The Great Debate UK

from FaithWorld:

Will the Arab Spring bring U.S.-style “culture wars” to the Middle East?

(From left: Olivier Roy, Cardinal Angelo Scola and Martino Diez of the Oasis Foundation at the conference on San Servolo island, Venice, June 20, 2011/Giorgia Dalle Ore/Oasis)

Where is the Arab Spring leading the Middle East? What will be the longer-term outcome of the popular protests that have shaken the region since the beginning of this year? Of course, it’s still too early to say with any certainty, even in countries such as Tunisia and Egypt that succeeded in toppling their authoritarian regimes. Some trends have emerged, however, and they’re on the agenda at a conference in Venice I’m attending entitled “Medio Oriente verso dove?” (Where is the Middle East heading?). The host is the Oasis Foundation, a group chaired by Cardinal Angelo Scola, the Roman Catholic patriarch of this historic city, and guests include Christian and Muslim religious leaders and academics from the Middle East and Europe.

In one of the most interesting -- and hotly debated -- presentations, the French Islam specialist Olivier Roy described the Arab Spring as “a break with the culture and ideologies that dominated the Arab world from the 1950s until recently.” It marks a clear change in the demographic, political and religious paradigms operating there, he said. The old dichotomy of the authoritarian regime or the Islamist state has broken down, he argued, and Islam is taking on a new role in the political process. In the end, the region -- or at least the states where the Arab Spring brings real change -- could see democratic politics marked not by major efforts to establish an Islamic state but by Muslim “culture war” controversies not unlike the way hot-button issues such as abortion and gay marriage emerge in U.S. political debates.

(Newly wed Egyptian anti-government protesters in Tahrir Square in Cairo February 10, 2011/Dylan Martinez)

The first trend Roy cited to back up this thesis is the sharp drop in fertility levels in the Arab world since the late 1980s and the 1990s. Several Arab countries, especially those in North Africa, now have birthrates of around two children per woman, close but still above the European average. Tunisia’s birthrate is actually lower than France's.  “The generation that is now on the job market is the last generation of big families,” said Roy, who is now director of the Mediterranean Programme at the European University Institute in Florence. “It’s a generation that has many fewer children and marries much later.”

from FaithWorld:

Pakistan’s booming female madrassas feed rising intolerance

(Covered Pakistani female madrassa students take part in an anti-government demonstration in Islamabad August 27, 2004 after a government raid in their mosque and Islamic seminary/Mian Khursheed)

Varda is an accountancy student who dreams of working abroad. Dainty and soft-spoken, the 22-year-old aspires to broaden her horizons, but when it comes to Islam, she refuses to question the fundamentalist interpretations offered by clerics and lecturers nationwide.

Varda is among more than a quarter of a million Pakistani students attending an all-female madrassa, or Islamic seminary, where legions of well-to-do women are experiencing an awakening of faith, at the cost of rising intolerance. In a nation where Muslim extremists are slowly strengthening their grip on society, the number of all-female madrassas has boomed over the past decade, fueled by the failures of the state education system and a deepening conservativism among the middle to upper classes.

Parents often encourage girls to enroll in madrassas after finishing high school or university, as an alternative to a shrinking, largely male-orientated job market, and to ensure a girl waiting to get married isn't drawn into romantic relationships, says Masooda Bano, a research fellow at the British-based Economic and Social Research Council.

But, like Varda, many students at the 2,000 or so registered madrassas are university students or graduates looking for greater understanding of Islam, as well as housewives who, like others in Pakistani society, feel pressured to deepen their faith.

Asked about the killing of a governor earlier this year because he opposed the country's controversial blasphemy law, Varda, without hesitation, said Salman Taseer's murder by his own bodyguard was the right thing to do. "If people ... call themselves Muslims and they are members of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, then they should not be criticizing this law," she said. "I am sorry to say this, but this is what he deserved."

from FaithWorld:

How will Afghan women fare if Kabul and the Taliban reconcile?

(Schoolgirls listen to a speech by Afghan President Hamid Karzai during a ceremony marking the start of the school year at Amani High School in Kabul March 23, 2011/Omar Sobhani)

The gaggles of giggling schoolgirls in their black uniforms and flowing white hijabs seen across Afghanistan's cities have become symbolic of how far women's rights have come since the austere rule of the Taliban was toppled a decade ago. While women have gained back basic rights in education, voting and work, considered un-Islamic by the Taliban, their plight remains severe and future uncertain as Afghan leaders seek to negotiate with the Taliban as part of their peace talks.

