Review of Political Islam and the New World Disorder, by Bassam Tibi. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1998. 199 pages. Notes to p. 215. Bibl. to p. 221. Index to p. 237. $39.95.
Bassam Tibi seeks to provide an answer to what he calls the “challenge of fundamentalism,” specifically that of the “Islamic” variety. He wishes “not only to enlighten [his] readers about...religious fundamentalism but also to present an alternative” (p. xii). Tibi claims to take his stance against Islamic fundamentalism on “Islamic grounds” (p. xv).
In facing the fundamentalist challenge, Tibi states, “we need first to understand it and then to seek out instruments for dealing with it” (p. 5). Tibi’s “vision” consists of his belief in “international morality, based on democracy and human rights, as an alternative to be shared by all religions, and [he] therefore dismiss[es] equally the persistence of Western hegemony and aspirations for an Islamic domination” (p. 19). Tibi asserts that Islamic fundamentalism, unlike other (e.g., Christian) “fundamentalisms,” is universalist, “which is why it is more of a challenge to the West than any other threats” (p. 5). Tibi acknowledges that lasting peace can be achieved “only if the political, economic, and social conditions underlying the rise of fundamentalism were to improve rather than to deteriorate further” (p. 61). Yet, to address these problems and thus overcome the “challenge” of Islamic fundamentalism, Tibi merely offers platitudes: “I envisage an international morality, secular in its outlook, able to unite all humanity” (p. 63). Later in the book, Tibi writes that, when “Islamic reform” and “the adoption of historicity...become public preferences in Islamic civilization, they would present a most effective stand against the fundamentalist challenge” (p. 178)! In order to “blunt” fundamentalism’s appeal, Tibi calls for “first of all...enlightenment in the Islamic world and a better life” (p. 178).
Yet, it is not clear how establishing an “international morality,” “enlightenment” or “historicity” will resolve the economic and political situations in the Arab or Muslim Worlds and curb the influence of Islamists. Although the concepts of human rights and secularism that Tibi propounds do not diverge from those embraced by the West, he claims that "[t]he goal is...how to get us Muslims to speak the language of secular human rights in our own tongues” (p. 207). Tibi’s problem with much of the literature on Islam and the so-called Islamic “threat,” is “that the attackers and the defenders equate Islam with Islamic fundamentalism” (p. 2). Tibi seeks to distinguish between Islam and Islamic fundamentalism (although he too, as on page 15, sometimes conflates them), and to legitimize the attacks on the latter.
Whereas for Tibi, “Islam...is a tolerant religion... and cannot be a threat” (p. ix), Islamic fundamentalism is “an ideology contributing to...the `War of Civilizations”’ (p. 16; and also p. 116) and “one of the pillars of an emerging new world disorder” (p. 1; and also pp. 137, 178). This obsession with order is reminiscent of Samuel P. Huntington’s classic work, Political Order in Changing Societies, which emphasizes the need for order, as opposed to democracy. But, as critics of Huntington have shown, the concept of political order is a biased one; it places the burden of disorder on subordinates who challenge elites.
Tibi blames the Islamists, rather than the ruling autocratic elites and their patron, the United States, for the lack of democracy in the Arab and Muslim countries. Although, on one occasion, Tibi admits that "[t]he West, despite all its lip service, has not been favorable to the democratization process in the World of Islam” (p. 185), he then states (based on one quote by a single Algerian Islamist) that “I have shown that Islamic fundamentalists perceive democracy as a kufr/ heresy” (p. 26). Good Muslims, on the other hand, who adhere to Tibi’s understanding of Islam, are always referred to as “enlightened” (pp. 172, 178).
Tibi’s principal interlocutor is Samuel P. Huntington. In fact, Tibi implies that he inspired Huntington’s theory of the “clash of civilizations,” though the latter does not cite him (p. 181). Although critical of Huntington’s notion of the “clash,” Tibi sees it as a “welcome change in perspective among many in the international relations community” (p. 16). For Tibi, the fundamentalists’ revolt is “underpinned by a civilizational attitude; it is primarily a revolt against Western norms and values” (p. 37 and pp. 41, 63). Tibi tells us that it is not “Huntington but the Islamic fundamentalists themselves who draw these fault lines of conflict between civilizations” (p. 81). Tibi asserts “modern Arab and Islamic writers” are culpable “for creating a ‘West’ that is the enemy” (p. 148), rather than the other way around.
