The New Nation - Internet Edition

Abdelwahab El-Affendi

The attitude of mainstream Islamist groups to political violence was recently the subject of a heated (and thankfully non-violent) debate at the Centre for the Study of Democracy (CSD) of the University of Westminster in London. At a conference organised by CSD's Democracy and Islam Programme at the end of October, Islamist leaders were challenged by diplomats and academics from Europe and the US to clarify their stance of democratic participation, and their answer was not, sad to say, that clear cut.

This was the second encounter of its kind organised by CSD, having convened a workshop last year entitled 'Electing Islamism: Islamist politics and the prospects for Arab democracy'. In that event, key Islamist leaders from Arab countries (including Iraq, the Arab Gulf and North Africa) were questioned by academics and diplomats from the West and the Arab world on their contribution to the democratisation process. That encounter was judged necessary in view of the stunning electoral successes achieved in the previous couple of years by Islamist groups in Egypt, Palestine, Bahrain, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Algeria and elsewhere. This has made Islamists crucial players in democratic politics in the Arab world, practically holding in their hands the fate of the fledgling democratic experiments in that vital region.

In that meeting, Islamists defended themselves against charges of having become an obstacle to democratisation by failing to evolve a viable programme for government or building broad coalitions to challenge entrenched regimes. The debate was inconclusive, since the movements did not appear then on the verge of a major breakthrough similar to the one Turkey has seen in 2003. But so much progress was made that it had been agreed by all those present to resume the conversation again this year.

In the meantime, a major event with a serious impact on the debate intervened, namely the "coup" executed by the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) in Gaza last June. Hamas, it is to be noted, was not included in last year's conversation, which involved the only movement that is committed to peaceful political engagement. However, the Hamas coup cast a long shadow on Islamist political participation for two reasons. First, most Islamic movements continue to support Hamas and its military tactics. In all fairness, this attitude is not restricted to Islamist groups, since the majority of opinion in the Arab world backs Hamas, and this includes the bulk of pro-western regimes, such as those of Egypt and Saudi Arabia. However, Islamists have since the time of Hasan al-Banna used the argument of the need to fight foreign enemies as a justification of maintaining a military option, which they also tended to deploy in internal political battles.

At present, groups such as Hamas, Hizbullah, the Sadr group in Iraq and various other Iraqi "resistance" movements argue that their armed wings are purely there to fight external aggression. The decision by Hamas to use its military wing to fight its political rival and mount a coup against the very government it has been democratically elected to run has created a serious credibility problem for all other Islamic movements, especially since it is a reminder also of how the armed wing of the Muslim Brotherhood had also earlier engaged in political assassinations and similar acts in the 1940s. It was accusations by Nasser in 1955 that the group attempted to assassinate him which led to the dissolution of the group, and it remains illegal to this day.

Opponents of the Islamists continue to argue that their commitment to democracy is tenuous and temporary. They would take the first opportunity to turn against it when they can. What Hamas did has lent credibility to this accusation. For Islamists, the "Hamas challenge" is to sufficiently demonstrate that these accusations are groundless.

In addition, the justification of violence by non-state actors in defense of the realm against foreign enemies practically arrogates to the groups staking this claim for the authority of the state. For legitimate violence (both in Islamic doctrine and in modern norms) is the prerogative of the legitimate state. The decision by non-state groups to take this role of defense underlines the fact that the state is unable or unwilling to shoulder this essential function. At best, then, this step could underpin and perpetuate a defective state; at worst, it could undermine the very concept of statehood and create a generalised Hobbesian anarchy where only the rule of the jungle prevails.

It may thus be absolutely essential to build a water-tight barrier between violence and politics. In the case where the state fails to live up to its role of defending the country, the solution would not be to build alternative military structures.

This would artificially prop up this defective state while sowing the seeds of a dangerous parallel military apparatus, thus giving the people the worst of both worlds. The correct approach would be to reform and re-establish the state, not "subsidise" it by doing its job for it. The same can be said about the US policies of arming militias as a counter-insurgency tactic in Iraq.

In response, the Islamist leaders agreed that politics must remain peaceful and argued that modern Islamism did prefer and preach peace. As far as they are concerned, they maintained, it is the regimes which continue to perpetuate violence against the largely peaceful Islamic opposition. They also admitted that there were occasions when Islamist groups did advocate or practice violence, and that they were wrong to do so. Crucially, however, they refused to distance themselves from the violence of Hamas or the "resistance" in Iraq. And while some agreed that Hamas has probably committed a gross blunder when it perpetrated its coup, they argued that it had been provoked

In sum, the principled commitment to non-violent politics by the leading participants in the debate was encouraging. This is especially so for the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt which is under extreme provocation. Some groups such the Algerian Society of Peace Movement has stuck to its principled stance during the dark days of the Algerian civil war of the 1990s. Other groups, such as the Tunisian Nahda party and the Justice and Development party in Morocco, have gone further than most in committing themselves to peaceful pluralistic politics.

However, the maintenance of a grey area where non-state violence is legitimated in the name of resistance tends to undermine this commitment to peaceful politics. It is extremely difficult for groups with armed capability to resist the temptation to use it to further their internal political agenda, as Hamas has recently done. The workshop was aptly entiteld 'Islamism, Democracy, and Political Violence in the Arab world: The Hamas Challenge'. Islamists will have to meet this challenge if they are to contribute positively to democratisation in the Arab world and elsewhere.

(Dr Abdelwahab El-Affendi is a Senior Lecturer at the Centre for the Study of Democracy, University of Westminster)