1 RE-IMAGINING WAR: A THEOLOGICAL SECURITY PARADIGMMustapha Kara-Ali PhD Student Endeavour Malaysia Award International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM)
2 Preface A realistic re-imagining of the ideological struggle between Islam and the West is crucial for those who have become overwhelmed by its intensity and scope. Such re-imagining can take place within the historical context of Muslim-Western relations and the centrality of the issue of Jerusalem to the worldview and narrative of the Islamists.
3 Jerusalem and the re-imagining of the struggleGhazali’s travels to Damascus, while authoring his ihya’ `ulum al-din, came when Jerusalem was occupied by Crusaders. Period indicating weak state of the Islamic community. Reflection of contemporary Islamists on the context of Ghazalian theological and spiritual program. Ghazali’s program reflected in Saladin’s famous Sufi khanqas (hospices) and his sponsoring of theological scholarship such as Taj al-Din Muhammad Ibn Hibatullah al-Makki’s famous works on Ash`arite kalam.
4 Jerusalem (cntd.) Religious dimension of Orientalism and of occidental worldview before and during World War I. Protestants’ favouring of Zionism ultimately leading to Balfour Declaration. Influential characters during that period were graduates of Christian colleges - Philby and Balfour both attended Trinity College Cambridge. Capture of Jerusalem in 1917 seen in UK as fulfilment of medieval Crusades. Punch Magazine published cartoon of King Richard saying “at last my dream comes true”. Allenby entered the city as an occupier on foot, the first Christian to control the city since the Crusades.
5 Jerusalem (cntd.) Australia in the battle for Jerusalem (1917).Ottoman forces opposed by Anzac Mounted Division and Jewish Legion aka Zion Mule Corps. The Australian Light Horse troops marched as occupiers into Damascus on 1 October, 1918. Major Olden of the Australian 10th Light Horse Regiment received the Official Surrender of the City at 7 am at the Serai. At end of war, the Egyptian Expeditionary Force forcibly seized Palestine, Transjordan, Lebanon and southern Syria.
6 Orientalism In lead up to WWI, ideological streams competed in the West for power and control. Imperialist craving for resources developed alongside new enterprise of Orientalist and Arabist explorers and writers. Orientalists made comparisons between European and Islamic Worlds based on reductionist frames. Islam was generally deemed a threat in Europe. Voltaire’s 1742 play Fanaticism gave an abusive account of the Prophet Muhammad. Renan's diatribe at Sorbonne in 1883 claimed that Islam was an obstacle to science.
7 Struggle of Islamists and Western governmentsGlobalisation and the dissemination of modern Western forms as a new expression of Western hegemony. Cultural and economic “soft” power for Western control. Muslims witnessing fundamental change often with no appropriations of Western science and technologies. Reopening the issue of governance in Muslim societies under immense force for conformance from the West. Globalisation purporting a liberal charge on two critical fronts; the religious and the political.
8 Struggle (cntd.) Objective of transnational Islamist groups to reduce penetration of Western commercial and social influence. John Esposito alleges the conflict between the West and the Islamic world is related to politics rather than principles, and to injustices rather than the clash of civilisations. Bernard Lewis, who first coined the phrase “Clash of Civilizations”, argues that “the confrontation with a force that defines itself as Islam has given a new relevance … to the theme of the ‘clash of civilizations”. Confrontation presented as a “clash” between “liberal democratic West” and “radical forces”.
9 Struggle (cntd.) Propaganda for shaping a very false image of Islam leading to a negative mindset in the West. Reaction by radical violent agitators providing pretexts for military campaigns in Muslim lands and to police-state measures at home. Western governments choosing to engage in a “battle of ideas” have two related goals: stop the violent extremists seek to contest the ideological space
10 International RelationsTraditional state-centric models insufficient to capture the nature of this contest. Network theory better explains the battle lines of post-9/11. Morgenthau wrote his “Politics among Nations”. With current global networks taking root, a more reflective conception would be “politics among societies or worldviews”. Current state national security based on international order of nation states. Evading such policing force due to the formation of globalised societies ingrained in their own worldviews.
11 International Relations (cntd.)Multiple Islamic societies converging to form one International Society that faces the post WWII Western International Society. Convergence has been violent with clashes and wars occurring. Robert Gilpin’s (1981) model for international change. Gilpin’s systemic analysis draws among others from Ibn Khaldun and Toynbee and traces origins of international change at unit level.
