The Lure of Authoritarianism

The Maghreb after the Arab Spring

Stephen J. King, Abdeslam Maghraoui, Stephen J. King, Abdeslam Maghraoui

• Publisher: Indiana University Press
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9780253040886
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Middle Eastern History
• Index: History

The works collected in The Lure of Authoritarianism consider the normative appeal of authoritarianism in light of the 2011 popular uprisings in the Middle East. Despite what seemed to be a popular revolution in favor of more democratic politics, there has instead been a slide back toward authoritarian regimes that merely gesture toward notions of democracy. In the chaos that followed the Arab Spring, societies were lured by the prospect of strong leaders with firm guiding hands. The shift toward normalizing these regimes seems sudden, but the works collected in this volume document a gradual shift toward support for authoritarianism over democracy that stretches back decades in North Africa. Contributors consider the ideological, socioeconomic, and security-based justifications of authoritarianism as well as the surprising and vigorous reestablishment of authoritarianism in these regions. With careful attention to local variations and differences in political strategies, the volume provides a nuanced and sweeping consideration of the changes in the Middle East in the past and what they mean for the future.

PART I

AUTHORITARIAN TRENDS

1

RELIGIOUS CONSERVATIVISM, RELIGIOUS EXTREMISM, AND SECULAR CIVIL SOCIETY IN NORTH AFRICA

Marina Ottaway

THE COUNTRIES OF NORTH AFRICA ARE BEING PULLED in different directions, ideologically and politically. At the ideological level, a traditional, moderately conservative Islam competes with jihadi extremism and, to a much lesser extent, with modern tolerant interpretations of Islam and with secular, liberal democratic values. This battle of ideas is reflected at the political level in the competition among organizations: an official Islamic religious leadership largely on the payroll of the government; legally recognized Islamist parties that participate in the legal and political systems of their countries; Salafi organizations that focus on the betterment of their members and, more broadly, their society, while shunning politics; jihadi organizations that do not hesitate to advocate and use violence to achieve their ideal of an Islamic state; and secular civil society organizations that try to function in the narrow available political space.¹

Ideologically and politically, the countries of North Africa are diverse, with various trends well rooted in their respective segments of society. The authoritarian tendencies that have characterized North African regimes in recent decades thus cannot be attributed to the underlying characteristics of the societies or to the characteristics of North African Islam. The societies are inherently pluralistic; autocratic regimes fear the consequences of pluralism and seek to keep it from gaining political expression. It is also important to keep in mind that authoritarianism in North Africa, except in Morocco, has never relied on religion to justify itself. Rather, authoritarianism in North Africa has been and continues to be predominantly secular in orientation. Gamal Abdel Nasser, Hosni Mubarak, and now Abdel Fattah el-Sisi in Egypt; Habib Bourguiba and Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in Tunisia; and the National Liberation Front (FLN) personalities that have dominated Algeria since the days of independence were all essentially secular leaders for whom religion was only occasionally a convenient tool. Religion, in all its forms, is important in North Africa and affects politics, but it does not explain authoritarian tendencies.

The outcome of the ideological tensions throughout the region remains uncertain. North African societies are changing rapidly and often in unexpected directions. Countries once considered secularized have turned into hotbeds of religious extremism. The secular, modern civil society organizations that Western analysts believe will pave the way to liberalism and democracy are thriving in some countries in the sense that they are allowed to exist, but they do not have a substantial impact on policies or the political and social climate: most North African countries have become more visibly religious than they were a generation ago, and it is unclear whether or when the pendulum will swing back.

Describing and documenting these changes in detail, let alone providing an explanation of why they are taking place backed up by theory, accurate methodology, and exhaustive data goes far beyond what can be accomplished in a single analysis covering four countries stretching from Morocco to Egypt. Instead, this chapter sketches a broad picture of the relationships among religious conservativism, religious extremism, and secular civil society and provides tentative explanations in the hope they can become a starting point for discussion.

The dynamics of religious extremism, religious conservativism, and secular civil society differ significantly across Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Egypt. Secular civil society, for example, has a greater impact in Morocco than elsewhere, whereas in Egypt even seemingly strong nongovernmental organizations have remained ineffectual. Many Salafis in Algeria and Tunisia are attracted to violent extremism; in Morocco and Egypt, they are more inclined to seek political integration or focus on the reform of society. Yet the four countries also share common characteristics in terms of dominant religious beliefs, similar external influences, and the historical trends to which they all have been exposed. That the outcomes are so different is due largely to distinctive leadership in government and society and to the strength of particular civil organizations.

The four countries share a similar approach to Islam. As practiced by the majority, Islam is by and large moderate—these are not countries where rigid and puritanical interpretations are imposed on the population. Sufi influences, particularly in Morocco and Algeria, have introduced an element of mysticism at the ideological level, as well as a popular tradition of venerating saints through pilgrimages to their tombs and ceremonies that soften the strictures of religious practice. Also, except in Egypt, where the indigenous Christian Coptic population may be as high as 15 percent of the total, the population in these countries is almost completely Sunni Muslim, with only small numbers of Christians, minute and literally dying Jewish communities, and a few Shias. This homogeneity allows people to take their religious identity for granted, rather than having to affirm it against that of others. In other words, nothing in the traditional religious makeup of these countries would seem to predispose them to religious extremism.

