Beginning of the end for political islam?

[butchersapron]

Your inability to identify the difference within the Saudi regime appears to be preventing you from also identifying what the various Islamist group in Saudi Arabia want. You see the Saudi regime as a whole, and therefore, that some Islamists want to see the overthrow of the pro-American regime you equate that with the whole regime. It is quite possible for an Islamist group to both support the regime and fight for the overthrow of the regime, however, your understanding of the regime will lead you naturally to confusion when trying to understand that point.


Political Islam does not mean those who want to overthrow a regime. That is a branch of Political Islam on its extremes but does not apply to all Islamists. Political Islam is simply an umbrella term for those who want an Islamic government - this can be achieved by any means, either democratic or revolution.


There is no difference between Political Islam and Islamists! Islamists are followers of Political Islam! Within that ideology, you have your moderates (like you find in Turkey) and you have your extremists (like you find in Saudi Arabia)

You want my honest opinion? It sounds like you're trying to put some distance between a group you might give your support to and a group you oppose. Political Islam good, Islamist bad? Right?

You're miles off and you're again unhelpfully conflating political islam with simple Islamism in your reply.

Your suggestion that i'm supporting poltical islam is paranoid madness. All i'm doing is asking you to use the terms that this discussion is based around correctly and precisely in order to bring out the internal complexity that will/may have some bearing on the future - being against all states for example is quite an important perspestive, esp in places like Saudi where islamists are propping up the state regime.

 

[CyberRose]

You're miles off and you're again unhelpfully conflating political islam with simple Islamism in your reply.

Political Islam is the same as Islamism. As I've said in all my posts this ideology is as wide ranging as the term socialism. You have moderate Islamists and extreme Islamists. Islamism/Political Islam simply means that Islam should be used as a political system, and just as socialism can range from Communism to New Labour, so Islamism can fit anywhere on the spectrum from extreme to moderate.

Your suggestion that i'm supporting poltical islam is paranoid madness.

I'm not saying you support Political Islam, I'm saying that you appear to attach a negative connotation to the word "Islamism" and a more positive connotation to the phrase "Political Islam". It would appear that there are groups that you wish to describe as Political Islam (for example Hamas or Hizballah) which you do not wish to attach the negative image of Islamism to, and those who you are happy to attach the more negative sounding Islamism to (such as the Saudi regime).

People do exactly the same with the word "terrorist", which has a huge negative connotation attached to it. People who sympathise with a terrorist groups aims (again, such as Hamas), will go out of their way to oppose the use of the word terrorist.

It's just semantics and it doesn't mean you support any of the Political Islam groups, just that you wish to differentiate between good and bad Political Islam groups.

All i'm doing is asking you to use the terms that this discussion is based around correctly and precisely in order to bring out the internal complexity that will/may have some bearing on the future - being against all states for example is quite an important perspestive, esp in places like Saudi where islamists are propping up the state regime.

In Saudi Arabia, most of the Islamist groups support the regime because of the influence the Interior Ministry has over them. Some do not support the regime (followers of al-Qaida for example) but imo it is the Foreign Ministry half of the regime they oppose, not the Interior Ministry.

Islamism/Political Islam is NOT a specific term and does not have a specific definition. It can mean opposition to states/governments, but it can also mean they will support a state/government.

If you want to talk about specifics then you need to whittle it down to specific groups because you cannot use these terms as definitive to one idea or another...

 

[tangentlama]

Not a chance. Iran is its own case. If the same thing happens in Saudi, then maybe I'd entertain your notion.

Spot on.

 

[butchersapron]

Political Islam is the same as Islamism. As I've said in all my posts this ideology is as wide ranging as the term socialism. You have moderate Islamists and extreme Islamists. Islamism/Political Islam simply means that Islam should be used as a political system, and just as socialism can range from Communism to New Labour, so Islamism can fit anywhere on the spectrum from extreme to moderate.


I'm not saying you support Political Islam, I'm saying that you appear to attach a negative connotation to the word "Islamism" and a more positive connotation to the phrase "Political Islam". It would appear that there are groups that you wish to describe as Political Islam (for example Hamas or Hizballah) which you do not wish to attach the negative image of Islamism to, and those who you are happy to attach the more negative sounding Islamism to (such as the Saudi regime).

People do exactly the same with the word "terrorist", which has a huge negative connotation attached to it. People who sympathise with a terrorist groups aims (again, such as Hamas), will go out of their way to oppose the use of the word terrorist.

It's just semantics and it doesn't mean you support any of the Political Islam groups, just that you wish to differentiate between good and bad Political Islam groups.


