The attention of the world is focused now on the Arab world. We are watching a fault line cracking; decades old political constructs of tyranny and abuse are being challenged and overturned across the Arab Muslim world. When the upheavals have ended what will take their places; will democracy and civil society rise in the Arab world, or will a different brand of despotism, oligarchy, Islamic theocracy, and/or military dictatorship rise instead?
The historical record suggests that revolutionary events such as we are witnessing across the Arab world are not without historical precedent or context. There were revolutions across Europe in 1848, the Communist Revolution of 1917, the French Revolution of 1789, the fall of the Soviet Union and Eastern European client states in 1989, and the Iranian Islamic Revolution of 1979. Where in history should we look for guidance?
The Arab world is unified in one way only, through Islam. The doctrine of Islam and its barbaric “legal system” Sharia are antithetical to democracy. It is clear in the doctrine of Islam and its legal system that man-made law and governments are illegitimate. The only legitimate system that is considered acceptable to Allah and Mohammed and thus to every adherent of Islam on the planet is the caliphate (a unified political/religious Islamic state) governed under strict adherence to Allah’s law, Sharia.
Muslims who live in a non-Islamic state are allowed to waffle in the strictness of their observance of Islamic practice and Sharia only if such waffling is to support the eventual overthrow of the host country’s political system (“illegitimate” in the Islamic view because it is not Islamic). The doctrine of Islam states that when the time is right (see: Sam Solomon’s “Modern Day Trojan Horse: Al-Hijra, The Islamic Doctrine of Immigration, Accepting Freedom or Imposing Islam?”), believers must rise against the kafir and overthrow the illegitimate non-Islamic government. This rule also includes Arab/Muslim states that aren’t Islamic enough.
Our Founding Fathers dealt with jihadists when they were confronted with Barbary piracy, mainly originating in what is now the failed country of “Libya”. Thomas Jefferson ordered the construction of the US Navy specifically so that a force could be sent to the Barbary States to oppose their piratical jihad crimes. We know from the diplomatic correspondence of the time and the congressional record that the motivation of the Barbary pirates was “jihad” against the unbelievers as adherents are ordered to do by Allah and Mohammed in Koran and Suna (Hadith and Sira).
When they inquired by what right the Barbary states preyed upon American shipping, enslaving both crews and passengers, America’s two foremost envoys were informed that “it was written in the Koran, that all Nations who should not have acknowledged their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon whoever they could find and to make Slaves of all they could take as prisoners, and that every Mussulman who should be slain in battle was sure to go to Paradise. City Pages
When the French Revolution of 1789 occurred, several years after their first experience with Barbary jihadism, Jefferson supported the Revolution of 1789, while Adams did not. Jefferson, the populist, saw the overthrow of the French monarchy (regardless of regicide) as a positive advancement for the French people. Adams believed that the Revolution would devolve into its opposite, from popular liberty and self-rule to tyranny, terror, and aggressive war. Adams believed that the revolution would first eat itself then it would attack others; he was right. The Reign of Terror and the rise of Bonaparte validated Adams’ deep concern and cynicism at the likely outcome of the Revolution and proved Jefferson’s populist optimism wrong.
In a retrospective letter to Jefferson Adams wrote (7/13/1813)
You were well persuaded in your own mind that [France] would succeed in establishing a free republican government; I was as well persuaded, in mine, that a project of such a government over five and twenty millions of people, when four and twenty millions and five hundred thousands of them could neither write nor read, was as unnatural, irrational, and impracticable as it would be over the elephants, lions, tigers, panthers, wolves, and bears in the Royal Menagerie at Versailles.
The similarities between Adams’ estimation of the likely outcome of the French Revolution and the current circumstances of the people of many Arab countries bear examination.
It is understood that the majority of the people of these unfortunate Arab states, whose governments are now being challenged and/or overthrown are generally unemployed/poverty stricken, poorly educated, and highly propagandized (e.g., hatred of Jews and Israel). The youth population is high in all of them (no pun intended). They are all majority Muslim societies.
It would appear that the instantaneous and uncensored availability of information and messages over the internet played a substantial role in both Tunisia and Egypt. (Technical acumen is not necessarily equivalent to education or knowledge.) The Egyptian government’s efforts to “shut off” the internet proved fruitless. Similar internet advocacy and information sharing may have aided the anti-Khadafy forces of Libya.
That we are seeing historical echoes in these massive popular uprisings is without question as Khadafy appears to be channeling Hitler from his bunker in the final days of WW2. Prior to his radio message of abdication (delivered from his bunker), Hitler ordered that all the infrastructure of Germany be destroyed. In his mind, if the war was lost and the Nazi epoch was to shrivel up and die, then clearly the German people ought to suffer for generations.
“If the war is lost,” Hitler told his Minister of Armaments, Albert Speer, “the nation will also perish. This fate is inevitable. There is no necessity to take into consideration the basis which the people will need to continue even a most primitive existence. On the contrary, it will be better to destroy these things ourselves, because this nation will have proved to be the weaker one and the future will belong solely to the stronger eastern nation. Besides, those who will remain after the battle are only the inferior ones, for the good ones have all been killed.” (Source)
The Hitler destruction orders were not carried out, which allowed Germany to recover from the war quicker than it otherwise might have. In Libya, the dictator has a similar mindset, if the people are to turn him out, he will take as many with him as possible. There is violence in the streets and many Libyans are paying the ultimate price to expunge the hated Khadafy from their country. When Khadafy is gone, which seems inevitable (barring a total loss of spine across the entire civilized world to fail to support the Libyan people), what kind of political system will rise in his place?
