by Shlomo Avineri

Because al-Qaeda's ideology is rooted in an extreme version of Islam, post-September 11 discourse has focused mostly on ways that Islam may, in certain circumstances, give rise to bin Laden-like phenomena. This sort of approach is both facile and wrong, on factual as well as normative grounds. It leads either to the demonization of Islam and Muslims or to their portrayal as the archetypal Other. It also diminishes the chances of finding credible allies for the West within moderate Muslim nations and may give rise to an Islamic defensiveness that will only intensify alienation between the Occident and Orient (if one may still use these antiquated and politically incorrect terms). Moreover, the facts do not uphold the claim that Islam, democracy, and modernization are incompatible.

As we look at Muslim countries, Turkey is perhaps the most interesting case. The Turkish political system is deeply flawed in many ways, especially regarding important issues of human and minority rights. Yet in the last eighty years, Turkey has undergone fundamental change. It secularized its political system, established a robust multiparty parliamentary life, and held relatively free elections. There is a free press (although with serious limitations when it comes to Kurdish issues). The army's role as guarantor of Kemalist secularism is surely problematic, but it is something quite different from countries ruled by simple military dictatorships. I don't mean to justify military intervention in the Turkish political process, yet this distinction is of some importance. The Turkish army hasn't taken political power in order to stay in political power. Furthermore, Turkey's economic development has been remarkable (despite recent difficulties). Recent constitutional reforms, especially those regarding Kurdish rights, are further encouraging. The fact that the European Union is ready to consider Ankara for membership, despite reservations, suggests how far this country, which straddles two continents, has come. Islamic extremism is a problem, yet it is posed within a basically modern and fairly liberal society. The recent parliamentary crisis does not change this situation in any basic way.

Indonesia and Bangladesh, despite their differences, are populous Muslim societies that have attempted (Indonesia) or maintained (Bangladesh) multiparty systems. There is a relatively free press in both of them, despite difficult socio-economic conditions. Even Pakistan, currently under military rule, has experimented at various times with a multiparty system.

Iran should convince even skeptics that an Islamic republic has the potential to move in a democratic direction. This regime, which had its start in a bloody revolution, steeped in an intolerant version of Shia Islam, has begun to evolve in a more promising direction. Its institutional structure should not be stereotyped, despite political ups and downs. There are parliamentary and presidential elections in Iran, and although all contenders must be approved as legitimately Muslim by religious authorities, elections are contested. The election of President Mohammad Khatami, and the last Majlis (parliamentary) vote, suggest the emergence of limited pluralism. Despite having to wear the chador, women may vote, participate in political life, and probably were responsible, together with young people, for Khatami's election. Real debates occur in the Majlis, with voting and coalition building. The country's Islam-based Constitution guarantees religious minorities (Christians, Jews, and Zoroastrians) seats in Parliament, and although mainly symbolic, this suggests the possibility of limited tolerance even under the Islamic Republic. Whether Iran's political system will open further or not depends on various internal and external factors. (George W. Bush's "Axis of Evil" speech did not help.) But the potential is there.

Yet similar developments cannot be found among the members of the Arab League. Before turning to them, I should note that although Islam as such is not a hindrance to democratization and modernization, it has had a long, conflicted relationship with the West and Christianity that other religions (Hinduism and Buddhism, for example) do not have. Islam is, after all, a culture and a religion that fought Christianity for world hegemony-and lost. Its theology clearly distinguishes between the Camp of Islam (Dar al-Islam) and the Camp of War (Dar al-Harb), and a residue of this dual worldview remains in current thinking and behavior. Osama bin Laden called the mujahedeen victory in Afghanistan (over the Soviets) the first Islamic victory over a European power since the Ottoman defeat at Vienna in 1683; his manifesto's proclamation of war against "Crusaders and Jews" touches longstanding sentiments. Although such sentiments may be occasionally strong among Muslims, they haven't prevented some non-Arab Muslim societies from developing in democratic directions. Nevertheless, not one of the twenty-two members of the Arab League is a democracy, or even a flawed democracy. None have experienced serious attempts at democratization, either from above or from below. In the last decade and a half, while countries from Eastern Europe to Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa have sought to democratize, no Arab state has faced a movement like Solidarity or had a leader like Mikhail Gorbachev. There is no easy explanation of this unique democracy deficit. A number of factors contributed, and together raise the question of what might be called, with some hesitation, an Arab Sonderweg (special way).