In Saudi Arabia, most of the Islamist groups support the regime because of the influence the Interior Ministry has over them. Some do not support the regime (followers of al-Qaida for example) but imo it is the Foreign Ministry half of the regime they oppose, not the Interior Ministry.

Islamism/Political Islam is NOT a specific term and does not have a specific definition. It can mean opposition to states/governments, but it can also mean they will support a state/government.

If you want to talk about specifics then you need to whittle it down to specific groups because you cannot use these terms as definitive to one idea or another...

Sorry, you're still miles off and seeing monsters that aren't there. Political islam is not simple islamism, it's an internal variant with massively important differences to the whahhabi state-islamism that you're taking political islam to mean. That's it, that's my point - none of this stuff about hamas or whatever else you've came up with. And sorry, political islam is a specfic term with its own history (i gave you some of the groups and writers who developed this concept over the last 40 years above).

I'm not putting any postive spin on political islam, i honestly don't know where on earth you've manged to get that idea from.

In a nutshell, you're being led up the garden path by conflating whahhabi state-islamism with political islam and thereby missing the fact that if the Saudi state falls, as phils says, it will be to political islam, it won't be the collapse of political islam.

 

[Pickman's model]

the thing about the saudi state is it has largely defeated the insurgency which existed a few years ago. the saudi royal family - due to its size - is able to be all things to all people, to accommodate a large amount of popular discontent as there will be some of the princes who represent each strand of opinion. frankly, i suspect that internal dissent in saudi arabia is less to do with islamism / political islam - and much more to do with the sharing out of the money, coupled with the presence of foreigners within the country: islamism or political islam being used as a cover for other complaints.

 

[FridgeMagnet]

Where _isn't_ that the case?

 

[Pickman's model]

Where _isn't_ that the case?

it's much more blatant in saudi arabia than elsewhere: ain't every country which survives on one export and from which one family takes the vast majority of the wealth. where in medieval europe, political and economic discontents were articulated through religion - eg the millenarian anarchists norman cohn describes - economic grievances in saudi arabia appear to be mediated through the prism of political islam. if you can't see what political islamic discourse masks, then it will remain hidden - and it seems to me that this is something which requires more discussion.

 

[butchersapron]

it's much more blatant in saudi arabia than elsewhere: ain't every country which survives on one export and from which one family takes the vast majority of the wealth. where in medieval europe, political and economic discontents were articulated through religion - eg the millenarian anarchists norman cohn describes - economic grievances in saudi arabia appear to be mediated through the prism of political islam. if you can't see what political islamic discourse masks, then it will remain hidden - and it seems to me that this is something which requires more discussion.

Just looking through my old posts on this and found this which seems to fit with what you're saying:

The sort of mass poltical islam that is still popular is a different type than that carried out by the well educated, middle class cadres of the AQ style groups, that's the stuff that's mobilising people against Mubarak or the Saudi royal family (slightly diff situation there of course) - and it's largely driven by the impostion of capitalist restructructuring in those places - the removal of any remaining system of social welfare, the taxes on everyday essentials, the driving people off the land into the slums - and the continuing refusal to touch the large waqf landowners.

 

[CyberRose]

Sorry, you're still miles off and seeing monsters that aren't there. Political islam is not simple islamism, it's an internal variant with massively important differences to the whahhabi state-islamism that you're taking political islam to mean. That's it, that's my point - none of this stuff about hamas or whatever else you've came up with. And sorry, political islam is a specfic term with its own history (i gave you some of the groups and writers who developed this concept over the last 40 years above).

I'm not putting any postive spin on political islam, i honestly don't know where on earth you've manged to get that idea from.

In a nutshell, you're being led up the garden path by conflating whahhabi state-islamism with political islam and thereby missing the fact that if the Saudi state falls, as phils says, it will be to political islam, it won't be the collapse of political islam.

Perhaps you could explain then what you think is the difference between Islamism and Political Islam?

I know this is a wiki page but sums Islamism (anhd what I've been saying) up nicely:

Islamism takes several forms and spans a wide range of strategies and tactics, and thus is not a united movement.

Moderate reformists who accept and work within the democratic process include the Justice and Development Party of Turkey, Tunisian author and reformer Rashid Al-Ghannouchi and Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim. The Islamist group Hezbollah in Lebanon participates in both elections and armed attacks, seeking to abolish the state of Israel.

Groups such as the Jamaat-e-Islami of Pakistan and the Sudanese Muslim Brotherhood favored a top-down road to power by military coup d'état.[13] The radical Islamists al-Qaeda and Egyptian Islamic Jihad reject entirely democracy and self-proclaimed Muslims they find overly moderate, and preach violent jihad, urging and conducting attacks on a religious basis.

