Between Dissent and Power

For much of the last quarter of the twentieth century, Islamic politics appeared to lie beyond the pale of legitimate politics in many Muslim-majority states in the world. That unenviable condition could be glimpsed from several defining moments that encouraged portrayals of Islamic politics as fundamentalism, extremism, radicalism or fanaticism (Said 1997: xiv–xx, xlvii–xlviii, 31–5).¹ First, the triumph of the clerics in the revolution in Iran led to authoritarian rule that left little space for non-Islamic pluralist political participation or opposition. Second, Anwar Sadat’s assassination by Islamist militants in Egypt exposed the predilection of some strands of political Islam for armed opposition to the state. Third, the cancellation of general elections in Algeria, which the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) was on course to win, precipitated a civil war that pitted the violent insurgency of the Islamic Army of Salvation (AIS) and the Armed Islamic Group (AIG) against the ruthless repression of the Algerian state. Fourth, the internecine struggle among domestic rivals in Afghanistan following the Soviet defeat and withdrawal ended with the seizure of power by the Taliban whose rule was marked by a very harsh religious conservatism. Fifth, a democratically elected Islamic government in Turkey was accused of subverting the secular character of the Turkish state and its prime minister was deposed in 1997.

Attempts to explain the often confusing and contradictory nature of Islamic politics may be seen as falling into two main categories. In one approach Islamic politics is understood as a reflection of the ideas, values and doctrines of Islam itself or as the product of a wider Islamic culture. A second approach is focused on the way Islamic politics has been influenced and shaped within larger processes of social and economic transformation and by the upheavals in economic and political power that accompany these. Both of these approaches raise questions about whether religious ideas and values — and the politics they produce — operate independently of deeper social and economic processes or whether they are embodied within them in one way or another.

In this chapter, I will approach political dissent relationally, drawing on insights gained from the recent theoretical innovations in the field of political sociology (McAdam, Tarrow and Tilly 2001; Tilly 2006). That is, dissent will be examined as adversary relations between sets of contending actors. In the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI), various state institutions, such as the Guardian Council, the Special Court of Clergy, the Islamic Revolution Court and various Election Supervisory Boards, typically constitute one side of these adversary relations. Actors on the other side of those relations range from some rival state institutions, such as the Majlis (Parliament) and the Government (the Executive Branch), to dissident mujtahids and lay religious intellectuals to officially banned but tolerated political groups such as the Freedom Movement of Iran (Nehzat-e Azadi-ye Iran). The relational perspective adopted in this chapter also conceives of political dissent as a form of contentious politics, that is, a series of public, collective and consequential claim-making transactions between claimants and their targets. Such claims are considered consequential because, if realized, they will impinge on the interests of at least one of the parties to the contentious interaction other than the claim-makers. They are political because the state is involved as targets, initiators of claims or third parties (McAdam, Tarrow, and Tilly 2001: 5; Tarrow and Tilly 2007: 438; Tilly 2008b: 5).

Muslim-majority societies, particularly in the Arab world after the 2011 uprisings, are undergoing a great experiment as Islamic actors move from arenas of dissent into formal positions of power. This opens up new sets of questions. What is necessary for Islamists to successfully become the status quo and gain the votes of a wider citizenry? What new forms of social alliances must be built, and what role does the initial institutional structure of Islam play in hastening or impeding democratic incorporation? Is there a pivotal moment? What is the role of a Muslim middle class, and must there be a liberal market economy for this transformation to occur? What happens to Islam in this process? And under what conditions does Islamic democracy coexist with liberalism and tolerance? For all of these questions, the Turkish example provides some tantalizing clues.¹

Post-Mubarak Egypt brought the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) movement to power after decades of being in opposition and facing repression. Through its political wing, the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), the MB controlled the newly elected Egyptian parliament before the Supreme Constitutional Court dissolved it in June 2012. One of its leaders, Muhammad Morsi, was elected President in Egypt’s first competitive elections on 24 June 2012 and the MB dominated the drafting of a new constitution that was approved in a referendum on 30 November 2012. Behind these political successes was a strong and experienced movement with an extensive organizational infrastructure and long-term strategic vision that received support from a broad social base on matters that went deeper than simply religion.

