal politics to such an extent that it's impossible to imagine what its form would be were we absent. The appeal of Islamism to the poor lies partly in its suggestion that they are poor because the West has raped their nations, taking their oil and leaving them penniless, and that if the West could only be compelled to return control of the resources to the Arabs, they would all be enriched.

Is it reasonable to believe that the Muslim world would rectify its problems were we to depart and leave it to it? Well, no. The caliphs were the heirs of an enlightened tradition, not dogmatic theocrats. Osama bin Laden's caliphate would most likely be a fearful hellhole, Saudi Arabia writ large. And just as in Saudi Arabia, far from everyone becoming enriched, some would gain a great deal and many would lose. But is it reasonable to believe that whatever the outcome, it is right for the Arabs to control their own oil and their own destiny, with whatever political solution they choose?

Mr Blair needs to ask himself why he does not think that is reasonable because he surely does not. He insists that they must have a democracy like ours. On point two, we are the fundamentalists. The Western belief in the primacy of the market and the value of quadrennial elections is so firmly set in some minds that we cannot accept that there can be any other way of ordering the world. But is it reasonable to believe that? Even if we feel that our way is the best (which many of us do not), can we insist that anyone reasonable would reach the same conclusion? It is the problem of dogmatism that it seizes the mind, leaving a person convinced that the only reasonable outcome of thinking about the world should be our own beliefs. Blair is like an Islamist, uncomprehending that reasonable men should think differently from him when it is so clear that he is right.

An important element in their thinking is what happened in Algeria. In 1991, the FIS -- an Islamist party -- easily won the first round of elections. They were set to become the party in power. Among the items on their platform was the promise that they would make Algeria an Islamic republic under Sharia. When asked whether they would retain its democracy, they said, no, there would be no further elections in Algeria. There is no democracy in the Qur'an.

Should people have a right to choose their own constitution? Should they be permitted to vote for no voting? The Algerian army did not think so. It crushed the democratic process in Algeria. The West helped.

The Islamists drew what I think Blair would have to accept was a reasonable conclusion: they cannot get what they want through a democratic process. When they tried, and were on the brink of succeeding, we stopped them from having it.

Point one is most important. The Qur'an enjoins Muslims to struggle. We are familiar with the bleating commentators who insist that jihad is just that internal struggle against sin but it is also true that Muslims ought to struggle with the sinners around them, although arguably not necessarily by force. Is it unreasonable to pursue the word of your god?

I was struck when reading about the new Iranian president Ahmedinajad by a casual note that he refuses to eat dinner with anyone who does not pay zakat. (Which will make state dinners a bit difficult.) He is himself a modest and humble man, who has not used his position to enrich himself. Part of his notion of jihad is not to indulge those who do not follow the teachings of Mohammed. He does not need to kill you to show you he disapproves. He just doesn't have you round for dinner.

Zakat is about 2.5 per cent of your capital. You should pay it yearly. The rich nations of the world have just finished bickering over whether they should pay 0.7 per cent of GDP to help the world's poor (as they have previously promised to do).

I wish Mr Blair luck in trying to convince young Muslim men that they should stop believing the Qur'an is literally true (a belief shared by most if not all Muslims -- something perhaps Blair does not grasp because he lives in a world where being "Christian" can simply mean "believing in a halfhearted way that there is a supreme being") and should start believing that our "values" are superior to those in that book.

posted by Dr Zen @ 9:47 am