Modernity and Political Islam (a fragment). posted by Richard Seymour

Those who know little about Political Islam (and prefer to know less) are inclined to see in it only a barbaric creed, a reactionary reflux in a corrupt Muslim world. To its opponents, it is an evil genie let out of the bottle by Hassan al-Banna in 1928, a movement of repugnant conservatism which is either ‘fascist’ or ‘Islamofascist’ or, to use Christopher Hitchens’ laughably inept formulation, “nihilist”. To its supporters, it is a moral crusade against a degenerated, corrupt society; against the Order of Jahiliya (Order of Ignorance) in Sayid Qutb’s terms.

The bulk of Islamist movements & theorists have been reactionary in orientation, although this is not always or necessarily the case. The origins of Islamism as a reaction to the decline of the ‘Islamic world’ under imperial tutelage are well-known and understood – by those who know and understand the topic. But what sustains it and what precisely has brought it to the apparent apex of brutality today remains shrouded in deliberate mystery. We understand that they are fanatics, of course; maybe even ‘evil’. But why should it be that a movement which originated in Egypt as a heel kick against imperial domination and the values it used to legitimise itself became the face of Satan for Lieutenant Colonel Gareth Brandl?

The answer appears to be that it is an expression of the despair of the lower-middle classes and young in Islamic societies. It is the result of a developmental crisis in which states that lack economic growth are unable to follow through on the promise of education. That is, families go to enormous efforts to send their progeny to school and university – yet, success having been achieved, there are often too few opportunities because of corruption and stagnation. In a study of Egyptian Islamists captured by the state, cited in Nazih Ayubi’s sharp text “Political Islam: Religion and Politics in the Arab World”, it was found that the bulk of them were student graduates (43.9%), while 15% were workers and the rest middle class professionals of various kinds. 70% were aged between 21 & 30, (most between 20-25). Al-Zawahiri was a doctor when he started; bin Laden a student. The core of the Islamist movement in Iran was middle class and educated. Although there was a stronger component of worker involvement here than in anywhere else (particularly during the decisive strikes of 1978), insofar as it was driven by Islamism of some kind, its actions were usually initiated by middle management.

Psychological factors (youth identity crisis, alienation from society) compound with economic factors (lack of opportunity, stagnation) and political factors (the overbearing presence of the state) to produce a movement that is, by turns, revolutionary and reactionary.

As an ideology, Islamism’s function partly resides in the occluding of class dimensions in society. Studies show that the class structures of Arab societies have been skewed in a rather unusual way, in that there has been an unusually rapid expansion in the lower middle class, the sub-proletariat and the lumpen-proletariat: the workers as such have sometimes been in the minority. The structure has also been unusually fluid, inasmuch as there has been a great deal of expansion in the professions during periods of economic growth, but also heavy down-migration of the professionals and more technical workers during periods of recession. This class fluidity has accommodated, therefore, a form of political expression that allows groups with divergent, conflicting interests to unite.

More importantly, what they appear to be uniting for is the opposite of what really motivates them. Umberto Eco once reported on the diaries of a 13th Century theologian who extemporised in the most beautiful terms on all of the evil things that a man of faith must deny himself. Never, Eco suggested, had such ‘evil’ been described with such aching wonder and desire. Similarly, we might remember what Ayubi himself has to say about Political Islam. They don’t condemn modernity because they are medieval fools: “they hate modernity because they cannot have it!”