Islamist and Democratic Advances in the Middle East

Islamism, while always a driving force behind politics in the Middle East, has in the past three decades experienced an upsurge in both real political power, and political power relative to the state. This upsurge of political Islamist movements has been possible due to many factors operating within the region, including domestic and international pressure on individual countries to open up the political system, the strength of the religious institution itself in the face of a shortage of other organizations, paradoxical support from the governments which the Islamists were opposing, outside support from other successful Islamist states and groups, certain sociological changes within the region, and the fact that, in most of the modern Middle East, a truly Islamist government is the only ideology that has not yet been tried, and thus holds a certain appeal that previous governments, such as monarchies, empires, and dictatorships, have lost due to various failures. Another form of government that has not yet been tried by most Middle Eastern states is real democracy; unlike Islamism, however, there have been very few advances for democracy in the past thirty years. Interestingly, it seems that the very successes of the Islamist groups have helped impede democratic advances. Both Turkey and Egypt showcase these two trends themselves, and the relationship which exists between them, albeit in different ways.

The rise of Islamist politics in modern Turkey can be traced back to the first time the political process truly opened up, due to increasing pressure from Turkish citizens. This opening allowed an opposition party to win control of the government, in 1950, when the Republican People’s Party (RPP) (created by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk) lost to the newly-formed Democrats, created by dissidents from the RPP. Despite Ataturk’s dedication to secularism, when the Democrats won power they responded to the Islamist pressures to increase the role of religion in the state, mainly by increasing government funds for the construction of mosques, allowing religious schooling to Muslim students, and facilitating the production of Islamic publications. Here, then, it was the political opening itself that allowed an Islamist-leaning party to come into power. The Turkish military perpetrated a coup in 1960, forcing the Democratic government out of power, and jailing many of the Democratic leaders. The military also set about re-writing the constitution to reenforce both democracy and secularism. The military swiftly returned the country to civilian rule, and over the next few years, the political process was allowed to open up again. This opening ultimately resulted in the Islamist National Salvation Party (NSP) holding a large public rally in September of 1980, which prompted the military to step in and take control of the government again, and led to the banning of the NSP. After civilian control was returned, Islamist groups came to power again in the 1990s, precipitating another military intervention; currently, an Islamist party, the Justice and Development Party (AKP), is in power; whether the military will step in again remains to be seen. What is clear, however, is a pattern of an opening political system followed by the coming to power of Islamist groups.

The same dynamic can be seen in Egypt, with Anwar Sadat’s opening of the political system along with the economy following the 1973 war with Israel. For the first time since Gamal Abdel Nasser had outlawed them in 1954, the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood was allowed a limited amount of leniency; Sadat also set about creating opposition parties to run against his own party, largely to try to appease the West and ensure the public there would be democratic opposition. With this leniency, the Muslim Brotherhood went about denouncing Sadat for making peace with Israel, and working ardently against him. In turn, Sadat closed down the political opening in 1980, arresting almost every prominent political leader a year later; Sadat was assassinated by members of the Muslim Brotherhood soon after. This pattern was repeated with Sadat’s successor, Husni Mubarak, who allowed the Muslim Brotherhood to run for seats in the Egyptian parliament (albeit as independents); when the Gulf War began, however, and Islamist groups began to voice opposition to Mubarak’s support of the US, the political system was closed down so parties couldn’t gain power. The most recent elections in 2005 took place under strong pressure from the US for Egypt to have free elections, and the Muslim Brotherhood did extremely well, gaining well over four times the number of seats as they had possessed previously. Once again, then, the opening of the political system, stimulated by a desire to appease international and domestic forces, gave the Islamist movement power, just as it had in Turkey.

Another reason Islamist groups have been able to gain power is because of the strength of the religious institutions. As countries in the Middle East went about putting restrictions on areas of expression, such as the media, political parties, unions, and clubs, one place remained open and free from large-scale government influence: the mosque. Almost by default, the mosque became the center for political expression and organization, and this role was helped enormously by the fact that the religious institutions already possessed many qualities necessary for a political organization. The religious leaders themselves were excellent fund-raisers, garnering donations from pious Muslims throughout the states, and the religious institutions owned publishing houses, which allowed the production and distribution of materials which both denounced the state for restricting expression, and lauded the religious institution as a haven for free speech. The organizational structure possessed by the religious institutions, then, greatly facilitated the construction of political groups opposed to the state.
In some cases, these Islamist networks, created through the religious institution, where in fact supported by the state, which often believed it could use the Islamist groups to its advantage.

