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Comments Download Summary: Islamists arescoring electoral gains in theArab Spring. This is indeed avictory for many Islamists , butnot a victory for Islamism . Far from a de ning triumph, these are precarious gains that willreverse unless Islamism isfundamentally transforme d.Such transformed Islamismmay retain little from its militantantecedents. The Arab Spring: A Victory for Islamism? by Hassan Mneimneh 1744 R Street NWWashington, DC 20009T 1 202 683 2650F 1 202 265 1662E in o@gm us.org March 2012 Paper Series Te Arab Spring started as a cry o reedom in response to entrenchedauthoritarianism . Across NorthA rica and the Middle East, indi- viduals and groups in ectiously must ered the courage to stand up inthe ace o the repression machineso dictatorial regim es. Virtually noArabic-speaking country remaineduna ected. Te notion o an Arabexcept ionalism tracing back political apathy to some innatecultural trait was undamen-ta lly challenged, some may arguediscredited, with the now visibleactivism o Arab yo uth as an inspi-ration or heterogeneous move-ments across the world: rom riotsin L ondon and other U.K. cities inthe summer o 2011, through theOccupy movement in th e UnitedStates, to anti-Putin demonstrationsin Russia.Yet, more than one year on , whilethe turmoil and unrest continues, adistinct change in the outlook o the vi sible actors at the ore ront o theArab Spring is evident. Te electoralresults in unis ia and Egypt seemto con rm the expectations o somethat the Arab Spring would yielda n Islamist Winter. Opinion pollsacross the region consistently placeIslamist polit ical ormations and gures at the top o approval lists.More indicatively, an overview o the Arab media-sphere broad-cast, print, and online reveal animposing preponder ance o Islamist voices, with the ew liberal publicintellectuals o en submerged by th e rhetorical hegemony o theIslamists.While it is evident that Islamist ormations ac ross the Arab worldare set to reap the immediatebene ts o the uprisings andprotests , and that the next phase inArab political history will witnesssome o these ormati ons at thehelm o government in their nation-states, considerable arguments canbe raised against describing theun olding situation as an Islamist victory or a victo ry or Islamism.Te issue is not about semantics.Te di erent characterizationsdictate divergent approaches inengaging both governments andsocieties in the region.Des pite ongoing attempts athistorical revisionism, the Islamistsneither anticipated nor planned orthe uprisings that have dramati-cally changed the Arab politicalor

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Te Arab Spring was ignitedby the religiously prohibited act o sel -immolation the unisianstreet vendor, Muhammad Bu-Azizi,set himsel on re in late December2 Te concept o sustainedpeace ul mass protests, the appealto the universal value reedom,empowerment, and dignity, and the

2 Islamists neither anticipated norplanned for the uprisings thathave dramatically changed theArab political order. call or inclusiveness in national trans ormation allamounting to the toolkit o the Ara b Spring as it moved rom one society to another were neither contem-plated nor art iculated by any o the Islamist trends, orstood clearly in contradiction with thei r stated positions. The Arab Common Cultural Space:The Incubator of the Spring Te Arab political order, as it stood in late 2010, gave theillusion o permanence. With virtually no exception, theArab world was dominated by entrenched, seeming ly invulnerable autocracies. Te only regime change to beseen in the region in de cades had been the 2003 topplingo Saddam Hussein, through the means o external orces , and with less than attractive results o ragmenta-tion, chaos, and a reconstituti ng autocracy.Prior to the rise o Islamism in the 1980s, Arab politicalculture had endured three successive grand narratives:paternalistic (elite) liberalism rom t he 1920s into the1940s, populist nationalism in the 1950s and 1960s, andrevoluti onary le ism in the 1970s. None succeeded indelivering promised justice and develo pment. By theearly 1980s, instead, an Arab political order o klepto-cratic tyrann ies coalesced, ruling by intimidation and ear, and reducing much o the population t o despair.Islamism the conceptualization o Islam as the rame-work that ought to sh ape or dictate political and socialinstitutions evolved as the discourse o dissen t andopposition against regimes that relied on the recedinggrand narratives or th eir legitimacy.Even in their consecutive heydays, these grand narrativeso Arab po litical culture were characterized by strongrhetorical ormulations that were not backed by coherentprograms or sustained institutions. Te modernityanticipated by t he elite liberals, the unity promised by the nationalists, and even the socialism br andished by the le ists, lacked substantive descriptions o plan andcontent. As the new grand narrative, Islamism ollowedthe same course.Islamism posited the Islamic State as its end goal.However, beyond ritualism and social regimentation,little s ubstance was o ered as to the nature o the stateinstitutions and structures, or to the process leading to itsestablishment. Instead, each o the two main schools o Is lamism tapped into the discourse o a previous grandnarrative or its methodology. T e majority accom-modationist school, represented in the last ew decadesby the Musli m Brotherhood movement, adopted many acets o modernism, accepting the ballot box a s themeans to accede to power and thus advocating a degreeo compatibility between its understanding o Islam anddemocratic processes. Te minority radical school,repr esented by the various Sala st currents, was itsel split between a large quietist acti on that opted out o active politics and was hence o en encouraged and/orsupported b y the regimes and a small Jihadist actionthat embraced the methods and nomenclatu re o revolu-tionary le ism. A third path within Islamism, inspiredby the nationalist coups dtat that the region endured inmid-20 th century, advocated the mobilization o the mili-tary and other state institutions o r a top-down takeoverleading to the Islamic state.In contrast to the dearth o con tent in ideological ormulations, the expansion and integration o the Arabcultural s pace in the 1990s and 2000s largely attrib-utable to the new media, particularly satellite televi-sion and the internet allowed or the appropriationo both ideas a nd means by the disparate youth o theArab region. A considerable raction o this new popularculture was consumerist in character, and was thusimplicitly encouraged by the regimes (and denouncedby the Islamists) or its escapism. However, the newm edia also served or the consolidation o concepts and values in line with the inher ent expectation o justice anddevelopment common across Arab societies. Freedom o e xpression, the right to diversity, and individualism values inconsistent with th e interests o both autocratsand theocrats were strengthened in practice, evenwhen their theoretical expression was absent.Te spontaneous, almost unstoppable spre

