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Dominic Wightman: From Revolution to Revolution

Category: Uncategorised Created on Sunday, 30 October 2011 17:15 Published Date Written by The Editor Hits: 200

The revolutionary street protests in Tunisia and Egypt have been most laudable. For decades there has been a ceiling of fear enforced on citizens of both countries who deserve so much more. Yet history tells us that the euphoria of a successful revolution (and let us hope that Mubarak leaves and is replaced well soon) is often short-lived, just as Ukrainians have found in recent years.

Commentators have been quick to point out the dangers for Egypt and Tunisia. Islamist government has been touted as the huge potential step backwards for both countries. If the people of Egypt and Tunisia let the Islamists take control, so the doomsayers calculate, they could be soon dreaming about how their countries were progressive and relatively free under Mubarak and Ben Ali.

What these commentators should actually be asking themselves is whether the Islamist parties in Egypt and Tunisia can take their values and inspiration from Islam but still accept a secular state.

Taking part in democratic politics can change Islamist parties. Take the AK Party in Turkey that came to power in 2002 after scrapping its ideal of creating an Islamic state. Once in power, they could no longer rely on slogans or ideology for votes, they actually had to deliver things. Suddenly the headlines of Ummah and Khilafah are displaced by Health Service and Economy. Save a few contentious legislative attempts around the fringes, the AK Party is arguably no more pro-Islamist than the blind-eye former governments of Verhofstadt in Belgium or Britain’s Brown. Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan has focused far more on reforming the economy than on passing laws to please the more Islamist wing of his support base.

Apart from the Taliban or Algerian experiment, what is the worst case scenario for Egyptians and Tunisians?

Surely that must be the Islamist example set by Iran, where the 1979 revolution overthrew Shah Reza Pahlevi and made the top Shiite religious hierarchy the ultimate power in Iran. The Supreme Leader, now Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is more powerful than the president and appoints heads of the military, judiciary and the Guardian Council that oversees political life. Hezbollah and Hamas are now classified as terrorist entities by the US - this is not because they are Islamist but because they advocate armed struggle, notably against Israel.

Another long-established Islamist party, Jamaat-i-Islami, in mostly Sunni Pakistan, scores only single-digit results at the polls despite the strong role religion plays in politics there. Their programs reflect a more moderate approach than those of Lebanon's Hezbollah, the Palestinian Hamas or Iran.

Tunisia’s prominent Islamist groupings are definitely more liberal than the Muslim Brotherhood is in Egypt. Rachid Ghannouchi, leader of Ennahda in Tunisia, has long advocated more liberal policies than the Brotherhood. He supports full political rights for all citizens, for example, unlike the Brotherhood that wants to bar non-Muslims and women from top posts such as Egypt's presidency.

Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood began in 1928 advocating a fully Islamic state. However, it has softened that call over the past few decades of banned but unofficially tolerated political activity under President Hosni Mubarak. As the main opposition party, it is set to play a prominent role in post-Mubarak Egypt, but its cautious leaders say they do not want to lead any new government.

The fact is that Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood and the Islamist Ennahda (Renaissance) party in Tunisia have so far not been able to operate in open political systems, so their professed commitment to democracy has not yet been tested in daily practice. A theocracy in Egypt seems highly unlikely as clergy play a far more minor role than in Shi’ism.

Of course, should there be a step backwards in either country; both peoples will know they have it within themselves to shift an undesired regime.

Dominic Wightman is Editor of the Westminster Journal.