The conflict between popularism and institutions has been central to the development of American ideas of government since our own revolution. But what of the Arab world? As these revolutions progress and there is an absence of (authoritarian) leadership and any institutions to take their places (other than the Muslim Brotherhood and similar Islamic groups) what hope do we have that democracy will rise in the Arab world? The lack of any historical affinity for democracy in this Islamic region must be cause for worry.
Our lengthy and costly involvement in Iraq might suggest that this has been an experiment to determine if democracy can be planted in the Arab world – and if Islam and democracy are compatible. It might appear to some observers that we have been slightly successful. However, a reading of the constitution of Iraq would suggest a more negative conclusion:
Article 2: First: Islam is the official religion of the State and it is a fundamental source of legislation:
A. No law that contradicts the established provisions of Islam may be established.
B. No law that contradicts the principles of democracy may be established.
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Article 2a of the Iraqi Constitution asserts that Iraq is an Islamic state, and that the legal “code” of Islam (Sharia) is foundational. Any reading of Sharia law, Islamic doctrine (Koran, Sira, and Hadith), or of the history of Islam shows that Islam in its current and historical form is not compatible with democracy as we understand the term.
Article 2b states that no law that contradicts “democracy” is allowed. One has to imagine that the concept of “democracy” under an Islamic Sharia state is very different than that of most Americans.
The constitution of Iraq contains a devastating contradiction that cannot be resolved unless we abandon our accepted understanding of what the term “democracy” means. There cannot be legitimized (as under Sharia) supremacism, misogyny, death sentences for those who wish to leave Islam, legalized wife beating, clitoral removal/mutilation, and an unequal, dualistic judicial system (believers are treated differently than non-believers under Sharia) if there is to be “democracy” in the way that we understand the term.
Our goal to bring freedom and opportunity to the Iraqi people may not be successful in the long run because the constitution (which Americans helped to write) of this new state specifically allows a legal system that is brutal, barbaric, misogynist, and contrary to American democratic ideals.
Surely, there should be an investigation to determine why this new nation, which we fought so hard to liberate at great cost, has tyranny and barbarism built-in to its new constitution. Silence on the matter of the Iraqi constitution as a Sharia law document is deafening. (It should be noted that Afghanistan’s new constitution contains similar language.)
If there has been a singular great failure of our efforts, and there have been many problems, it is that we have left the nascent Iraqi democracy with the tools to legitimately undermine/destroy itself, that is, a constitutional mandate for Sharia law.
There are two disparate themes in response to the growing “Arab Spring” revolutionary movements: hope and despair. The fall of dictators is always the source of hope, but despair almost always follows in the political power vacuum that results.
Because Islam is the centrality that binds all of these countries any analysis of events in the Arab world must begin there. The nature of Islam is not vibrant, intellectual, nor democratic.
According to the UN Development Program Report of 2002, as quoted by Thomas Friedman in the New York Times (8/04/2009):
Greece alone translated five times more books every year from English to Greek than the entire Arab world translated from English to Arabic; the G.D.P. of Spain was greater than that of all 22 Arab states combined; 65 million Arab adults were illiterate.
There is cause for both hope and concern at the events unfolding in the Arab world. If we look to history for instruction where should we look?
With populations mainly young and unemployed, poorly educated, heavily propagandized and living within the mindset of Islam, the Arab states have much to overcome. While we hold out hope for the millions of Arabs apparently yearning for freedom we must accept that there is also a yearning for Islam, and more of it, not less among a certain number of them.
Our enthusiasm for the populism and generally non-violent behavior of the protesters in the Egyptian revolution must be tempered by the violent sexual assault on CBS correspondent Lara Logan in Cairo’s Tahrir Square. Members of the crowd shouted “Jew, Jew” as they viciously assaulted Ms. Logan. Her religious beliefs are obviously entirely irrelevant.
The conflict between Jefferson and Adams over the French Revolution, between populism/mob rule and authority/institutions should be recalled. The world then, just as now, hoped for a birth of popular freedom in France but it was rewarded instead with terror, murder, barbarism, and finally aggressive war and despotism.
The fault line opening and shaking before us daily across the Arab world is not a bridge between tyranny and democracy but between Islamic universality and Islamic reformation. If these Arab states can bring reform to Islam, then democracy as Americans understand it is possible. If Islam in its current form remains the foundational uniting concept among all tribes and peoples in these lands then democracy cannot exist there, as the two are not compatible.
If Libya, Tunisia, Egypt and even Syria and Saudi Arabia become secular democracies, then we have cause for profound celebration at the dawning of a new era of potential world peace and prosperity. If Islam is the victor and the “Arab Spring” revolutions rot on the vine, then all of our centuries-old concepts of the rivalries between secular political systems will be buried. We will have (re-)entered a new era of religion-based international conflict, a scenario that many – particularly Utopian, postmodern, leftist progressives – had thought, in error, had been left behind long ago.
If the Arab world embraces a stronger Islam and moves toward a renewal and rebirth of the Caliphate, every political scientist in the west must return to school; in addition to the study of history and politics, much of their time will be spent in the department of theology.