The United States and NATO, who have been fighting Taliban insurgents for 10 years in an increasingly unpopular war, have repeatedly stressed that any peace talks must abide by Afghanistan's constitution, which says the two sexes are equal. But President Hamid Karzai's reticence on the matter, constant opposition by the Taliban, and setbacks even at the government level cast a shadow on the prospects of equality for the 15 million women who make up about half the population.

"I am not optimistic at all," said Suraya Parlika, 66, a Nobel Peace Prize nominee and member of the upper house of the Afghan parliament. "We do not know the agenda of the talks and this worries all women in Afghanistan."

"Women are at risk of losing everything they have regained," she told Reuters in her office at the All Afghan Women's Union, the country's most prominent women's rights group that she set up 20 years ago.

The dangerous business of fighting for women's rights in Afghanistan highlights just how precarious their situation is. Parlika said Taliban militants have tried to kill her eight times. In the latest attempt, gunmen tried to shoot her through a window at her home but missed and blew a hole in the wall.

from FaithWorld:

Libyan clerics in rebel-held east see big role for Islam after Gaddafi

(A Libyan woman wearing a niqab with the colours of the Kingdom of Libya attends Friday prayers in rebel-held Benghazi April 22, 2011/Amr Abdallah Dalsh)

An Islamic revival is taking hold in rebel-held eastern Libya after decades of tough curbs on worship by Muammar Gaddafi, but clerics say this will not be a new source of religious extremism as the West may fear. Restrictions on Islamic piety have become history in the east of the Arab North African state since its takeover by anti-Gaddafi insurgents, and clerics see a much bigger role for Islam in the country if Gaddafi is ultimately driven from power.

Under the autocratic Gaddafi's idiosyncratic brand of communal socialism overlaying Islam, worship was carefully regulated and any apparent manifestation of political, or militant, Islam drew harsh security crackdowns. Yet Libyan society remained religiously conservative in character and that is now flowering anew in the rebel-held east.

In signs of greater Muslim piety, some rebels have grown longer beards, public prayer has become ostentatious, religious books are selling well and plans are afoot for more centres for the study of sharia, or Islamic law -- all of which, under Gaddafi, could have led to arrest and imprisonment.

"The situation in free Libya will revert to its natural state -- the natural state of the practice of religion in life, in the morals of the people, their ways, their return to the mosques," said Osama al-Salaaby, a well-known cleric and professor of sharia in Benghazi, the rebels' de facto capital.

The rebels' slow battlefield progress has benefited the cause of Islam in Libya, said Salem Jaber, the most senior cleric in the east and head of its mosque oversight body. "We've been mixing, and the Islamists and the secularists are coming together to create a middle road," said Jaber.

from FaithWorld:

Bin Laden ‘eased’ into sea in contentious burial

(Aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson, from which Osama bin Laden was buried at sea somewhere in the north Arabian Sea/U.S. Navy)

He may have been America's enemy number one, but after U.S. forces killed him, Osama bin Laden was afforded Islamic religious rites by the U.S. military as part of his surprise at-sea burial on Monday.

The U.S. military said preparations for the al-Qaida leader's burial lasted nearly an hour. His body was washed before being covered in a white sheet and religious remarks translated into Arabic by a native speaker were read over bin Laden's corpse.

"The burial of bin Laden's remains was done in strict conformance with Islamist precepts and practices," said John Brennan, U.S. President Barack Obama's top counter-terrorism adviser.

Washington said bin Laden was buried at sea after U.S. forces killed him at a compound near the Pakistani capital Islamabad because it was the best option, given tight time constraints.

Under Islamic tradition Muslims need to be buried within 24 hours. Transferring the body to another country for interment could have taken too long, officials said.

from The Great Debate:

Why democracy will win

Philip N. Howard, an associate professor at the University of Washington, is the author of "The Digital Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy:  Information Technology and Political Islam". The opinions expressed are his own.

