Dr. Khoury’s article - Islamic Revivalism and the crisis of the Secular State in the Arab World: An Historical Appraisal - examines the social injustices, economical disproportionalities, domestic governmental shortfalls and the international antagonizing influences that fostered the reactionary revivalism of Islamic Fundamentalism. Dr. Khoury’s empirical perspective sheds light on this misunderstood religious evolution. Islamic revivalism, within Arab nations, is not a theologocentric cultural phenomenon, as depicted by “western media.” This orientalistic, cultural miss-interpretation is a product of the Fundamental Attribution Error (FAE). American media portrays angry Arab populations in juxtaposition with acts of violence. The western perception is that Islamic Fundamentalism and the “violence” that is associated with it is a result of fundamental Arab cultural predispositions for religious extremist. This perception belays the western cultural ignorance. According to Dr. Khoury (pg. 217) the defining voice for the Arab states in the 20th century was secular nationalism, not religious extremism. The Islamic Fundamentalist revival that has taken place within the Middle East North African (MENA) region is a reaction of Arab state exhaustion. Since the post-colonial period after WWII, Arab states have failed at modernizing their populations. Modern Arab secular states were depleted of their civil-society capabilities, they did not adequately provide social services, employment opportunities, social-economic mobility, skilled labor markets and proportional wealth distribution for their populations.
The disenfranchising of Arab nationalism was due to several situational catalysts, the massive urbanization's that drew the uneducated, agriculture working class “peasants” into over-crowded metropolitans; western investments in finite resources that created rentier[1] authoritarian states; the developments of class systems that fostered dissent and radicalization in the lower and middle economic classes; and the reliance on traditional religious values by the lower classes to mitigate the oppressive natures of authoritarian regimes. Islamic Fundamentalists did not gain radicalized support within modern Arab secular nation states until the 1970s. This revival was due to the failure of the Arab secular movements of national growth; the Arab communist governments failed to establish social equality, the secular governments failed to include the uneducated masses, Pan-Arab nationalist movements failed to represent the diverse region and democracy never gained a foothold. Subsequently, Arab national top-tier elites can abuse their bureaucratic positions, while not being held accountable for their political cronyism and their structural corruption.
The scarcity of an effective Arab nationalistic model has left the working-lower- middle class with one answer, Islamic Fundamentalism. This religious mantra manifests itself into a Political Islamic movement. Arab authoritarian regimes and their bureaucrats have to respect the political movement and adopt the religious tenets, or risk becoming targets of political violence. Every religion is capable of justifying violence; this is not unique to Islam and the region. However, Islamic Fundamentalism was revived not because Arabs need to become beholden to a faith but specifically it is an political identity that the populace can rally behind. Arab women wear Islamic traditional clothing out of western-protest more so than out of piety. The suicide bomber declaring that god is great before he blows himself him up is acting as a human without a future not as a religious warrior. This reactionary effect of Islamic Fundamentalism is vital to the MENA-regional stability conversation because radicalized Islam is the political vehicle that drives the sectarian violence. However, targeting this vehicle with theologian centric criticisms only embeds the extremist more with legitimacy. Arab moderate nationalist need to address the lack of basic functions that their exhausted governments cannot sustain. The needed moderation evolution involves a culturally conceptual shift, from the current practices, to address the motivational drivers for Islamic Fundamentalist’s extremist.
Dr. Khoury attributes the “main force” (pg. 227) behind the Islamic Fundamentalism revival to the “urban lower-middle class(es)”, which form the “class(es) caught in between.” The middle-tier leaders, the store owners, merchants, community bureaucrats, preachers, and college students are the populations that are caught in between the desire for a strong political voice or limiting their societal-growth within oppressive, failing, rentier Arab nation states. These states are typically made of authoritarian regimes that conduct structural violence with corruption and severe capital punishments for suspected dissent. The adoption of Islamic Fundamentalism by these classes has allowed the revival to influence all aspects of the Arab human landscape. Islamic Fundamentalism’s footprints can be found in legal systems with a “reestablishment of the shari’a” (pg.231); within education systems there is an adoption of Islamic teaching; culturally “non-elite” women are dressing traditionally; and politically Arab states are starting to impose moral laws with the “prohibition of alcohol, drugs, prostitution, gambling.” Historical people define themselves with religion when tranquility in the “afterlife” is more promising than their tumultuous realities.
Dr. Khoury presents Islamic Fundamentalism as means for authoritarian states within the Arab world to legitimize their oppressive methods and placating their classes by adopting political Islam and by incorporating the tenets of Islamic Fundamentalism within the states policies. “The (Arab) state’s accommodation is itself an admission of revivalism’s potential for destabilizing current regimes, it is also, however, a way of reasserting a regimes legitimacy” (pg. 233) I ascertain from this quote and this article that western powers have a vetted interest in a moderate secular movement within the MENA region. In addition, the Islamic political revolution is vulnerable to a moderation evolution if the social factors that led the regions populace to become radicalized can be addressed. Islamic Fundamentalism is a reactionary symptom of a religious political identity that the disenfranchised forgotten classes of the Arab states.-jfoxwell
[1] Rentier states refers to nations that base their economic stability on finite resources. The consistent unskilled wealth financially supports authoritarian states. One reason for this is typically renter states do not tax their citizens; so the populations are satisfied with less than democratic and corrupt conditions. Subsequently the state is not held accountable to its populations…
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