Arab Fundementalisms: Towards a Double Criticism - written by Oussama El Addouli, Graduate Researcher

Arab Fundamentalisms: Towards a Double Criticism

It goes without saying that a thought with no relation to the modern human sciences and to the spirits of modernity, democracy and human rights is indeed a sterile, extremist thought, despite its link to either a religious, leftist, nationalist or secularist reference. Extremism is One, and has no religion or dogma. It is synonymous to the ignorance of thoughts mobility of the modern world whose first seeds started on the fifteenth century with the dawn of European modernity.

The Arab world however did not experience this mobility until the 19th century; yet it was confusing for the Arabs as it paralleled colonialism and therefore was refused with the argument that Modernity has a colonial allusion which made that this intellectual mobility was not ingrained in the Arab culture despite the great efforts that had been done by intellectuals of this epoch.

The failure of Arabs to relate to this intellectual headway led to catastrophic consequences that were deepened later when militaristic elites emerged and eradicated the few ideas that crawled into society.

A simple investigation of this period unveils many deep implications and significances that can alone help us understand and explain the ideological, political and religious fundamentalisms that invade the Arab world from its East to its West and generated deep wounds on the Arab body.

During the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, the Arab world knew a dynamic intellectual, political and artistic vibrancy that gave signs of a new enlightened future for the Arab nation. This vibrancy was associated with the spirit of enlightenment, liberalization and civilization and was presented by the intellectual elites of this era as the alternative to the protracted dark ages. Regrettably however, this process did not last long as the military coup d'Etats will drastically transform the conditions and invent new political and ideological elites that have nothing to do with the liberal ambitions that transiently sprung up and vanished. The new ambitions are now rather nationalist and leftist ambitions looking for alliances with the privileged military elite as a way of embodiment on reality.

This happened in Egypt as in Iraq and Syria that, before the Coup d 'Etats were pledging a different future of the Arab Culture. The fate of these ambitions and projects will cease under plumbs and shells of the military power. A power that fights and contradicts any liberal, secular or civic engagements considered to be colonial heritages opposing the past of the Arab nation or conceived as soiled aristocratic values that should be combated. Thus, the values of modernity and enlightenment were aborted and on the other side the doors of military despotism were widely opened. Images of this fundamentalism are clearly seen in the political despotism performed by the Unique, monopole party and the unique leader, where the opposition is brutally persecuted as happened with Nasser of Egypt, Asad of Syria and Saddam of Iraq. This despotism is also manifested through the return to tribal and blood ties to direct the state affairs and equally through the return to the unproductive rent economies as it can be seen in forcing an artistic and cultural model that imitates and reproduces the political model. Scenes of this regression are countless and are apparent in many other settings which would develop into a more dangerous fundamentalism: the religious fundamentalism.

Thus, from this point we can approach the ideological, political and religious fundamentalisms that exist in today's Arab Culture and that prevent and hinder all forms of progress in the Arab world.

It is clear that until this period, religious fundamentalism did not exist since it is in fact a result of the nationalist, leftist, jingoist ideology and which is not different in essence as both ideologies are built on both ideology and utopia and both combat the spirit of liberalization and enlightenment. The two fundamentalisms are also similar in their political ambitions based on despotism and the single party.

Reading in the literature of the time however proves that these values did not exist in the intellectual and political glossary of the late 19th and first 20th centuries. In Egypt, Syria and Morocco as well hundreds of intellectuals like Qasim Amine the Arab women liberator were fighting daily for values of a modern state and a democratic society.

The duty of today's intellectuals is no wander thorny as they have to practice a double criticism, from one side criticizing the leftist nationalist fundamentalism and on another side criticizing the religious fundamentalism and through prevailing liberal values based on partisan and democratic diversity, citizenship, equality rational and scientific criticism to invest them in understanding Life and the Universe. A double criticism needs also that the Arab Elite unveils and exposes all attempts that threaten the human common values.