Ideological & Political Trends after WWI

Today

•Brief look at Islamism

•Mandate control over many of the newly-formed countries (Turkey, Iran, Egypt, Iraq if we have time)

Last time: Watershed @ Turn of 20th Cent. WHY?

• Conflicting promises and messy diplomacy

• Indirect rule through mandates (focus of next class)

• Political vacuum in many Middle Eastern states as Ottomans could not assert control and European powers became targets of indigenous liberation movements

TODAY: • Increase in political expression and activism in the first decades of the 20th century.

• Emergence of new social and political movements• FOCUS ON: Pan-Arabism, Statist Nationalism, Islamism

End of 19th and beginning of 20th century saw the emergence of numerous social and political movements, well before the war and Ottoman dissolution. Political

expression and activity increased heavily.

WHY?• Reacting against:

– Ottoman centralization (& secular Europeanization)– Colonial domination

• CREATING A VOID

• Responding to cultural, ideological, political void after foreign influence waned

• FILLING THE VOID

The MENA region

Various trends… but first, some key distinctions.

Islam vs. Islamism – Islam is a religion. Islamism is an ideology defining economic & legal systems based on Islam

Muslim vs. Islamist – Muslims follows Muslim religion, but is not necessarily an Islamist. Islamist has ideologies following Islamism

Arab vs. Arab nationalist – Arab is an ethnicity. Arab nationalist wants a unified political system and state for all Arabs

Judaism vs. Zionism – Judaism is a religion. Zionism is a nationalist effort to define political and legal systems based on Judaism and advocating a Jewish state.

Some trends:

Islamism:

Is the belief that Islam provides comprehensive bases and sufficient guidance for political, economic and legal behavior, as well as other aspects of life like social norms.

•How progressive and how traditional

•Degree of cultural difference

•Gender issues

•What economic systems should look like

•Interpretation and Enforcement of Shari’a

Differences of Islamist thinking – Differ on:

Basic components of the Islamist framework and ideology:

1. Islam is total and all-encompassing way of life, personal and political.

2. The Quran and Sunnah provide models for daily life and action3. Shariah is the ideal blueprint for society4. Dependency on the West and relaxation of religiosity caused

Muslim decline.5. Science and technology must be adopted and used to achieve

goals.6. Struggle (jihad) on the personal and communal level will bring

reform and revolution and Islamization of society and the world.

Jamal al Din al Afghani, Muhammad Abduh, Rashid Rida

Al Banna & Qutb

A Radical Version• Ibn Taymiyyah (13th c.)

– Lived during period of fitnah (disorder)– Mongols and end of Abbasid Empire– Fatwa against the Mongols

• 18th century revivalism– Focus on Wahhabi movement in Saudi Arabia – Muhammad ibn Abd alWahhab

• Taymiyyah as exemplar• Called for new interpretation of Islam• Tawhid (God’s unity) – strict monotheism• Alliance with Muhammad ibn Saud (legitimacy)

Case Study: Iraqi Political Development

Why are individuals more favorably inclined to adopt one ideology rather than another?

Identity, inclusion versus exclusion.

Betting on a change in global or regional balance of power (communism, pro-West Sadat)

Desire to forge a domestic coalition

Ideological influence/ transnationalism

Outside funding

Desire to ride a popular wave

Sincere beliefs