Behind the veil of fundamentalism

For the moment the splits in Islamic societies are encouraging a return to the reassuring certainties of the fundamentalist message. How long will it last?

It is impossible to appreciate the real danger of fundamentalism if it is reduced, as it often is, to its excesses, to the manifestations of a blind and criminal terrorism, which is only its extreme outcome. This political nebula is actually divided into many tendencies, some of which, although they may be less barbaric, are not necessarily reassuring. For this reason it is important to grasp the inner logic of fundamentalism, especially those aspects of it that may seem attractive. For fundamentalism has a message, part of which responds in the modern world to unsatisfied expectations.

The fundamentalists, although themselves divided into more and less radical wings, find the climate particularly favourable to their development in countries where the powers-that-be appear to most people to be iniquitous and to be leading to the accelerated dissolution of links of social and cultural cohesion as a result of an uncontrolled opening up towards the world market and a dualization of society. In this context, some people adopt Western interests and ways of life whilst others feel excluded from them.

Thus the very identity of these countries is at stake. And it is questions like "What has become of us?" and "Where are we going?" that enable fundamentalists to articulate a global and radical approach. Their discourse is a political one. It would like to think of itself as submissive to God but not to the order of things. It is anti-Western and anti-modernistic, but it would like to think of itself, paradoxically, as anti-archaic. It rejects the fatalism of the traditional brotherhoods just as it rejects the conformism of the religious authorities associated with power.

The absence of a precise message consisting of clear and evaluated objectives does not weaken this discourse--the religious content fills the vacuum. The function of this content is not to provide a programme but an incantation; its purpose is not to resolve but to exorcise. It is not primarily aimed at reason but at blind faith. At a time when no one knows precisely what form the future may take, the strength of fundamentalism lies in its ability to promise radical change without having to specify its outlines--since God is claimed as its guarantor.

The emergence of the modern individual

In this context, what are the current prospects for those who preach secular and republican ideals? Some have immersed themselves in the study of the sacred texts in the search for quotations, metaphors and arguments to support the democratic ideas they put forward. They are fighting from a position of weakness on their opponents' own ground, ideologically and psychologically trapped.

As for those who openly defend--sometimes even at the risk of their lives--a vision clearly based on values such as the separation of the temporal and the spiritual, equality of status for all religions away from the political sphere, the freedom of the governed to choose those who will govern them, they are, quite obviously, in the minority. Not only because they are out of place in a climate of general religiosity but also because they are only making professions of faith that do not yet lead to precise and credible proposals for changes in society.

But what today is the weakness of the upholders of a democratic future should in the long run become their strength.

The dual upheaval undergone by Islamic societies--their forced entry into a market which is becoming global in ways and at a pace which are ruthlessly disrupting internal balances and hierarchies, and the advent of the autonomous individual into the political life of these societies in place of the traditional notables and feudal chiefs--is tending to increase the fragility of the national fabric, the psychic instability of individuals and the unpredictability of events.

But fragility, instability and unpredictability are signs of the maturing of a new situation, of the transition of societies to a higher stage of complexity, "plasticity" and ultimately creativity. The opening of these societies towards the world market--however unjust and cruel the conditions in which it occurs brings with it the ferment of knowledge, information and innovation, which will be assets in the changes to come. And the continuing increase in the number of individuals responsible for their conscience and their destiny, however harrowing their daily lives may be, nevertheless raises questions, doubts, desire for change and self-improvement which are all necessary seeds for future rebirths.

The currents that bear these potentialities for openness and change are the only ones that can take up, in the long run, the dual challenge of globalization and individualization. This challenge presupposes an increasing adaptability of individuals and groups to dislocation, discontinuity and the irregular pace of computer civilization.

The fundamentalist option and the democratic option are two possibilities stemming from one and the same reality: the advent of a modern individual, accountable for his thoughts and actions, and now subject to a dual temptation--accepting the gamble of freedom, with all its solitude and risks, or seeking refuge in reassuring certainties and solidarities, eclipsing both his free will and his fear of the future.

Hopes for democracy in the South perhaps hinge on this: the current globalization is taking place under conditions that challenge some of the fundamental facts of democracy in the North itself. We are all increasingly dependent on each other in facing our fundamentalisms and in creating together a setting for our freedoms.

MAHMOUD HUSSEIN, French political scientist and writer. Most recent published work: Versant Sud de la liberte: essai sur l'emergence de l'individu dans le tiers monde (1989; "The Southern Slope of Liberty: an essay on the emergence of the individual in the Third World").

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