The Day of Rage in Saudi Arabia was a tepid affair, and Libyan rebels have suffered strategic losses. Only two months ago, popular uprisings in Tunisia inspired Egyptians and others to take to the streets to demand political reform. Will the tough responses from Gadaffi and the Saudi government now discourage Arab conversations about democratic possibilities? It may seem like the dictators are ahead, but it’s only a temporary lead.

Ben Ali ruled Tunisia for 20 years, Mubarak reigned in Egypt for 30 years, and Gadaffi has held Libya in a tight grip for 40 years. Yet their bravest challengers are 20- and 30-year-olds without ideological baggage, violent intentions or clear leaders. The groups that initiated and sustained protests have few meaningful experiences with public deliberation or voting, and little experience with successful protesting. These young activists are politically disciplined, pragmatic and collaborative. Where do young people who grow up in entrenched authoritarian regimes get political aspirations? How do they learn about political life in countries where faith and freedom coexist?

The answer, for the most part, is online. And it is not just that digital media provided new tools for organizing protest and inspiring stories of success from Tunisia and Egypt. The important structural change in Middle East political life is not so much about digital ties between the West and the Arab street, but about connections between Arab streets.

Research has demonstrated three clear democratizing effects of the Internet, especially among young people in the region: more individuals are using the Internet to openly discuss the interpretation of Islamic texts, more people are forming individuated political identities online and creating their own media, and more citizens are actively debating gender politics and pan-Islamic identity. Satellite television has fed a transnational Middle East identity for several decades. But it is only in the last decade that people have started transnational conversations about politics and shared grievances.

Some experts thought the Internet was going to be a boon for radical voices and fundamentalist Islam. But it turns out that digital media more often push such extremists to the side, and bolster the networks of civil society groups over terrorist groups. Individuals learn that they can become sources of information, and that Dropbox accounts, Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, Google and a host of other tools provide ways for people to spread information beyond the reach of their despot.

from FaithWorld:

Handouts dash Saudi king’s reformer reputation

(Saudi King Abdullah addresses the nation from his office at the Royal Palace in Riyadh March 18, 2011/Saudi Press Agency)

Saudi King Abdullah's lavish social handouts and a boost to security and religious police, but no political change, leaves his prized reputation as a reformist in tatters, analysts say.

The king, believed to be 87, has carefully crafted an image as a cautious reformer in a country ruled by a single generation of his brothers as absolute monarchs for nearly six decades. But faced with unrest rocking much of the Arab world, he is playing the old game of buying support from key sectors of society to keep family rule as it is.

In a rare TV address to the nation last Friday, the king announced the new spending but gave no concessions on rights in a country where public space is dominated by the royal family, political parties are banned and there is no elected parliament.

There was no word either on a much anticipated reshuffle of a cabinet whose main posts are held by senior princes, some of whom have been in their jobs for more than four decades in the key U.S. ally and world's top oil exporter. "I was expecting perhaps a cabinet reshuffle but unfortunately he focussed on paying money and he has increased the role of the religious establishment," said Tawfiq al-Saif, a leading intellectual among minority Saudi Shi'ite Muslims.

"He is returning to the policy of the late King Fahd in the 1980s when money and religion was the only tool of the government," he said.

from Pakistan: Now or Never?:

Egypt and Pakistan; something borrowed, something new

The Egyptian uprising contains much that is familiar to Pakistan - the dark warnings of a coup, in Egypt's case delivered by Vice President Omar Suleiman, the role of political Islam, and a relationship with the United States distorted by U.S. aid and American strategic interests which do not match those of the people.

President Hosni Mubarak cited Pakistan as an example of what happened when a ruler like President Pervez Musharraf - like himself from the military - was forced to make way for democracy. "He fears that Pakistan is on the brink of falling into the hands of the Taliban, and he puts some of the blame on U.S. insistence on steps that ultimately weakened Musharraf," a 2009 U.S. embassy cable published by WikiLeaks said.

Comparisons with Pakistan tend to make you somewhat sceptical about the chances of Egypt's uprising turning out well.

Yet there is something quite new coming out of Egypt that has the potential to be transformative across the Muslim world. And that is the rejection of all forms of old authority, including, significantly, religious authority.

"The revolution was not just directed against the autocratic, repressive and corrupt Egyptian regime, which relied on an alliance of money, power and corruption. It was also directed against the official religious establishment and its discourse that supports this regime, either directly or indirectly." Hossam Tammam writes in Egyptian paper Al Masry Al Youm. (scroll down to see the story as the link opens a page with a lot of space at the top).

