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Civil Democratic Islam |
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Below is the summary of the book Civil Democratic Islam
that has been published by RAND Corporation. |
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The RAND Corporation is a USA institution that helps improve policy and decisionmaking through research and analysis. |
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SUMMARY |
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We can distinguish four essential positions: |
• Fundamentalists reject democratic values and contemporary Western
culture. They want an authoritarian, puritanical state that will implement their
extreme view of Islamic law and morality. They are willing to use innovation and
modern technology to achieve that goal.
• Traditionalists want a conservative society. They are suspicious
of modernity, innovation, and change.
• Modernists want the Islamic world to become part of global modernity.
They want to modernize and reform Islam to bring it into line with the age.
• Secularists want the Islamic world to accept a division of church
and state in the manner of Western industrial democracies, with religion relegated
to the private sphere. |
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These groups hold distinctly different positions on essential issues that have become
contentious in the Islamic world today, including political and individual freedom,
education, the status of women, criminal justice, the legitimacy of reform and change,
and attitudes toward the West. |
The fundamentalists are hostile to the West and to the United States
in particular and are intent, to varying degrees, on damaging and destroying democratic
modernity. Supporting them is not an option, except for transitory tactical considerations.
The traditionalists generally hold more moderate views, but there
are significant differences between different groups of traditionalists. Some are
close to the fundamentalists. None wholeheartedly embraces modern democracy and
the culture and values of modernity and, at best, can only make an uneasy peace
with them. |
The modernists and secularists are closest to
the West in terms of values and policies. However, they are generally in a weaker
position than the other groups, lacking powerful backing, financial resources, an
effective infrastructure, and a public platform.
The secularists, besides sometimes being unacceptable as allies
on the basis of their broader ideological affiliation, also have trouble addressing
the traditional sector of an Islamic audience. Traditional orthodox Islam contains
democratic elements that can be used to counter the repressive, authoritarian Islam
of the fundamentalists, but it is not suited to be the primary vehicle of democratic
Islam. That role falls to the Islamic modernists, whose effectiveness, however,
has been limited by a number of constraints, which this report will explore. |
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To encourage positive change in the Islamic world toward greater democracy, modernity,
and compatibility with the contemporary international world order, the United States
and the West need to consider very carefully which elements, trends, and forces
within Islam they intend to strengthen; what the goals and values of their various
potential allies and protégés really are; and what the broader consequences of advancing
their respective agendas are likely to be. A mixed approach composed of the following
elements is likely to be the most effective: |
• Support the modernists first:
— Publish and distribute their works at subsidized cost.
— Encourage them to write for mass audiences and for youth.
— Introduce their views into the curriculum of Islamic education.
— Give them a public platform.
— Make their opinions and judgments on fundamental questions of religious interpretation
available to a mass audience in competition with those of the fundamentalists and
traditionalists, who have Web sites, publishing houses, schools, institutes, and
many other vehicles for disseminating their views.
— Position secularism and modernism as a “counterculture” option for disaffected
Islamic youth.
— Facilitate and encourage an awareness of their pre- and non-Islamic history and
culture, in the media and the curricula of relevant countries.
— Assist in the development of independent civic organizations, to promote civic
culture and provide a space for ordinary citizens to educate themselves about the
political process and to articulate their views. |
• Support the traditionalists against the fundamentalists:
— Publicize traditionalist criticism of fundamentalist violence and extremism; encourage
disagreements between traditionalists and fundamentalists.
— Discourage alliances between traditionalists and fundamentalists.
— Encourage cooperation between modernists and the traditionalists who are closer
to the modernist end of the spectrum.
— Where appropriate, educate the traditionalists to equip them better for debates
against fundamentalists. Fundamentalists are often rhetorically superior, while
traditionalists practice a politically inarticulate “folk Islam.”
In such places as Central Asia, they may need to be educated and trained in orthodox
Islam to be able to stand their ground.
— Increase the presence and profile of modernists in traditionalist institutions.
— Discriminate between different sectors of traditionalism. Encourage those with
a greater affinity to modernism, such as the Hanafi law school, versus others. Encourage
them to issue religious opinions and popularize these to weaken the authority of
backward Wahhabi-inspired religious rulings.
This relates to funding: Wahhabi money
goes to the support of the conservative Hanbali school.
It also relates to knowledge:
More-backward parts of the Muslim world are not aware of advances in the application
and interpretation of Islamic law.
— Encourage the popularity and acceptance of Sufism. |
• Confront and oppose the fundamentalists:
— Challenge their interpretation of Islam and expose inaccuracies.
— Reveal their linkages to illegal groups and activities.
— Publicize the consequences of their violent acts.
— Demonstrate their inability to rule, to achieve positive development of their
countries and communities.
— Address these messages especially to young people, to pious traditionalist populations,
to Muslim minorities in the West, and to women.
— Avoid showing respect or admiration for the violent feats of fundamentalist extremists
and terrorists. Cast them as disturbed and cowardly, not as evil heroes.
— Encourage journalists to investigate issues of corruption, hypocrisy, and immorality
in fundamentalist and terrorist circles.
— Encourage divisions among fundamentalists. |
• Selectively support secularists:
— Encourage recognition of fundamentalism as a shared enemy, discourage secularist
alliance with anti-U.S. forces on such grounds as nationalism and leftist ideology.
— Support the idea that religion and the state can be separate in Islam too and
that this does not endanger the faith but, in fact, may strengthen it. |
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Whichever approach or mix of approaches is chosen, we recommend that it be done
with careful deliberation, in knowledge of the symbolic weight of certain issues;
the meaning likely to be assigned to the alignment of U.S. policymakers with particular
positions on these issues; the consequences of these alignments for other Islamic
actors, including the risk of endangering or discrediting the very groups and people
we are seeking to help; and the opportunity costs and possible unintended consequences
of affiliations and postures that may seem appropriate in the short term. |
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