Tibi is a committed cold warrior who chastises those “peace researchers and pacifists,” “left-wing writers” and “liberals” who “dismissed attacks on communism as an instrument adopted by the West to play down its own problems” (p. 1). He asks: “Do we see here an ominous similarity between the West’s approach to communism then and its approach to fundamentalism today?” (p. 1). Other allies of fundamentalists include multiculturalists and postmodernists, who lack “a commitment to Western civilization” (p. 46 and p. 183).
In response to “those left-wing Westerners,” Tibi is at pains to produce Arab native informants who likewise aver that there exists an “Islamist challenge"-and that it constitutes a serious threat. Tibi cites King Hassan of Morocco as an expert witness “who knows fundamentalism firsthand” (p. 4).
The book is strewn with essentialist claims: “Most non-Western people find the framework for their identity in their local communities, that is, in their ethnicities” (p. 21); Iraqi President Saddam Husayn is an “oriental despot” (p. 59); the Middle Eastern state as such is a “republic of fear” (p. 122); and “Islam never ceased to be the major source of the Islamic worldview” (p. 151), and “the Kuwaitis are bedouin in elegant modern cars, enjoying the commodities of modernity"(p. 191). He also writes: “despite all of their cultural, sectarian, and ethnic diversity, Muslims from West Africa to Southeast Asia share one worldview and thus one civilization...this is cultural diversity in civilizational unity” (p. 109). Finally, while for Tibi Iraqi identity is “imposed” and thus fake, Shi’i and Kurdish identities are “real” (p. 122)!
The book is full of silly and gratuitous neologisms and coinages. Examples include “War of Civilizations” (p. 16), “ethnofundamentalism” (p. 34), “Islamic dream of semi-democracy” (p. 66), and “simultaneity of structural globalization and cultural fragmentation” (p. 66). It is also full of transliteration mistakes and incorrect renderings of Arabic words to English. The most egregious includes “Darb Al-Kufr Kullahu bi al-iman Kullahu,” when the correct rendering is the genitive form Kullihi in both instances (p. 59). It is “zill Allah” not “zul Allah” (p. 160), “al-ma’a” not “al-m’a” (p. 163), “minzar” not “mindar” (p. 224), and “Mustaqbal” not “Mutaqbal” (p. 224). Also, Samir al-Khalil is the alias of Kanan Makiya, not the other way around (p. 95). For some odd reason, Jewish authors are identified by their religion. These include Raymond Aron (p. 39), and Ernst Bloch (p. 76). Only Richard Falk escapes being thus identified (p. 111). Christian authors, however, are never identified.
This is not an academic book. Instead, it is a personal book that tells us what Bassam Tibi believes, what he thinks, and what he recommends. Born in Damascus and raised through his formative years in a “culture that subordinates the individual to the group,” Tibi tells us how he later became “fascinated in Europe by the culture of individual human rights.” As a result, Tibi reveals, he finds himself “a lone toiler in the intellectual vineyards, enjoying my work despite my seeming isolation” (p. xiii). He adds that only Arab Christians and a handful of Muslims, “myself included” argue for a disentanglement of religion from politics (p. 106). He declares what he believes as “a Muslim,” “as a liberal Muslim” (pp. 61, 103), as “a devout Muslim” (p. 2), and as a “liberal Muslim with a Middle Eastern background” (p. 155). Without explanation or documentation, he also tells us: “I am familiar with [fundamentalist]terrorist threats from my own experience” (p. 76). Originality is indeed a rare occurrence in this interminably tedious and repetitious book, except in one regard: self-referentiality. Tibi’s text is replete with references to himself, with the ever-present “I” making an appearance throughout. Furthermore, in a book of 536 footnotes, he refers to himself a whopping 150 times in 141 footnotes! He even directs the reader to others’ praise of his work. He tells us twice to consult Fouad Ajami’s The Arab Predicament "[flor a reference and a contextualization of this article of mine” (pp. 231, 240). Like Ajami, though with much less eloquence, Tibi calls on Arabs and Muslims to embrace his distorted vision of what European “modernity” represents. Those who resist his call are nothing but dark forces attacking “enlightenment.”
Joseph Massad is assistant professor of modern Arab intellectual history at Columbia University.