The Fear of Democracy: A Response

Islam and Democracy: Fear of the Modern World. Fatima Mernissi. New York: Basic Books, 1992. 197 pages.

The struggle to formulate a new civilization in Arab countries based on Islam cannot be separated from the hubbub of the discourse of modernity. They, the third world communities seemed to stand between an alienated past with authentic history and now face-to-face with Western European domination, with the phenomenon that can’t be predicted how it ended.

Armed with a passion for a big better civilization, Islamic-Arabic thinkers try to explore the spirit of liberation. This condition is complicated by Islamic teachings which are often manipulated by the authorities to achieve their personal interests. Especially because Fatima Mernissi is a feminist thinker, in this book titled Islam and Democracy: Fear of the Modern World she also examines the issues using women as framing, how women should achieve the same rights as men and live in a democracy which is still difficult to be interpreted in Arab countries.This book aim to answering one big question; why the promise of democracy so threatening to hierarchies, especially in Arab?

Fatima begins her analysis and arguments from the perspective of the post-Gulf War. She argues that there is a huge transition when Arab countries communities start dealing with new modern world. By the collapse of boundaries, Arab countries experiencing new phenomena, but there was some fears, silenced and manipulated by elites. The Arab world is paralyzed by fears. Why does fear arise? It is actually mostly manipulated by elite who only prioritize their own interests.

In this book, Fatima divided the explanation into two chapters; first, she is talking about the Mutilated Modernity, including the Fear of the Foreign West, Fear of the Imam, Fear of Democracy, The United Nations Charter and The Koran. On the second chapter, Fatima talking about Sacred Concepts and Profane Anxieties, which is divided into sub-chapters; Fear of Freedom of Thought, fear of Individualism, Fear of the Past, Fear of the Present, Women’s Song: Destination Freedom. This ideas distribution into two main chapters I think is really helpful. It helps her to address her points clearly and strongly.

The fear of Imam: Politization of Religion
Modernity, which came with the collapse of the Berlin hijab, opened a curtain and made everything into shaffafiya (transparency) which is considered a scourge for Arabs. Modernity comes with the freedom of opinion and expression. Democracy is like a ruling boat floating on a river of time, which forces us to face what we cannot experience in Arabian culture to this day; ‘aql (reason/mind) and ra'yu (personal opinion or consideration). While, from the beginning, Muslims were required to be obedient, must believe to Imam, without having to think.

Talking about Islam and Democracy is likely examining the contradictions of Western and Arabic concepts, or UN Charter and Shari’a. Because everything we don't understand is always scary, then democracy as part of modernity is also scary, or “constructed as scary.” The one who responsible for this manipulation or construction is the elite politic including the “Imam.” Political despotism forces Muslims not to discuss responsibility, freedom of thought, or the impossibility of blind taklid.

Fear of the Imam is one of the topics discussed seriously in this book. Fatima also emphasized straightforward and even emotionally the attitude that Islam is now a stronghold of fanatical despotism that does not provide a place for mind or intellectuality. Muslims who passively obey the imam without thinking and it causes Muslims (specifically in Arab) can’t express their feelings, get their rights, not doing contextual research or thinking, and this condition will be more severe if we look at the situation of Arabian women which they are oppressed by the constructed rules by elites.

The “danger” of ‘Aql
Why the freedom of thought looks so scary? One of the things mentioned by Fatima is that freedom of thought in the Arab-Islamic world is often associated with the behavior of the Khawarij, which means the people who come out. The Khawarij feel they are not obliged to obey, or feel they can escape from obedience. This sect is considered to support anarchy as a problem solving, so it is considered prohibited. Fatima simplified the way open for Muslims to solve problems in two ways; the way of rebellion that brought violence and a manner of reason/mind (‘aql) that was great, which was initiated by the Mu'tazilah group, namely individuals who think or apply the rationalist tradition –a group of philosophers who intellectualize political problems and of course are opposed to the Khawarij.

Fear of modernity and democracy can be rooted from “culture” that openness of mind, individual opinion or ra'yu, or having own opinion is considered as a foreign attempt. Free-thinkers are labeled as infidels or atheists. Reflex is prohibited, replaced by the attitude of tha'at, or sharia law. This is where the state limits democratization, and in deeper way, the state tries to linked blind obedience to leaders with obedience to religion. That means, there is a politicization of religion here.