Another major division within Islamism is between the fundamentalist "guardians of the tradition" of the Salafism or Wahhabi movement, and the "vanguard of change" centered on the Muslim Brotherhood.[14] Olivier Roy argues that "Sunni pan-Islamism underwent a remarkable shift in the second half of the 20th century" when the Muslim Brotherhood movement and focus on Islamistation of pan-Arabism was eclipsed by the Salafi movement with its emphasis on "sharia rather than the building of Islamic institutions," and rejection of Shia Islam.[15] Different Islamist groups have come to blows in places such as present day Iraq.

Any comments?

 

[butchersapron]

I've been agreeing with you from the start that political islam is a form of islamism, but i've pointed out the important differences within two forms of islamism in saudi - the pro-state, social traditionalist wahhabis and the modernised, anti-state groups. Exactly as Oliver Roy (who i've largely taken my use of political islam from btw) argues in that excerpt you've just quoted! Notice that last line - very important and exactly what i've been suggesting on this very thread.

 

[Crispy]

Draw a Venn Diagram, Cyberrose

 

[phildwyer]

it's much more blatant in saudi arabia than elsewhere: ain't every country which survives on one export and from which one family takes the vast majority of the wealth. where in medieval europe, political and economic discontents were articulated through religion - eg the millenarian anarchists norman cohn describes - economic grievances in saudi arabia appear to be mediated through the prism of political islam. if you can't see what political islamic discourse masks, then it will remain hidden - and it seems to me that this is something which requires more discussion.

Bollocks. Why assume that Islam must be a metaphorical superstructure for some more authentic economic grievance? Your thinking is mired in the nineteenth century.

 

[CyberRose]

You were saying that in Saudi Arabia there are groups that are called Political Islam and groups that are called Islamist. The Islamists support the government and the Political Islamists oppose the government. I pointed out that I don't differentiate between Islamism and Political Islam (for reasons outlined in the wiki definition of Islamism) and that there are various Islamist groups in Saudi Arabia all with different aims and motives.

In order to avoid further confusion allow me to state exactly which Islamist groups I believe to be operating in Saudi Arabia:

1. The Islamists within the regime (Nayef and the Interior Ministry)
2. The Islamist groups outside the regime who support Nayef (and therefore de facto support for Abdullah)
3. The Islamist groups outside the regime who do not support the regime (eg al-Qaida followers - however, imo, these may support Nayef without supporting Abdullah)

 

[butchersapron]

You were saying that in Saudi Arabia there are groups that are called Political Islam and groups that are called Islamist. The Islamists support the government and the Political Islamists oppose the government. I pointed out that I don't differentiate between Islamism and Political Islam (for reasons outlined in the wiki definition of Islamism) and that there are various Islamist groups in Saudi Arabia all with different aims and motives.

In order to avoid further confusion allow me to state exactly which Islamist groups I believe to be operating in Saudi Arabia:

1. The Islamists within the regime (Nayef and the Interior Ministry)
2. The Islamist groups outside the regime who support Nayef (and therefore de facto support for Abdullah)
3. The Islamist groups outside the regime who do not support the regime (eg al-Qaida followers)

The wiki article quote doesn't say that at all - it clearly differentiates violent internal differences within Islamism along the lines that i'd previously indciated and it used Olivier Roy, the foremost developer of the concept of Political islam as opposed to simple islamism, as also used by me above. A little quote from the man himself:

A book I wrote fifteen years ago is entitled The Failure of Political Islam (not, it should be noted, The Failure of the Islamists).

I believe that you've fatally undermined your own refusal to 'differentiate between Islamism and Political Islam' by listing those different groups and approaches.

(I'm off out in a fe minutes btw).

 

[CyberRose]

The wiki article quote doesn't say that at all - it clearly differentiates violent internal differences within Islamism along the lines that i'd previously indciated and it used Olivier Roy, the foremost developer of the concept of Political islam as opposed to simple islamism, as also used by me above. A little quote from the man himself:

Well why don't you tell me what your definition of Political Islam is then?

I believe that you've fatally undermined your own refusal to 'differentiate between Islamism and Political Islam' by listing those different groups and approaches.

No, they all fall under the umbrella of Islamism

(I'm off out in a fe minutes btw).

Well at least one of us has a life!

 

[tangentlama]

Well why don't you tell me what your definition of Political Islam is then?

Suspect it's the same as the one which Maryam Namazi(e) promotes, i.e. deeply flawed, stereotyped, generalised, misunderstanding of class-issues, failing to understand differences between rural/urban cultures, etc.

 

[tangentlama]

If the Iranian theocracy falls, I wonder of the knock-on effect on Islamist movements throughout the world will be rather like the disarray and demoralisation suffered by much of the left after the collapse of the USSR?

I think this could be the start of a demoralisation and decline in these sort of movements if an Islamist regime is visibly seen to be utterly rejected by it's own masses.

It has about as much chance of falling right now as we have in ousting the Lords Spiritual and the Lords Temporal and the Cabinet from our 'guardian council of unelected decision makers' at our next election.

 

[Pickman's model]

It has about as much chance of falling right now as we have in ousting the Lords and the cabinet from our 'guardian council of unelected decision makers'

sounds akin to the yankee assessment in 1978 that the shah would rule for at least another ten years.

 

[Pickman's model]

Bollocks. Why assume that Islam must be a metaphorical superstructure for some more authentic economic grievance? Your thinking is mired in the nineteenth century.

come back when you learn how to read and perhaps we might have an interesting discussion.

 

[tangentlama]

sounds akin to the yankee assessment in 1978 that the shah would rule for at least another ten years.

If you stand at the next election with the promise to oust that bunch of unelected 'guardians', then I'll vote for you.

 

[tangentlama]

sounds akin to the yankee assessment in 1978 that the shah would rule for at least another ten years.

the yankees favoured the Shah's land reforms, and those land reforms really pissed off the working class and most small landowners in Iran. his downfall was inevitable. Check out papers/books on 'Land Reform Organization'+Shah

 

[Pickman's model]

If you stand at the next election with the promise to oust that bunch of unelected 'guardians', then I'll vote for you.

not sure what good that would do from westminster

 

[Streathamite]

No, they all fall under the umbrella of Islamism

surely the point is that not all islamists embrace Political Islamists: political islam is an anti-state, anti-capitalist, revolutrionary varient of the form.
In A to the Q; the fall of the warsaw pact and the USSR, and the communist decline, has nothing to do with the rise and fall of Political Islam. The first was due to economic decline and about States, the second is a far more revolutionary movement

 

[Streathamite]

the yankees favoured the Shah's land reforms, and those land reforms really pissed off the working class and most small landowners in Iran. his downfall was inevitable. Check out papers/books on 'Land Reform Organization'+Shah

also; The Shah's support base was narrow and flakey, once people lost their fear of his heavies, he was doomed

 

[tangentlama]

Well so no, I don't think it's the end for political Islam. Eventually, Political Islam will come universally to embrace and champion such important issues as womens' rights, etc. I don't believe it can be eradicated.

 

[CyberRose]

surely the point is that not all islamists embrace Political Islamists: political islam is an anti-state, anti-capitalist, revolutrionary varient of the form.

So the Iranian regime started out as Political Islamists and now they are mere Islamists?

The Taliban were Political Islamists, transformed into Islamists, and are now Political Islamists again?!

Could you tell me if Hamas or Hizballah are Political Islamists or just ordinary Islamists?

In A to the Q; the fall of the warsaw pact and the USSR, and the communist decline, has nothing to do with the rise and fall of Political Islam. The first was due to economic decline and about States, the second is a far more revolutionary movement

I think the point they were trying to make is that after the USSR fell apart, support for socialism around the world dwindled. If Iran falls, as the focus point of Political Islam, then support for Political Islam may also dwindle as happened to socialism.

I don't agree with that because I don't think Iran is the focal point of Political Islam (which is originally a Sunni ideology), therefore if it failed there I doubt it would have much effect on support for Sunni Political Islam. It may have an effect in Lebanon however.

 

[CyberRose]

Political Islam will come universally to embrace and champion such important issues as womens' rights, etc.

Are you takin the piss?!

 

[tangentlama]

Are you takin the piss?!

Are you only quoting part of a sentence?

 

[ViolentPanda]

If the Iranian theocracy falls, I wonder of the knock-on effect on Islamist movements throughout the world will be rather like the disarray and demoralisation suffered by much of the left after the collapse of the USSR?

I think this could be the start of a demoralisation and decline in these sort of movements if an Islamist regime is visibly seen to be utterly rejected by it's own masses.

The Revolutionary Islamic Republic of Iran has very little to do with, or influence over wider "political Islam". The Wahhabis and other "strict adherence" maniacs, who predominate in "political Islam" are mostly Sunni, and would view the fall of the RIRI as a cause for celebration and an opportunity to sow dissent.
Now if one of the twin pillars of Saudi society were to crumble, that'd be a different story with major repercussions, IMO. Saudi money is tied up in so many movements in so many countries that a shift there would affect everywhere they've funded.

 

[ViolentPanda]

I imagine the Saudi regime may feel a little nervous of a "domino effect" if Iran's govt collapses under popular revolt.

Iran inspired a lot of Islamist movements, remember.

The only thing the Saudis would be immediately bothered about would be that their Shia minority might get restless.