Examples of this are seen in Saudi Arabia and Jordan, which thought to use Islamist politics as a shield against the power of Nasserism in the 1960s; Israel, which hoped Islamist politics could undercut the power of the nationalistic Arafat in the Gaza Strip; and Iraq under Saddam Hussein, who thought Sunni Islamists would bolster the power of his government. This thought, however, was largely incorrect. Turkey and Egypt are also examples of states that tried to harness the Islamist movement for their own benefit: Sadat put forth a very pious Islamic image to the public to encourage Islamist behavior, and, as mentioned earlier, lifted some restrictions on the Muslim Brotherhood, in the hopes of gaining the Islamists support against other political enemies. In the 1980s, the Turkish military tried to appease leftists and Islamists by letting certain Islamist principles into the government, and opened up new Islamic schools to create an Islam that would be “safe” and support the secular government. All these plans by the states to harness the Islamist groups failed, however; in Turkey, the 1990s saw the lack of a political left allowing Islamist political parties to gain support from the students educated in the new Islamic schools, while in Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood used Sadat’s new leniency to organize even larger groups of people, and allowed members to ultimately kill Sadat. The support of the states did serve to bolster the strength to the Islamist political parties, however, and helped them become the force they are today.

Another factor that contributed to the rise of Islamic politics was support of Islamist groups in certain states by successful Islamist groups in other states. This was particularly true in the 1970s, when Saudi Arabia, suddenly incredibly rich from the huge surge in oil prices, began sending money to Islamist parties in other countries, such as Syria, Egypt, and the Philippines. The government which successfully carried out the Iranian revolution also sent money to Islamic political organizations, focusing largely on Shi’i Islamic movements. In many ways, the Iranians were competing with the Saudis to see who could send the most money to Islamists.

Along with monetary support, successful Islamist groups also provided morale support for other Islamist political groups. The fact that Islamists had conducted a successful revolution in Iran showed that the religion could operate politically. Additionally, the 1980s saw Islamic activists push the Soviet Union, a super power, out of Afghanistan. This success provided an overwhelming morale boost to Islamist political groups throughout the world, and probably drove more and more people to join up with Islamist movements.

Sociological factors also need to be taken into account when discussing the emergence of Islamist groups as strong political players. Perhaps the most important sociological change in the region was the large-scale urbanization of most of the countries. Islam has always been an urban religion, based within cities; the countryside was full of old traditions and tribal laws, causing some Muslims to believe good Muslims could only exist within cities. As more and more people moved into urban areas, they were cut off from the tribal ties that had created the community in the countryside, and so turned to the mosques and religion. Their older, country-based tolerant Islam was largely traded for an Islam with a hard line, making them prime targets for recruitment by the Islamist political groups. Both Egypt and Turkey experienced this trend, but it was most prominent in Iran, where the revolution was made possible due to the number of people in the urban areas.

Another sociological change in the region that led to an increase in the power of Islamist movements was the great increase in literacy throughout the Middle East. The governments of the 1950s and 1960s had tried to spread education to the masses of poor people, causing literacy rates to shoot up; increased literacy rats often are accompanied by an increase in political activism, and, in this particular case, increased literacy allowed new segments of society to be exposed to the Islamist political publications, made possible through the strong religious organization.