All four countries have also been exposed over the years to strong secularizing influences, some of them imposed, some freely accepted. Contact with European countries contributed to the spread of secular ideas in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries—in Algeria, France even sought to limit and regulate religious practice. But the most widespread force for secularization came from the region itself in the 1950s and 1960s, when the ideas of Arab nationalism and Arab socialism spread throughout the region and beyond in the wake of Gamal Abdel Nasser’s rise to power in Egypt. Arab nationalism and socialism were not anti-Islamic or militantly secularistic—Nasser was pragmatic on this issue—but offered a project for Arab countries and an identity to their citizens that was not based on religion.

After Nasser’s death in 1971, governments seeking to distance themselves from his legacy and an antidote to the lingering influence of his ideas turned to religion, particularly in Egypt. During the 1970s and 1980s, North African countries underwent a process of re-Islamization of their elites as a result of deliberate government policy and efforts by Islamic organizations that became freer to operate. Governments in all four countries in our study allowed Islamist organizations to reappear. The re-Islamization of these societies was highly visible because it influenced the citizens’ manner of dressing. Headscarves became the norm even in milieus where they had largely been cast aside. Families that had not respected the Ramadan fasting obligation for decades, considering it to be an obsolete practice not worthy of modernizing countries, went back to it, often at the instigation of their younger members.

Re-Islamization as a cultural phenomenon was accompanied (and in part caused) by the reappearance of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and organizations inspired by it in other countries.² It is important to underline that re-Islamization was not only the direct consequence of the rise of the Brotherhood but also a change instigated by government-controlled religious authorities. As will be discussed later, in Egypt re-Islamization owed more to the relationship between the Mubarak regime and Al-Azhar University than to the Muslim Brotherhood.

Since its founding by Hassan al-Banna in 1928, the Muslim Brotherhood has had a long-term political goal: the restoration of a state governed by Islamic precepts. The issue of how this goal was to be attained split the organization and led to the emergence of many Islamist trends, all of which are still present in North Africa.³ Al-Banna believed Arab societies had strayed too far from the precepts of Islam and were too corrupt to provide the underpinnings for a true Islamic state. He thought that the organization must seek to reform society before attempting to reform the state and should thus concentrate on dawa, or preaching. Inevitably, not everybody was satisfied with this long view of the process. Some believed in forcing the change, using violence if necessary, rather than waiting for society to be ready. Sayyid Qutb, a major advocate of this trend, was imprisoned by Nasser and executed in 1966. Many see him as the inspiration for radical Islamic groups in Egypt and beyond—Ayman al-Zawahiri, who succeeded Osama Bin Laden as leader of al-Qaeda, was apparently influenced by Qutb’s ideas. The mainstream of the Muslim Brotherhood, on the other hand, was committed to nonviolence and by and large respected that commitment after clashes with Nasser.

During the 1980s and 1990s, a third school of thought developed within the Muslim Brotherhood, led by people who thought the organization should not limit itself to dawa but should work to change the state through legal political participation, not violence. In this view, even if conditions did not yet exist for the formation of a true Islamic state, Muslims could bring about incremental reforms by participating peacefully in the politics of their countries wherever they could. Democratic participation was an acceptable means to the end of creating Islamic states. This trend gained acceptance in all four countries under discussion, all of which have (or, in the case of Egypt, had until 2013) political parties rooted in the thinking of the Muslim Brotherhood represented in the parliament or even in the cabinet.⁴

The final development that greatly affected the dynamics of religious conservativism, religious extremism, and secular civil society in the four countries was the rise of Salafism in its more violent, radical form. Salafism is an approach to Islam that calls for a return to its pure, uncorrupted form as practiced by Muhammad and his companions, “the pious ancestors.” Inevitably, there are many interpretations of what this pure form of Islam entails. One frequently drawn distinction is that between “scientific” Salafism and “jihadi” Salafism. The former is essentially an attempt to strip Islam of the interpretations that have piled up over the centuries and take it back to a purer form. Scientific Salafism puts less emphasis on changing the state than on changing individuals and creating communities of people who help each other lead their lives according to the precepts of the original religion. In general, governments have been tolerant of scientific Salafism, because it does not call for political action. On the contrary, it calls for submission to the ruler, as long as he is a Muslim.

Scientific Salafism has existed in North Africa for a long time, and even included a modernist reform movement that sought in Islam the source for rational thought and change.⁵ But Saudi efforts to spread their form of Salafism by financing mosques and madrasas and training preachers led to the rapid diffusion of a very conservative form of Salafism during the 1980s and 1990s. The Saudis never intended Salafism to become political. The Wahhabi Salafism they support is based on a strict separation between political and religious authority, with the royal family giving the religious establis...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Introduction: The Lure of Authoritarianism
• Part I: Authoritarian Trends
• Part II: Case Studies
• Afterword
• Index