To Understand the Arab Spring, Suspend Belief

“Where did the Arab Spring go wrong?”  This is sometimes the theme of scholarly papers and popular articles in the West.  I cringe a little.  To me it’s a loaded question that presupposes it could have gone right.  Could it?

We Westerners have a terribly difficult time understanding the Arab world.  It requires (get ready for some terms from Social Theory) shedding layers of traditions, customs, values, and norms—in other words, you have to suspend belief in the rich legacy hard won from our turbulent and violent Western history.  Let go of devotion to our American Republic, founded in the rule of law and successful thanks to the separation of powers and the Great Compromise resulting in a bicameral legislature.  Surrender the belief in inalienable, natural, or God-given rights and the equality of every human being in that respect.  Give up the notion that the realms of Church and State should be separated.  Put aside devotion to science as a path to knowledge, as legitimate as, or even superior to faith.  Turn back the clock before the Enlightenment, before the Peace of Westphalia.  Now you can begin to understand the mores underneath the surface in the Arab world.

In place of everything that makes us Western, substitute an uncompromising belief in the infallibility of one man, one Messenger from God, the Last Prophet, never to have a successor, and an unmitigated devotion to one book spoken by that man who said it was the Word of God, which by definition must contain the answer to every legal and moral question humankind can ask.  Be assured that science is an unnecessary path to knowledge when God knows all and all is his will.   It is impossible to separate faith from secular power, since God is One.  The Mosque is the only legitimate State.  With no hierarchy, judging the legitimacy of individual leaders is an individual affair.  Spreading the Word by the Sword is following in the Prophet’s example.  Therefore, leaders will emerge, gain a following, and rise or fall as they might, according to God’s will.  Happiness is irrelevant.  Submitting to the will of God and serving him is the only true purpose in life.  Where Islam moves along in this fashion is the World of Peace.  The West, in contrast, is the World of War and the source of human corruption, constantly invading and infecting the World of Peace with its crusaders and elevation of women to the status of men.  You hear these themes repeated every Friday at prayer until they reverberate in your soul as if spoken with the voice of God.

Now, can you see the Arab Spring as they saw it themselves?  Who among them saw it as a deepening of the Arab World’s Westernization? a drawing nearer to drinking from the West’s deep social springs?  No, not so.  It was to them a throwing off of illegitimate, secular, corrupt tyrants propped up by the West.  Enter the violent, extreme Islamists, whose doctrine strikes all the right tones of orthodoxy noted above and whose military success is prima facia evidence of God’s favor.  The Arab Spring is in the finest Eastern tradition, not a Westward move.  And it’s going along swimmingly.  So any handwringing by Western observers about where it went wrong starts at the wrong point of departure.

Now, un-suspend your belief in our great Western Civilization.  It’s clear the West cannot tolerate or coexist with ISIS, al Qaida, or its lookalikes.  This is indeed a Clash of Civilizations and a struggle for the soul of humanity, for its freedom of thought and exploration, or its return to oppression under some version of orthodoxy backed up by the coercive power of the State.  Fighting and winning this conflict will require symbolically doing to Mecca what Europe did to Rome—stripping it of any earthly, stately power.  It’s unlikely that can be imposed from outside the Arab World itself.  To be a self-sustaining transformation, extreme Islamism must lose legitimacy widely within the Arab World, to the extent it is despised and hated in the West.  So far, what we’re hearing from many common Arabs is disheartening—ISIS is too violent and merciless, but it teaches Islam correctly.

The good news is that people are people everywhere, and most people are just trying to run their shops and feed their families.  Most favor peace.  Many believe coexistence is acceptable, but good fences make good neighbors.  Tolerance—real tolerance, where there is close daily interaction with those you disagree with and disapprove of, but remain on friendly terms—is idealistic and admirable but not realistic and increasingly rare as the world becomes more polarized.  Trade on fair terms, honesty in business dealings, and respect for local customs and practices go a long way toward maintaining peace.  These attitudes give hope, but you would have to completely suspend your disbelief to think they are sufficient to transform the Middle East.  We must be prepared to maintain both military as well as diplomatic engagement, for a long time to come.