The Challenge of Radical Islam
Article Summary and Author Biography
Any individual or government concerned with pluralism, democracy and human rights must not be complacent about the rise of militant Islamic groups. Islam is incompatible with these values--as shown by the continued oppression of women and minorities in Muslim societies. Support for democratic elections in the Middle East is thus contradictory, because radical Islamic fundamentalists, who are most likely to come to power, have no commitment to democracy. Trying to distinguish between good and bad Islamic groups may be convenient for U.S. policymakers, but it is impossible to determine which ones will keep their promises of democracy and human rights. In practice, few do.
Islam's New Battle Cry
In April 1991 an unusual meeting was held in the Sudanese capital of Khartoum. For four days, leading Islamic politicians and intellectuals from 55 countries and three continents met to draft a common strategy to establish Muslim states in their respective lands. It was an Islamic star-studded event.
Among the participants were Rashid al-Ghannoushi, the exiled leader and articulate spokesman of al-Nahda, Tunisia's Islamic opposition movement; Ibrahim Shukri, a chief of the Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt; Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the radical militant leader of Afghanistan's fundamentalist Hezb-i-Islami faction; Abassi Madani, then one of the two leaders of Algeria's ascendant Islamic Salvation Front (fis); and, of course, a high-ranking delegate from the Islamic Republic of Iran. Also present were prominent Arab leftist and nationalist figures, such as Georges Habash, the Christian head of the radical secular Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. The host was Hassan al-Turabi, the spiritual chief and mastermind of Sudan's Islamic military government, who supervised the effort to draft a plan of action for "defying the tyrannical West."
The group ultimately approved a six-point manifesto intended to demonstrate that "whatever the strength of America and the West" in the aftermath of the Gulf War, "God is greater." The manifesto paid lip service to liberalism and democracy, asserting that they were "not incompatible" with shura, or Islamic government through consultation. Political pluralism was fine, provided it was not "unlimited" and was subordinate to the need for "unity and the shura." Cooperation with the West and existing non-Islamic governments was permissible, if such exchanges were based on new and more equitable principles. "Good regimes," the document states, "will benefit from popular will; bad regimes will be fought." Read in its entirety, the manifesto's underlying message was clear: in Islam's war against the West and the struggle to build Islamic states at home, the ends justified the means...
This is a premium article
You must be a logged in Foreign Affairs subscriber to continue reading. If you wish to continue reading this article please subscribe , or activate your online account to get full online access.