Trauma and Ambivalence
Arab nationalism has a historical narrative. The encounter with the West is central to it. It led to an ambivalent relationship combining emulation, resentments, and the development of defense mechanisms. When Europeans think of Napoleon's abortive campaign in Egypt, they associate it with Champollion and the Rosetta Stone. For Arabs, it was the first of many European military incursions-incursions that spelled defeat for Muslim (and Arab) forces but that also brought the ideas of the Enlightenment to the Middle East. European ideas became associated both with military conquest and Christian missionary activity. Consequently the emancipatory messages of the Enlightenment and the French Revolution were tainted. Western ideas were nonetheless embraced by many Arab intellectuals in the belief that ex occidente lux. Contemporary scholars such as Fouad Ajami or Sadiq Jelal al-Azm suggest that all attempts among the Arabs to adopt European political ideas ended in disappointment. Parliamentary experiments occurred in the 1920s and 1930s in Arab countries under the British or French League of Nations mandates (or under direct British hegemony in Egypt). All ended in failure. In the 1930s and 1940s, fascism fascinated many Arab leaders and intellectuals in Iraq, Syria, Egypt, and Palestine-with catastrophic results. After the Second World War, tiers-mondiste socialism, Marxism, and secular nationalism became the lodestars of Arab intellectuals. But Nasserism and Ba'athism led to political and military defeats, such as the 1967 war with Israel. After so many failed attempts to seize European ideas, it is not so surprising that a return to Islam-to an idealized, pristine model of Islam-seemed to many to be the only option left. Islam is a return to "roots"-a return from Western, corrupting "exile." Democratic alternatives are nowhere on the agenda (except for some recent encouraging but atypical proposals by Bahrain's ruler). Attempts to democratize the Palestinian Authority, although well-intentioned, are obviously doomed. How can the Palestinians, under conditions of Israeli occupation, with their society and institutions deeply contaminated by suicide terrorism, achieve what Egypt and Saudi Arabia have failed to achieve under conditions of independence and statehood?

In fact, the Arab world is not politically homogenous. There are diverse forms of government and social and economic structures. Some Arab countries are small, others are large; some are densely populated, others have sparse populations spread over large terrains. Some are poor, others are among the world's richest lands; some are traditional monarchies, others are military or party dictatorships. Some are mildly authoritarian, others are harsh tyrannies. Many Arab states have experienced coups d'état, putsches, military insurrections, or violent uprisings; but none have pursued real political liberalization. It is worth noting that scholars of comparative politics have not addressed this singular reality. The scholarly literature about democratic transformation by such political scientists as Juan Linz, Alfred Stepan, or Wolfgang Merkel discusses regions where reforms have (more or less) succeeded (Eastern Europe or Latin America, for example). But it doesn't address the political stagnation of Arab countries. Until the recent publication of the "Arab Human Development Report," sponsored by the UN Development Program, this has been a taboo subject in internal Arab political discourse. Now, for the first time, a group of courageous Arab intellectuals has dared to address the Arab democratic deficit.

The lack of democracy leaves the field open to extremists, partially licensed by government authorities. Egypt's regime is authoritarian, but not harshly so (compared, for instance, with those of Iraq or Syria). Still, political party activity is discouraged and extreme Islam is persecuted. As one result, mosques are the only places in which people can congregate freely. But they are subject to political indoctrination of one sort or another inside them. The alliance between the House of Saud and the Wahhabi religious establishment in Saudi Arabia leaves education and control of public morality in reactionary, anti-Western hands (with institutions at their disposal such as the "Ministry for the Prevention of Vice and the Promotion of Virtue"). Look at Saudi textbooks and you will see that what bin Laden practices, Saudi schools preach and teach. The September 11 killers came mostly from Saudi Arabia and Egypt. Tension between social reality and Western temptation creates disorientation; this leads some young, educated Arabs to extremism. The September 11 hijackers were not illiterate peasants. Among them were highly educated people, some educated in the West.

