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Wishful US Thinking
Afraid to acknowledge the consequences of disastrous US policy,
American officials and the media cling to the idea that Islam is
only attractive to the poor,
By Geneive Abdo
07/03/08 "Al-Ahram" -- - There is a truism understood among the
more astute foreign policy analysts in Washington regarding
America's comprehension of the Middle East region: Whatever
happens, whether it is the victory of Hamas, the downfall of the
reformist movement in Iran, or most glaringly, the monumental
humanitarian catastrophe in Iraq, you can count on a misreading
of such events for at least three or four years after they have
occurred before realism sets in. There is also another truism:
when it comes to nuance in Muslim behaviour, not even time can
produce US understanding.
So it should not have been surprising when The New York Times on
17 February published a front-page article about
economically-strapped Egyptian youth, which claimed: "In their
frustration, the young are turning to religion for solace and
purpose, pulling their parents and their governments along with
them. With 60 per cent of the region's population under the age
of 25, this youthful religious fervour has enormous implications
for the Middle East. More than ever, Islam has become the
cornerstone of identity, replacing other, failed ideologies:
Arabism, socialism, nationalism."
Thirty years after the American body politic was first exposed
to Islamism, Islamic revivalism, Islamic identity and all the
buzzwords used to explain societal transformation in the Arab
world, the same flawed rationale is apparently just as valid
today as it was then. Religiosity among Muslims is intensifying,
the theory goes, because other ideologies have failed and
economies are on the skids. Eighteen years ago, the same
newspaper published a similar story about Algeria with the
headline, "Militant Muslims grow stronger as Algeria's economy
weakens."
The cause-and-effect relation between economic despair and
religiosity is used as an explanation for everything from the
increase in proportion of women who wear the hijab in countries
like Egypt to the high-rate of mosque attendance in some Arab
countries and the overwhelming escalation of hostility to and
contempt for the United States in Muslim societies. This school
of thought believes that Islam's surge could be mitigated with
economic development, which would include easy access to
apartments and houses for the young, and an increase in leisure
time and entertainment. To put it differently, the discussion
and proposed solution are framed around the age-old contrast
between Islam and modernity that continues to be advanced by
columnists and intellectuals, such as Francis Fukuyama, who
predicted in The End of History and the Last Man that
consumerism would be the death knell to radical Islamist
ideology. The argument rests upon the belief that globalisation
and political Islam are at odds.
After 9/11, the explanation that poverty in the Arab world
contributes to extremism and Islamism was particularly rampant.
In a column in The New York Times in December 2001, headlined,
"Getting at the roots of Arab poverty," Yale University
Professor Alan Schwartz made the following argument: "Since the
terrorist attacks, Americans have learned that in many Arab and
Muslim nations there are large numbers of angry young men with
time on their hands, unable to find jobs -- or jobs that make
use of their education -- because of their countries' poverty.
We've also learned that many Muslims blame us for their poverty.
But in fact they are not poor because we are rich; they are poor
because of the policies their countries pursue."
Schwartz, at the time a professor of law and management, ended
his column with the following warning: "September 11 has taught
us anew how important it is for the United States to take this
kind of active interest. If we do not promote economic growth in
Muslim nations, we will by default promote growth in the supply
of potential terrorists." This general presumption continues to
be repeated in the media, at think tanks in Washington, and
inside the US government.
But how much truth lies in this theory, especially when there is
overwhelming evidence that the divide between the haves and
have-nots is not a religious one? One only need look at Turkey,
where the Justice and Development Party has risen to power on
the heels of unprecedented economic development in that country.
In the past five years, growth in GDP exceeded seven per cent
annually, and exports more than tripled to more than $95 billion
for the year that ended in June 2007. Unemployment, however, has
remained high for that country, but not as high as in many Arab
states. In Turkey, unemployment is about 10 per cent, compared
with six per cent in 2000.
In Egypt, the economy has been strapped for decades. Educated
Egyptians are still earning, at times, only $200 per month.
According to some statistics, approximately 600,000 to one
million jobs must be generated each year but only 500,000 are
created. This gap affects youth the most.
But is this the reason an elevator operator prays before he
pushes the down button, as New York Times columnist Thomas
Friedman once observed while visiting Cairo? Is this the reason
a majority of Egyptian women wear the hijab ? Or the reason the
influence within society of Al-Azhar's fatwa committee has
increased? Or why religious programming on Egyptian television
has grown over the last 20 years? And most puzzling to the
American mind, if poverty can't possibly be the reason a rich,
former Egyptian actress opened a beauty salon in Heliopolis for
veiled women, then what is?
In a perpetual search to find a reason -- one that can be
detected and addressed neatly through foreign policy approaches
-- America longs for an answer to Islam's surge. Underdeveloped
economies provide a reasonable, plausible explanation, and can
be addressed with foreign aid and new policies. This is one
reason this theory is embraced by the media and the US
government.
But more accurate and truthful illustrations of the importance
of Islam can be found across the Arab world. Islam has become an
important force and moral compass in the lives of Muslims,
whether they are unemployed and living without running water in
Imbaba, or whether they are wealthy movie stars who left the big
screen. Even in the United States, second-generation
Muslim-Americans, who are college-educated and come from
affluent families, have begun attending mosques with greater
frequency, wearing headscarves, and joining Muslim Students'
Associations on college campuses to become better educated about
their faith and to form a community with other young Muslims.
They are finding that their comfort zone lies more in Islam,
rather than in secular, mainstream American society.
One might assume that after years of scholarship about Islamic
societies, public and policy debates, and the US government's
direct intervention in the Middle East, clichés would have been
replaced by facts on the ground. But the cliché that Muslims
turn to Islam out of desperation, poverty and discontent is
still alive and well in America.
The writer is foreign policy analyst at The Century
Foundation in Washington, DC, and author of No God But God:
Egypt and the Triumph of Islam.
© Copyright Al-Ahram Weekly
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