In fact, numbers of philosophers have tried to contribute their ideas in seeing this error of thinking and they try to modernize the culture of Muslims without breaking away from the past which despotism and manipulation of the sacred tends to be done in the XIX-XX century, especially the recognition of representative democratic concepts such as "parliament” or “constitution". Immediately, the constitution is tried to be related to Shari'a, the law that comes from God. Politicians who want to expand their authoritarianism use this as a way to disrupt the issue, stressing the diversity as infidels, invaders allies, and so on.

According to Fatimah, fanatical rebellion was the only form of challenge for many years in the “barren” world of Islam. Use of reason or mind or logic or intellectuality is considered to weaken Islam and serve the enemy. Freedom of thought is identified with insubordination. In fact, by getting rid of reason or mind and agreeing to the limited freedom of thought and freedom to be different, Muslims have weakened themselves more than what ever happened.

Western humanism is something foreign or imported, but at the same time Arabs are importing massive weapons. Fatimah contrasts how the West created its power through military research and forced underdeveloped countries to become their passive consumers. Arabs prefer to buy weapons than do their own research. The science and technology institutions are fertile ground for the development of fundamentalists. Freedom of thinking is contrary to Islam. The purchase of weapons had prevented the creation of the power of Arab scientific intellectuals, so that there was a failure of distributing democratic culture through public education. Moreover, books from writers who argue that intolerance is harmless are even more widespread, and books that oppose intolerance are considered dangerous.

Sharia versus UN Charter
To bring the essentials of the discussion deeper, Fatima shows how those anxieties of Arabian elites can be seen by compare the UN Charter with Qur’an as the base of Sharia law. UN Charter guarantees the freedom of thought, while Shari'a rely on tha'at or obedience to the Imam and state, and condemn freedom of thought. Saudi Arabia's fears of the idea of modernity have influenced the relationship between religion and the state there. According to fundamentalists, if Islam is separated from the state, there are no more people who believe in Allah. The state must protect Islam. This condition shows that Arab countries believe that Islam will only work if it is imposed in a totalitarian way, through a court that punishes them. This instead shows that Islam has nothing if the state supervision is revoked. Modernity is considered to be the core of secularism, which Fatima straightens out here by defining that secularism doesn’t mean a state managed by atheist or mulhid officials. Whereas, in the country like German or America, secularism doesn’t kill religion, it brakes from the manipulation towards religion.

That’s why the Arab state made amendments to limit freedom or even equality for Arab citizens. I think this is one of Fatima’s anxiety, and then it is interesting to look out how did the UN respond to this condition? When the religion-state put up a modern face in front of the United Nations but put the face of the Abbasid caliph to the citizens.

So, why democracy is important to be discussed here? One of the main factors is because the Arab Sharia rules somehow defile essential rights such as religion and opinion, even the right to use intellectuality or mind. In certain stages, this restriction will repress or limit access to their human rights, including women’s rights. Moreover, there is an idea that the state intentionally and unjustly distorts understanding of democracy which might be an alternative solution to human rights. Fatima writes, there are even some Islamic regimes whose interests are more protected if the legitimacy is based on the basis of sacred culture and symbols rather than on the basis of democratic principles. Fear of freedom of thought makes many scholars in Morocco are unemployed. One reason is that factories are afraid to allow educated people to become their employees, perhaps because this has the potential to bring criticism to the industry.

Hudud and Women
Because as long as the differences is frightening (or constructed as frightening) then boundaries will become the law. Fatima introduces the concept of Hudud; certain convincing boundaries. Women are within those limits. If a woman walks without a hijab, without wearing a face cover like niqab, it is considered to be a violation of the norm, not protected, or in the term used by the Imam to explain the danger of promiscuity is tabarruj, borrowed from military vocabulary, namely from the burj meaning fortress. That is, if a woman walks on a highway without a hijab, that means she is tempting a man to attack (tabarruj) her. Women are potential victims of those boundaries, fears, and even efforts to enforce that balance again in Arab states.

Fatima provides a special space to define the problem of Arab women, Islam and democracy. On the introduction she writes,

“The most desperate outcry against the war was from women throughout the world, and especially from Arab women. A perhaps unnoticed detail, which nevertheless constitutes a historical breakthrough, is that during this conflicts women, veiled or not, took the initiative in calling for peace without waiting, as tradition demanded, for authorization from the political leaders, in evitably male. … Why did Arab women usually silent and obedient, cry out their fear so strongly in that interminable night that was the war? Did they, whom the law officially designates as inferior, instinctively understand that that violence --presented as legitimate, and with the blessing of the highest authority defending human rights, the United Nations would unleash within the Arab world other kinds of violence and legitimate the killing of others? “

Because on the fact women are being excluded from the power then it gives them a wonderful freedom of thought. Arab women are not afraid of modernity, because for them modernity is one of the unexpected ways to build an alternative toward their oppressive traditions.

The Translation Problems
Reading Fatima's arguments in the discussions about democracy in Arabia seems to make us confront two things: atheism versus faith, and obedience versus freedom. Freedom of thought is considered so threatening, so that it can make people labeled infidels, or non-believers. In fact, for certain elite circles –not only in Arabic, but also possibly in Indonesia– what they reject is what seems not in accordance with their interests.

Indonesia may face similar challenges when talking about religion and the state, because in the groups who demanding for the establishment of caliphate for example, I suspect they use a similar argument, that democracy is secular and un-Islamic. We can go deeper into this by looking at another problem that I see was described by Fatima, namely the problem of transliteration which also contributes to the acceptance of the concept of democracy in the Arab world. First, freedom in the Arab world has synonymous with chaos. Obviously this makes all forms of freedom become imitated. Second, there are no Arabic words to refer to democracy so they use Greek words in their words. Third, religious freedom and expression activate the idea of syirk which terminologically in Islam means “join together” or “participate” and has negative connotation. That’s why, in 1988 the opponents of the monarchy in Saudi Arabia were arrested, and in 1989 the political prisoners were tortured, even now the women prisoners also suffered from torture.

Conclusion
I think, Islam and Democracy written by Fatima Mernissi can be offered as the tools to see democracy and Islam, and bring us to the center of the discussion here: Arab countries or the Middle East. She doesn’t really mention any particular country or regions, but she mentions Saudi Arabia, Marocco, or Rabat to describe certain cases. The way Fatima arranges her thoughts using the approach of the anthology of fear is pretty effective to help us understand what she want to share here. She can connects one factor of fear to others, until we see the main points from the whole arguments.

Mostly I enjoy her writing, although she is really straightforward but sometimes goes wider. There are some peculiar types of writing that Fatima chooses to make here. First, she really build and describe her arguments using Arab terms to make us easily see the exact conditions in Arab, which so cultural and unique, like the word gharb, hudud, i’tizal, kalam, ihdats, or ibda’. Second, Fatima does not avoid the use of parable or the story of a friend of the Prophet. The typical part is also, Fatima describes and enwrap her arguments using certain art of writing by insert particular diction or narrations that resemble fiction, and I found it interesting and making this reading far from boring, like when she writes,

“This dance of death between authority and individuality is for the Muslim repressed, for it is soaked in the blood and violence that no civilization lets float to the surface; it is awash in the inexhaustible rivers of blood that our teachers hid from us and that we hid from ourselves while rhapsodizing about the benefits of unity and solidarity within the umma, the Muslim community.”

The other interesting part that interesting for me is that she is really concern on the women issues, so she spells out her writing by using also the frame of women or feminism. She ignites her intuition of women to analyze the problems as the consequences of the elite who try to manipulate the transmit ideas of democracy in order to protect their authority and dominance over the society. By that, the elites reduce the freedom of thought, freedom of expression, and threat them with serious punishments. It is actually not shocking because Fatima Mernissi is a sociologist concerns on the issues of Islam and women. She teaches Sociology at University Mohammed V in Rabat, Morocco. Some of her works are including The Veil and the Male Elite: a Feminist Interpretation of Islam where she describes a historical study of role of the wives of Muhammad, Beyond the Veil which has become a classic reference in the fields of women in Arab world, and Dreams of Trespass: Tales of a Harem Girlhood. Almost all her books written from the perspective of women and that’s why she is inspiring women around the world and referred to as Islamic feminist.

While reading this book, actually I also think if those tools can be used to see the condition in Indonesia, where the certain right-wing religious groups try to dominate interpretation rooms on several issues, like polygamy or feminism. Because, the word “democracy” might seems similar to “secularism” or “liberalism”. They are seen as one package, labeled as Western, strange, wrong, infidel, or sinful. So, how then the anti-feminist in Indonesia actually interpret feminism? And what is actually the urgency to argue them? That could be another part that we need to examine. But indeed, this book successfully can manage to address the problems of “fear of odd or strange ideas” clearly and nicely structured.