Sayyid Qutb, who was executed by Gamal Abdel Nasser and was one of the forefathers of today's fundamentalism in Egypt, provides a historical prototype. He began his journey to extremism after a government-sponsored tour of the United States. His exposure to American culture, to what he took to be liberated women, to consumerism, and to materialism turned him into an ideologue of jihad against the West. He saw America and the West as pagan societies, a new form of pre-Islamic Jahiliyya (the pre-Muhammad era of "ignorance" in the Arabian peninsula}. Islamic extremist propaganda now often characterizes modernity as neo-Jahiliyya.

Double Economic Failure
Economic failure has accompanied political failure in the Arab world. After oil money transformed the Gulf states in the late 1960s and early 1970s, many Arab intellectuals believed that a new golden age would come. They hoped the whole Arab world would be led to prosperity. It did not happen. Like Spain and Portugal in another age-when these kingdoms had easy access to Mexican and Peruvian gold and silver-Saudi Arabia and Kuwait used their wealth for consumption instead of developing industries and production. They invested in Western stock exchanges rather than in creating an all-Arab prosperity zone and uplifting the Egyptian masses (for example) from their abject poverty. All this brought deep resentments from Arab intellectuals. Egyptian intellectuals, in particular, looked at the incredible wealth of Saudi Arabia and the profligate lifestyle of many of its princely leaders and came to scorn the religious presumptions of the Guardians of the Two Shrines (Mecca and Medina). One Egyptian intellectual privately commented that he now understood how Martin Luther felt about the sixteenth-century papacy. Bin Laden's radicalism did not start with a critique of the United States. It started with opposition to the Saudi dynasty's religious hypocrisy and then turned against the United States after American troops were stationed in the Holy Land of Arabia after the Gulf War. Forty years ago, bin Laden might have turned to communism or Nasserism. These options are no longer relevant. Young people who might have become supporters of Che Guevara now turn to bin Laden. It is the internal tensions of Arab societies, and their lack of legitimate avenues for social and political criticism, that exploded, violently, on the banks of the Hudson and the Potomac.
Similar circumstances also help to explain the support many radical Arab intellectuals gave to Saddam Hussein's occupation of Kuwait. Saddam announced that the road to Jerusalem led through Kuwait, and this helped to legitimate him as a potential Saladin. But it was the deep resentments toward Kuwait's oil-rich rulers that led many Arab intellectuals to hail Saddam. It seemed as if the sheikhs finally would get what they deserved.

This double economic failure in the Arab world-the failure to share the wealth and the failure to develop economically-turned many middle-class Arabs against the West as well as against their own leaders. An Egyptian intellectual once observed that had the Saudis and Kuwaitis invested only 10 percent of their oil income in Egypt, the whole region could have become another Japan or South Korea. Arab intellectuals know that the per capita GNP in Egypt and South Korea was the same in 1950. They cite this fact again and again.

Breaking the Shackles
So the real problem begins locally. That is the first thing that must be recognized. American policies and Israel's behavior (or even its existence) are not the roots of the rage that led to September 11: The root is the failure of Arab-let me repeat, not Muslim-societies to come to terms with modernity, economic development, democracy, and liberalism. I know it has been taboo to say such things. Because Egypt supported the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, and itself made peace with Israel, Western criticisms of its authoritarian regime have been muted. A case in point is the shameful silence of the United States and the European Union in the case of Sa'ad Eddin Ibrahim, the academic who has been imprisoned and persecuted in Cairo on trumped-up charges. His real sin is being independent, a nonconformist, and a democrat. And so long as Saudi oil flowed freely, so long as petro-dollars were invested in the West, so long as the Saudi government seemed stable-why complain about the almost totalitarian nature of its regime, about its religious intolerance, its oppression of women or the Shi'ite minority?

These issues must now be addressed. The lack of democracy and openness in Arab societies is the "root cause" of the Islamic extremism that is now being exported from those countries. Political dialogue with Arab countries can no longer bypass these issues. Here are some ways to address them-firmly, but with empathy and understanding:

1. Change the Euro-Mediterranean dialogue.
Americans and Europeans have to change their dialogue with Arab authoritarian regimes. It is impossible to avoid the issues of democracy and liberty. The Euro-Mediterranean dialogue should not continue on its present course, where everything is discussed-from medieval philosophy to abstract ruminations on theology and human rights-except the democracy deficit in Arab countries. Discussions among European and Arab intellectuals about Thomas Aquinas, Avicenna, and Maimonides are all fine, but it's time to include the Enlightenment-Locke, Voltaire, Rousseau, and Mill. The absence of Arab counterparts to these Western thinkers should not make this conversation taboo. On the contrary, dialogue is enhanced by bringing out differences. Politically correct one-dimensionality stifles fruitful debate. This conversation should be pursued with all due respect to cultural differences, and with respect toward Islam and its heritage. But polite evasiveness precludes real dialogue. Indeed, it smacks of hegemonism and arrogance.

2. Raise the basic issues.
The United States and the European Union must raise basic political and economic issues with their Arab counterparts and not allow them to change the subject. Perhaps it is too early to set up a Euro-Mediterranean Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. But just as the Helsinki Accords served to bolster dissent in the Soviet bloc, so the United States and European Union should present realistic suggestions to the Arab world as part of a "dialogue of civilizations." If Andrei Sakharov was once a symbol and a battle cry, Sa'ad Eddin Ibrahim should be today.

3. Avoid dogmatic fixations.
Dialogue should be pursued realistically and without dogmatic fixations. Western input into the Arab political discourse should not turn into another imperialist imposition. Tact and understanding are necessary, but a fawning idealization of Islam is just as counterproductive (and historically and morally false) as a facile demonization of it.

4. Strengthen civil society.
Civil society needs to be strengthened in Arab countries. American and European foundations can be of enormous help. German foundations are already active in some Arab countries, and they are especially well placed because there is much less resentment against Germany than against Britain and the United States. (Germany was not a colonial power in the Middle East. There are also other reasons, some of them unpleasant, why Germany is popular in the Arab world. Whatever these reasons, Germany's easier access to some elements of Arab society should be put to good use.)

5. Use Turkey and Iran as examples.
There is Arab reluctance to look to Turkey and Iran because of the historical enmity of Arab nationalism toward both countries. (The enmity is not always acknowledged, and is often unknown to Western observers, including some self-styled experts on Islam, who know holy texts but not profane and historical contexts.) Although Turkey and Iran differ from the Arab world, their experiences have something to offer.
6. Strengthen political parties and encourage political reform.

This is a forbidden topic in many Arab countries, especially Saudi Arabia. It might be best, given Saudi sensibilities, to urge change tactfully, through private advice, not public statement. European interlocutors may be more adept at this sort of diplomacy than Americans. But no alibis should be countenanced ("let's first solve the Palestine issue").

These are long- and short-term strategies, and they will require some difficult decisions. They will not solve the immediate issue of destroying al-Qaeda's cells. But they can help-to use a quasi-Maoist expression-to dry out the sea in which extremists swim. They may also help finally bring an important part of the world into the orbit of modernization and democracy. The historical marginalization of the Arabs has to end. Regardless of debates about globalization, the underlying tenets of modernization-Enlightenment, the promises of liberty and equality, the emancipation of women-can no longer be excluded from Arab public discourse. The UNDP-sponsored report openly focused on the Arab democratic deficit, yet failed to suggest the reasons for it. They now have to be addressed openly, and realistic mechanisms for change have to be proposed. Clinging to an apparent Sonderweg has already produced September 11, after keeping tens of millions of people shackled in a pre-modern world characterized by intolerance, the lack of freedom, and poverty.

Shlomo Avineri teaches political science at the Hebrew University and is the author, among other books, of The Making of Modern Zionism.