"The Egyptian revolution has completely reconfigured the religious scene and clarified the public’s position towards religious institutions and discourses in the country. The result has been surprising. No one expected that religious Egyptians are capable of overriding the powers of religious institutions and of challenging religious discourses that they suddenly perceived as part of a corrupt and repressive regime. The official religious establishments--both Islamic and Christian--have been the biggest losers in the revolution."

Such a trend, if it were allowed to flourish, would be tremendously important in the context of Pakistan, where political parties and the military alike have both used, and been held hostage by religious parties whose power by far exceeds their poor showing at the ballot box.  In a conservative society (as both Egypt and Pakistan are) few dare face down the accusation of "not being Muslim enough" by challenging the religious establishment. The last well-known figure to do so in Pakistan, Punjab governor Salman Taseer, was gunned down last month over his call for a reform to the country's blasphemy laws, and his death celebrated by the religious right.  Many of the voices speaking out against his killing came from young Pakistan bloggers.

from FaithWorld:

Can Arabs learn from Turkish model of Islam and democracy?

(Turkey's Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan in Ankara, December 2, 2008/Umit Bektas)

If President Hosni Mubarak bows to the clamor of the street and goes, Egyptians and other Arabs seeking to turn a page on autocratic government may look at Turkey for some clues on marrying Islam and democracy.

Relatively stable, with a vibrant economy and ruled by a conservative and pragmatic government led by former Islamists, Turkey has often been cited as a model Muslim democracy and a linchpin of Western influence in the region.

With a wave of unrest spreading from Tunisia to Jordan to Yemen and as calls intensify for Mubarak to start a transition soon, Middle East analysts are turning their attention to Turkey, a rising diplomatic force in the region.

"The only effective, working model in the Middle East is the Turkish model. There is nothing else," said Fatwa Gerges, professor of Middle Eastern politics and international relations at the London School of Economics. "Turkey's model serves as a foundation for similar societies so I think then in the wake of the protests Arabs will be taking a second look at the Turkish model that marries Islamic values and democracy as a universal form of government," Gerges said.

But analysts cautioned that deep differences between Turkey, a NATO partner and European Union candidate with a moderate brand of Islam, and an Arab Middle East lacking a culture of political freedom, means the model cannot be readily copied. "There is no question Turkey's example can be an inspiration in Tunisia or in Egypt, but if any Arab country would take Turkey as a model it would take it decades to emulate Turkey's political and economic development," said Fadi Hakura, associate professor at London's Chatham House think tank.

from Pakistan: Now or Never?:

Pakistan, blasphemy, and a tale of two women

For all the bad news coming out of Pakistan, you can't help but admire the courage of two very different women who did what their political leaders failed to do -- stood up to the religious right after the killing of Punjab governor Salman Taseer over his call for changes to the country's blasphemy laws.

One is Sherry Rehman, a politician from the ruling Pakistan People's Party, who first proposed amendments to the laws. The other is actress Veena Malik, who challenged the clerical establishment for criticising her for appearing on Indian reality show Big Boss.  I'm slightly uncomfortable about grouping the two together -- the fact that both are Pakistani women does not make them any more similar than say, for example, two Pakistani men living in Rawalpindi or  London. Yet at the same time, the idea that Pakistan can produce such different and outspoken women says a lot about the diversity and energy of a country which can be too easily written off as a failing state or  bastion of the Islamist religious right.

Sherry Rehman is living as a virtual prisoner in her home in Karachi after being threatened over her support for amendments to the blasphemy laws. She has refused to leave the country for her own safety, nor indeed to accept the position adopted by her party leaders -- that now is not the time to amend the laws. Their argument appears to be that trying to amend the laws now would just add more fuel to the fire after religious leaders defended Taseer's killing and organised huge protests in favour of the current legal provisions.

"There's never a right time," Britain's Guardian newspaper quoted her as saying.  "Blasphemy cases are continually popping up, more horror stories from the ground. How do you ignore them?" 

"We know from history that appeasement doesn't pay. It only emboldens them," said Rehman.

For background, here is the text of the original law introduced into the Indian Penal Code by British colonial rulers in 1860:

Section 295: Injuring or defiling place of worship, with intent to insult the religion of any class: