Two
Weaknesses Could Undo the Islamist Movement
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The Islamist movement may appear stronger than ever, but a close look
suggests two weaknesses that might doom it, and perhaps quickly.
Its strengths are obvious. The Taliban, Al-Shabaab, Boku Haram, and ISIS
take Islamism – the ideology calling for Islamic law to be applied in its
entirety and severity – to unbearable extremes, rampaging and brutalizing
their way to power. Pakistan could fall into their hands. The ayatollahs of
Iran enjoy a second wind thanks to the Vienna deal. Qatar has the highest
per capita income in the world. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is becoming Turkey's
dictator. Islamist operatives swarm the Mediterranean toward Europe.
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The Vienna Deal of July
2015 gave the ayatollahs a second wind.
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But weaknesses within, especially squabbling and disapproval, could undo
the Islamist movement.
Infighting became vicious in 2013, when Islamists abruptly stopped their
prior pattern of cooperation among themselves and instead began internecine
fighting. Yes, the Islamist movement as a whole shares similar goals, but
it also contains different intellectuals, groups, and parties with variant
ethnic affiliations, tactics, and ideologies.
Its internal divisions have spread fast and far. These include Sunnis
vs. Shiites, notably in Syria, Iraq, and Yemen; monarchists vs.
republicans, notably in Saudi Arabia; non-violent vs. violent types,
notably in Egypt; modernizers vs medieval revivalists, notably in Tunisia;
and plain old personal differences, notably in Turkey. These divisions
obstruct the movement by turning its guns inward.
The dynamic here is ancient: As Islamists approach power, they fight
amongst themselves for dominance. Differences that hardly mattered when in
the wilderness take on great importance as the stakes get higher. In
Turkey, for example, the politician Erdoğan and the religious leader
Fethullah Gülen cooperated until they dispatched their common enemy, the
military, from politics, when they turned against each other.
Unpopularity, the second problem, may be the biggest peril for the
movement. As populations experience Islamist rule first hand, they reject
it. It's one thing to believe in the abstract about the benefits of Islamic
law and quite another to suffer its deprivations, ranging from the Islamic
State's totalitarian horrors to the comparatively benign emerging
dictatorship in Turkey.
Signs of this discontent include the large majorities of Iranians who
reject the Islamic Republic, the wave of exiles out of Somalia, and the
massive Egyptian demonstrations of 2013 protesting a single year of the
Muslim Brotherhood in power. As with fascist and communist rule, Islamist
sovereignty often leads to people voting with their feet.
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Huge numbers of
Egyptians wanted an end to Islamist rule in June 2013.
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Should these two tendencies hold, the Islamist movement is heading for
trouble. Some analysts already see the Islamist era having ended and the
emergence of something new from its wreckage. For example, the Sudanese
scholar Haidar
Ibrahim Ali argues that a "post-Islamization" era has begun,
when Islamism's "vitality and attractiveness have been exhausted even
among the most ardent of its supporters and enthusiasts."
The enemies of Islamism have much work ahead. Muslims must both fight
this movement and develop a compelling alternative to its goal of
implementing Islamic law, explaining constructively what it means to be a
Muslim in 2016. Non-Muslims can serve as their helpful auxiliaries,
providing everything from applause to funds to guns.
Islamism's mounting problems offer grounds for confidence but not for
smugness, as another reversal in course could take place at any time. But
if current trends hold, the Islamist movement will have been limited, much
as fascism and communism before it, damaging Western civilization, not
destroying it.
Whatever the trend, defeating Islamism remains the challenge.
Mr. Pipes (DanielPipes.org, @DanielPipes) is president of the Middle
East Forum. © 2016 by Daniel Pipes. All rights reserved.
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text may be reposted or forwarded so long as it is presented as an integral
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