Finally, Islamist movements have gained lots of support from the failure of other ideologies, such as the liberal nationalistic ideologies prevalent in the 1930s and 1940s and the socialist, Pan-Arabist ideologies of the 1950s and 1960s. None of these ideologies managed to give people a better life, and, indeed, corruption scandals showed them to be detrimental to the health of a country and its people. An example is President Sadat of Egypt, who, even though the country was going through an economic downturn, continued to buy lots of expensive real estate, and whose friends and relatives benefitted greatly from his economic policies, while the majority of Egyptians lived in poverty. To many Egyptians, Sadat’s ideology had failed, and the strong structure and community provided by the religious organizations and Islamist movements offered a better way of life. Turkey faced a similar circumstance in the early 1990s, when the True Path Party took power, supported a free-market economy, and helped create a wealthy class of business people while reducing support of agriculture and benefits for the poor people. This situation helped the Islamic Welfare Party win control of the government in 1995.

While Islamist parties and groups have gained power increasingly, democratic advances in the Middle East have not been nearly as successful. As mentioned earlier, it seems as though the strength of certain Islamist parties in certain countries has actually stopped democracy from making inroads in those countries. Despite the fact Turkey is currently a democracy, the pattern identified previously, of Islamist groups coming to power only to be taken out of power by the military, is evidence of this relationship. The military is willing to allow democracy, but only as long as the Islamist forces do not become too strong. Once those forces do gain too much strength, democracy breaks down, and the military takes control. Egypt is another good example of this; first Sadat and now Mubarak have allowed the Muslim Brotherhood certain amounts of leniency, and even to participate in elections, but, when the Brotherhood has gained enough support to mount a serious challenge to the government, both leaders have shown that they would rather shut down the democratic process than allow Islamist forces to take any of their power.

Islamist movements, which usually have a large base of support, have generally not advocated a gradual changing of the system, but instead a sudden and complete changing. Egypt’s and Turkey’s decisions to suspend democracy to keep Islamists out of power is evidence of an overarching resistance to sudden changes within the power structure, and within the country itself. If the regimes felt comfortable enough to hold completely open elections, confident that they would not lose, it could set a precedent for open elections in the future, and lead to substantial democratic reform. Instead, the existence of hardline Islamist movements which threaten immediate change has hardened opposition to democratic reforms. In Turkey’s case, it seems to have hardened the military’s resolve to suspend democracy based upon Islamist parties’ strength. If there was a solid decade of elections which favored the party the military supported, perhaps the military would be less inclined to intervene when an Islamist group did come to power and begin to make changes.

This pattern is not confined to Egypt and Turkey, but is evident throughout the region. Saudi Arabia, which claims legitimacy through Islamism, is itself resistant to democratic changes due to the existence of other, more hardline Islamist schools of thought within the country; if an open election were held, the Saudi government could possibly lose control to the other Islamist groups, and there would surely be swift change in the power structure. Because Islamist groups appeal to so many people, governments in power are afraid they will lose elections, and thus do not hold them.

A possible solution to this can be seen in Turkey, where in 2002 an Islamist group won control of Turkey’s government. Rather than immediately institute sweeping structural changes, the party has opted to move slowly towards Islamist ideals, probably having learned a number of lessons from the handful of Islamist parties which have been forced out of power. Truly moderate Islamist parties would most likely cause more Middle Eastern states to begin democratic reform: if a leader or regime feels that it can win over an Islamist party, or, if the party did not so seriously threaten the existing power structure in the way hardline Islamist parties do, the leaders or regimes would most likely be more willing to hold open elections. After a few open elections, a precedent would be set, and it might prove difficult for future leaders to revert to fixed or even no elections.

Ultimately, any Islamist government will be subject to the same type of challenges and problems current governments in the Middle East are. If, for example, the government of the Iranian revolution was to fall, or prove to be amazingly corrupt, the draw to Islamist parties would decrease. The same result would be seen if other countries were to experience Islamist governments, and those governments failed to provide a better life for the citizens. The current strength and prominence of Islamist parties can be boiled down to a particular set of events and circumstances that cause Islamist politics to appear to be the best choice; the same can be said about the current lack of democratic advances in the region: certain circumstances have combined to cause the leaders of countries to resist democratic change. If different circumstances or events were to occur, the Middle East could experience a complete shift in attitudes about both of these trends, and democracy could gain popularity as quickly as Islamist groups could lose it. Both the immediate and long-term future of the region remains uncertain, and every and any change in circumstances will bear close watching for hints of what’s to come.