ad o protestsand uprisings in 2011 was indeed in ormed, i notoutright ueled by though ts and methods that hadmatured in the new common Arab cultural space. Aconsidera ble dissonance was evident between the unitary,o en totalitarian, ideal o the ideol ogical ormulationscirculating in the common Arab cultural space, andits de acto untamable pluralism. Propositions o , andinstructions or, the most austere o religio us regimen3 in gaining wide acceptance, even when reluctant, o their proposition o Islam as a unitary total system,with their competing versions as genuine. Islamism, asIslam , is presumably the comprehensive solution, means,methods, and end.Yet, while de cades o ideological haranguing had ailedto produce an Islamist popular uprising, t he Arab Springun olded out o the scope anticipated or advocated by Islamists. Te Is lamists may rejoice in the unravelingo the Arab political order. Many o them have or willbene t politically, in a more or less lasting victory.Islamism itsel , howeve r, has not been vindicated.Te Arab Spring has handed the Islamists an unexpected ,maybe undeserved, victory. It is a considerable victory nonetheless. Islamists have won, or are poised to win,every reasonably air election since the advent o th etrans ormations in the region. Te basis o their appealis, however, not indicative o the identi cation o theelectorate with their ideology. It can be even argued thatt he current good ortunes o the Islamists is due both totheir (partial) success in c on ating Islam and Islamismand to their ailure to articulate the applicability o the irthus total Islam on politics and the economy.With the previous grand narratives discredited by theirassociation with the regimes, and with many o thesubstantive political ideas lacking adequate articulationand thus o en being summarily dismiss ed (secularismas atheism, liberalism as debauchery, capitalism asexploitation), the lack o substance o an Islamism thatis even vaguely equitable with Islam o ers Is lamists theafnity vote o large segments o the electorate. Whilethe assumption o pow er provides the Islamists with theability to consolidate their stands through vi sibility andpatronage, it also exposes them to the scrutiny o thepublic eye. As t he opposition, Islamism was able to thrivewithout substance through its reliance on the provision o services to limited segments o the population, its rejecThe basis of the Islamistsappeal is not indicative of the identi cation of the electorate with their ideology. tation coexisted in the media-sphere with the pro ane,the curious, and the obscene . Even when the valuespromoted were ones o intolerance and violence, themeta-valu es o the common cultural space were coexis-tence and right o choice.Trough the int er-state organizations o the Arab League,the Arab political order had long claime d to adhere to theideal o an ultimate uni cation o the Arab homeland.Te Arab world ent ered the 21 st century with the illu-sionary promise o such political unity having been dissi-pa ted by the realization o di erences between and withinArab societies, as well as by the raging con icts betweenArab states. Still, the Arab common cultural spaceelev ated the interaction between Arab societies to createa community o shared concern s, and indeed rei ed thepreviously merely stipulated notion o an Arab culture.Tis non ideological cultural convergence evolved in thecontext o an enhanced exposure to global, and particu-larly Western, culture. Western cultural ormats werethus wide ly adapted and adopted, but the production andconsumption o content remained larg ely an intra-Araba air. Te angst o the previous generation o intellectualsand activi sts regarding the appropriate balance betweennative authenticity and imported moder nity lost itsprominence, i not its signi cance. Islam, Islamism, and the Evolving Political Culture Undoubtedly, Islam and Islamism have occupied a largesegment o the new cultural s pace. Actually, it is throughthis shared occupation that Islamism may have accom -plished its most signi cant (yet incomplete) victory:that o positing an equation b etween itsel and Islam.Historically, Islam as a religious system was presentedand lived by its many adherents as a consistent core, withmultiple, o en contradictor

y, rami cations expanding onit, while leaving large swaths o li e and society outside o its con nes. Ecstatic mystics, rationalist philosophers,dogmatic scholars, and ev en syncretistic worshiperspresented credible arguments or the claim o rootingtheir belie and practice in Islamic essence, while actionsand institutions not address ed by the core were widely adopted by Muslims. Islamism engaged in a novel trunc a-tion and expansion o this system, excluding most rami- cations, and imposing an a rbitrary (and undeveloped)umbrella over much o what was previously not included.I n its most radical orms, it thus became a totalitarianattempt at incorporating al l acets o the li e o adherentsinto an evolving regimentation. Still, through ob usca-ti on and targeted saturation, Islamists have succeeded Leave a Comment You must be logged in to leave a comment. Submit Characters: 400 The Arab Spring: A Victory for Islamism? This Brussels Forum paper examines the impact of the Arab Spring on Islamism. Download or Print 52 Reads Uploaded by gmfus Follow TIP Press Ctrl-F to quickly search anywhere in the document. 4 p. Korean Hallyu in Trade Policy This policy brief looks at South Korea s use of preferential trade agreements. 3 p. Turkey: A Global Swing State This policy brief argues that based on its increasingly important role on t... 4 p. Russias Spreading Nationalist Infection This policy brief discusses the sources of a new wave of Russian nationalism. Upload a Document Search Documents Follow Us! scribd.com/scribd twitter.com/scribd facebook.com/scribd About Press Blog Partners Scribd 101 Web Stuff Support FAQ Developers / API Jobs Terms Copyright Privacy Copyright 2012 Scribd Inc. Language: English