The Nahda party of Tunisia is the first Islamist party to come to power in the aftermath of the Arab revolutions that began in late 2010. When it came ahead of its political rivals in Tunisia’s election of October 2011, Nahda moved from a marginal existence as a dissident Islamist movement to the leading position in a coalition government. In the process, Nahda not only had to contend with fears and fantasies about an Islamist high-jacking of democracy, it had to tackle the administrative and practical problems of heading a post-authoritarian regime. Nahda has not mishandled the two sets of difficulties disastrously: Tunisia has escaped the large-scale violence that engulfed Libya and Syria, while Nahda has not been deposed by a military coup as has the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) in Egypt. Yet, Nahda’s problems persist: since its ascent to power, it had to redefine and adapt its political project and strategy numerous times. Although the situation in Tunisia is fluid, as it is wherever the uprisings have occurred, Nahda’s experience offers an important illustration of how Islamic politics has had to negotiate complex trajectories in shifting from dissent to rule in various countries under different conditions — a major theme of this book.

Among the different courses that Islamic movements have taken in the Middle East, the Islamic movements in Morocco are distinguished by their gradualist character. By ‘gradualist’, I mean a movement which seeks change in society and the political system within the existing socio-political framework and over the long term. This tendency sharply contrasts with insurrectionary movements, which aim for radical and even violent breaks with the established order. There are many examples of the latter, such as the Iranian Islamic revolution of 1979, coup d’état by Hasan al-Turabi and his National Islamic Front in Sudan in 1989, and establishment of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan by the Taliban in 1996. An example of a ‘failed’ Islamic insurrection is the movement by Front islamique du salut (FIS or Islamic Front of Salvation) after the cancellation of the 1991 elections in Algeria (Kepel 2000: 166–82). On the other hand, gradualist movements include AKP in Turkey.¹ In Morocco, the Parti de la justice et du développement (PJD or Party of Justice and Development), a political party whose ‘mother’ social movement is the Islamic Harakat al-Tawhid wa al-Islah (MUR or Movement of Unicity and Reform), can be regarded as a gradualist movement because, fundamentally, they do not intend to overthrow the regime of the Kingdom of Morocco even if they do criticize it as a means of obtaining their desired reforms.

In the 12th General Election of 8 March 2008 (GE12) in Malaysia, the combined opposition — of the Democratic Action Party (DAP), Parti Islam SeMalaysia (PAS, or the Islamic Party) and Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR, or People’s Justice Party) — won 49 per cent of the popular vote, 82 out of 222 parliamentary seats,¹ ten out of 11 parliamentary seats in the capital of Kuala Lumpur and five out of 13 states in the country. Thereafter, the opposition parties entered into a coalition, Pakatan Rakyat (PR, or the People’s Pact), that formed state governments led by PAS in Kedah, Kelantan and Perak,² by DAP in Penang and by PKR in Selangor. Although the ruling coalition, Barisan Nasional (BN, or National Front) retained power with a large majority, its first ever loss of a two-thirds majority in Parliament and of five states was taken as a sign that BN could be defeated by PR in a subsequent election.³

Algeria is the second largest country in Africa in terms of land mass and one of the first to have been formally colonized by a European power during the nineteenth century. It currently has close to 38 million inhabitants, mainly concentrated along towns and cities of the Mediterranean littoral. Over three quarters of Algerians are currently under the age of 30. Most of the population has Arabic as their first language, although a significant minority (about 20–5 per cent) is Berberophone or Amazigh, and French is widely spoken in urban areas. This reflects the rich legacy of successive invasions, originally by Arabs (who conquered and converted local Berber populations from the dominant animism to Islam from the seventh century onwards); subsequently by Ottoman authorities (who established a garrison in Algiers and three regencies or beyliks with capitals in Médea, Constantine and Mascara, lasting from the sixteenth to early nineteenth century); and finally, from 1830 to 1962 through its administrative incorporation into France and colonization by diverse European settlerṣ

Unlike Islamist groups ostensibly concerned with the overturning or radical transformation of the state, or Islamic political parties seeking to wrest power via elections, Islamic vigilante groups in Indonesia such as the Defenders of Islam Front, or Front Pembela Islam (FPI) have pursued a socially conservative ‘anti-vice’ and ‘anti-apostasy’ agenda against the perceived liberal excesses, ‘licentiousness’ and moral corruption of contemporary Indonesian society, which are seen as threatening the cohesiveness and integrity of the wider Islamic community.¹ This mission, framed by the Quranic edict of amar makruf nahi mungkar, usually translated as ‘enjoining good and forbidding evil’, has been operationalized via violent attacks on ‘dens of iniquity’ (tempat maksiat) and religious minorities, street protests and mobilizations, together with attempts at ‘capturing’ and wresting control of local neighbourhoods from competing predatory and violence-wielding groupṣ² Organizationally it has developed a nation wide branch system, with the central leadership based in the central Jakarta district of Pertamburan. Street level action has been combined at the local and national leadership levels by alliance building and patronage with political elites, which has enabled them to continue since 1998 with little in the way of sustained legal sanction and with an increasing capacity to exert leverage over local government and the police.³