12 The security dilemma of the WestRecent confluence of globalism and radicalism amounted to what Joseph Nye has called the ‘privatization of war’. Some academics have argued post-9/11 renders most traditional state security institutional arrangements inadequate. ‘Balance of power’, deterrence, containment, etc. considerably diminish in relevance with developing information and communication technologies (ICT). State security services designed for conventional warfare ill-equipped for non-state actors. Radicalisation increasingly more adaptive to globalisation through the international financial system and internet communication and recruitment.
13 The security dilemma of the West (cntd.)‘Security dilemma’ by-product of globalisation. Globalisation arguably began with Spinoza’s “Tractatus Theologico-Politicus” separating the political and the religious. Western liberalism has a soft underbelly with radicalism. Arguably, as a liberal reaction to Western liberalism, freelance radicals began localised resistance movements connecting abroad to form networks and ideological affiliations. Western liberal state reacts to radicalism by passing legislation posterior to radical activities retrospectively deemed a threat to social order.
14 The security dilemma of the West (cntd.)Western states trying to catch up to radicals Proof for this in the way radicalisation keeps adapting to changing circumstances. Religions that are politicised within Western liberal state are driven on a syncretic convergence towards a postmodern religion steeped in pantheistic and anthropomorphic overlays aiming to dissolve non-state centric identities and cultural contours. This milieu defines the parameters of the proposed theological security paradigm.
15 Definitions What is extremism?For the West, it is any activity that is outside the perceived political center or the norm of a society and that is closed in attitude and intolerant. In Islam, tatarruf (religious extremism) is anything that transgresses the boundaries commanded by God. What is radicalism? Radicalism is any activity that pushes for dramatic changes to a social order. Such changes could be both moral or immoral.
16 Theological security paradigmSelf-delusional to think freelance radicalism by Muslims can be neutralised through modern Western-style secularism. Proposed security paradigm bases physical security on theological stability and sees the former as a natural outgrowth of the latter. Western liberalism is theologically unstable hence its security does not reach equilibrium, this is why modern liberal states are the most militarised in history. Current ideological struggle enforcing a social hermeneutics wherein human difference would be narrowed through the normalising power of a discursive human interaction in line with metaphysical truths.
17 Theological security paradigm (cntd.)Rawlsian conception of justice case in point about the contemporary feeble nature of the promised stability of Western liberal theory. Western liberalism envisages that “unreasonable” communities will revise their own comprehensive doctrines to live under a stable society. Western liberal academics view radical groups outside the state order as “irrational” non-state actors seeking “nihilist” destruction. Within counter-radicalisation, the West cannot enforce legal constraints and conditions upon such groups existing outside common parameters of the state. Any state-based counterforce has to be conducted through effective support from NGO communities having overlapping ideological/theological conceptions with radical non-state actors.
18 The role of the Islamic NGOIn clash between Western forces and radical non-state actors, there is a legitimate and authentic role for transnational and local Islamic NGOs. This role is to provide a justice-oriented governance framework for the Islamic religious order. Islam advocates for certain capacities that man has in his pure state to be used as tools for holding a forward propelling worldview to face challenges. Strategy for dealing with any religious extremists (al-bughat or ahl al-bida`) from an Islamic normative perspective can be seen within the Islamic discourse of heresiography, or the study of al-milal wa al-nihal.
19 The role of the Islamic NGO (cntd.)Examples are: al-Baqillani’s al-tamhid fi al-radd `ala al-mulhidah al-mu`atilah wa al-rafidah wa al-khawarij wa al-mu`tazilah abu-Mansur al-Baghdadi’s al-farq bayn al-firaq Shahristani’s al-milal wa al-nihal. The objective summarised by Taqiyuddin al-Subki’s in his al-munadharah wa al-mujadalah: قال تقي الدين السبكي في المناظرة والمجادلة: مقاومتهم) أهل البدع (ومجادلتهم ومناظرتهم حتى لا يلبسوا على الضعفاء أمر دينهم
20 The role of the Islamic NGO (cntd.)Proposed theological security arrangement constitutes multi-pronged operational and strategic response with rebuttal blueprint based on a framework for the immutable principles of Islam as defined through Muslim scholarly consensus (ijma`). Participation of Islamic NGOs a requisite of this systematic security arrangement. We envisage a growing domestic political role in the West for Islamic NGO as further engagement and cooperation is exercised with the Western liberal state. In political realism terms, the West has to gradually accommodate more Islamists, or consequently face increasing instability and insecurity.
21 Re-Imagining War End