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“Democratisation
is a Gradual Process”
Sadiq
Al-Azm
One basic issue that must be raised, in my view, is the stance that Arab
intellectuals take towards authority. Why, after independence and the decades
that followed it, are there no intellectual groups today that work independently
of ideology or of an intellectual leader?
al-Azm: I’m afraid I cannot entirely explain the background of the
historical reasons. The post World War II period, the great shock caused by the
founding of the state of Israel, the expulsion of the Palestinian people and the
gradual loss of Palestine made intellectuals want to reverse the historical
process or at least stop Israeli expansionism. As a personality such as Abdul
Nasser appeared, or as the 1958 revolution occurred in Iraq, intellectuals were
attracted to such institutionalised programmes. A movement emerged that wanted
to bring about radical changes in Arab society which in turn opened up
possibilities for major goals. Arab intellectuals had great expectations
concerning the movement of Arab liberation, or the Pan-Arab project. I believe
that a large proportion of intellectuals supported that project out of
conviction, not out of opportunism or a desire for materialistic gains.
But the relation of Arab intellectual towards authority remains problematic.
It is said that the Arab intellectual can be bought very easily. Would you say
that this is true?
al-Azm:
Some of the intellectuals who gained prominence in the sixties and supported the
Nasserite movement actually came from the countryside. Those groups that
initiated coups d’état and regime changes allowed them to leave the
countryside, move to the city, and acquire sufficient education to become
intellectuals. So a kind of ends-oriented affinity developed between them and
the new authorities, a kind of ”filia”, to use a term of Max Weber. It was
an affiliation, a connection and a basic relationship that overruled the premise
of critical distance. It had to do with self-interests and the opportunity that
had allowed them, as rural people, to reach the positions they were in. For the
longest time, they had been deprived of schools, education, hospitals and the
institutionalised services that existed in the city. It was that group of
intellectuals that played a considerable role in forming the Ba’th party in
Iraq and in Syria and in paving the way to Ba’th’s accession to power.
Nasserism in Egypt had followed a similar path. After a period of time, however,
those groups began to distance themselves from the regimes, which had not only
given them the opportunity to gain access to the intellectual elite, but who had
also allowed them to develop direct kinship ties to the pillars of authority.
For example, a critical intellectual might have brothers who are members of the
intelligence services, the army or the government, simply because they all
originated from a certain privileged village. Family ties are still very
important in the Arab World.
The interest system that prevails in the Arab World is one of the main
reasons for its backwardness. But can you explain the backwardness at the
political level and the failure to initiate democratic processes with those
economic reasons alone?
al-Azm: Economic reasons are never immediate reasons. Economic factors
only influence society indirectly. This whole issue of democracy in the Arab
world is sometimes presented in such a desolate light. As long as no democratic
traditions exist in the Arab World, it is said, democratic values cannot be
established. But every country first has to attain democratic values and
traditions. That is a historical process. I do not believe that there are some
people who are born with democratic genes, and others who do not possess them. I
would like to emphasise that the battle for democracy and human rights and the
concomitant collection of values does not merely take the shape of a conflict
between East and West and between Islam and Europe. It is an internal battle in
every country. Every country that has developed certain civilisational standards
goes through that battle – whether we talk about Germany, China, India, Syria
or Egypt. Each of those countries has reached a particular level in achieving
these standards, strengthening them and implementing them. It is therefore
necessary to remember that the battle is not only a battle between East and
West, between the Middle East and Islam on the one hand and liberalism on the
other.
There is a ray of hope in the Arab world for emancipation from this crisis, even
concerning the regimes themselves. We have no choice but to embrace the values
of democracy and human rights and to establish a balance of powers, even if only
in a partial process, even if we start out with thirty or forty per cent of
democracy. It is worth noting that democrats try to establish their roots in a
previous phase. In Egypt, for example, they refer back to the liberal
parliamentary period, described by Albert Hourani as the Liberal age. The same
holds true for Syria, where democrats are trying to fall back on the 1950s and
the period of struggle against French imperialism. These groups try to create
myths of origin.
Did something in particular occur that made those groups try to return to
that past?
al-Azm: I do not think that anything in particular has happened. It is
just that all other programmes had failed, whether we talk about movements of
national liberation, Arab socialism or international communism. That also
explains why there was a change of direction. Now, like I said, everyone is
turning to Turkey as a model.
In the wake of the September 11 events, you expected Islamist activities to
come to an end. Now, however, we experience that the Islamist movement is still
alive and kicking, particularly due to the war on Iraq.
al-Azm:
I disagree. Firstly,
the Islamic movement has filled the vacuum that emerged after the Arab
liberation movement ended in the years following the defeat of 1967 – and even
more so after the war of 1973. In the following thirty years, Islamist movements
have achieved something quite unique and remarkable: They have moved Arab
societies into a more conservative and traditional Islamic direction,
particularly concerning the role of women. But they have achieved something else
as well. They are now in a position to exert control over cultural, intellectual
and political issues. In the past, those issues were dominated by the political
left, by pan-Arabists and by the secular parties. Now, however, Islamists
dominate the public discourse in the Arab world.
But when Islamists become a power to be reckoned with or when they actually take
power, they ultimately faile. They did not even offer a hint of a workable
Islamic alternative – from Iran to the Taliban. I have pointed out that the
resorting to blind terrorism is an expression of the depth of the Islamist
movement’s crisis, and not at all an expression of its rising and ascending.
Interview: Larissa Bender and Mona Naggar, Qantara.de © 2003, Qantara.de
Translated from the Arabic: Samira Kawer
Sadiq Jalal al-Azm was born in Damascus in 1934. He studied philosophy in Beirut
and has worked as a university professor in New York, Beirut, Amman and
Damascus. The title of his most prominent book is ”Critique of Religious
Thought”.
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