Ovi Magazine Issue #24: Nationalism - Published: 2013-01-31

Press for nationalism
Hichem Karoui:
Islamism, internationalism, nationalism
The question of the link between Islamism and nationalism
has come back to the limelight since the Arab spring.
After 9/11, the American reaction emphasised the notion
that this was a “war against America”, who could declare
wars but nationals of other countries, even if they were
pariahs and mercenaries?
The point is that Al Qaeda leaders never hid an internal
agenda in their pretensions. However, as they found
refuge in varied countries outside their own birthplaces,
and as they masterminded operations that crossed borders
and continents, the observers were struck by the
international aspect of this activity which they labelled
“international Islamism”, “international jihad”, and “international
terrorism”, while the regional and local aspects
became secondary. Such views have been issued
for example, by – but by no means exclusively – Israeli
analysts, who, while confronted with violent operations
executed by Hamas and al Jihad al Islami activists, have
been keen on promoting a picture where local Palestinian
fighters would be part of “ an Islamist International”.
The United States and the Western states have adopted
such views. Nevertheless, this picture does not stand to
the analysis, at least because the Palestinian Islamist activists
have never executed any operation outside what
they deem to be a field of conflict: Israel itself and the
Palestinian territories.
For Reuven Paz, for example, (Is there an Islamist International?),
the term Global Jihad marks and reflects
the solidarity of a variety of movements, groups, and
sometimes ad hoc groupings or cells, which act under
a kind of ideological umbrella of radical interpretations
of Islam. The Islamists saw the fall of the Soviet Union
as a direct result of the Soviet defeat in Afghanistan at
the hands of Islamic warriors. The large number of Arab
volunteers recruited to fight the Soviets in the Afghan
conflict led to the opening of other fronts in various local
and national disputes with religious overtones: Bosnia,
Albania, Kosovo, Chechnya, Dagestan and Kashmir.
“This involvement has led many observers to view the
phenomenon of “Afghan Arabs” as a kind of Islamist
International, similar to the International Brigades of
Socialist and Communist volunteers in the civil war in
Spain in the 1930s.”
Nevertheless, Paz fails to see the national – or even the
nationalist – dimension of the phenomenon, maybe because
he was unable – like many Israelis – to view the
activists of Islamist organisations in Palestine and the
rest of the Arabo-Islamic world as mainly contesting the
regimes they are directly confronted with. That is why,
there is a pre-Afghanistan in their struggle and an after-Afghanistan.
In the two periods, we can observe that
the phenomenon falls back to its local (national) dimension.
Paz also mixes up the Wahhabism, the international terrorism,
and the Jihad. He writes : “Under the influence
of the Arab Afghan phenomenon there has also been an
ideological consolidation of Wahhabi-Takfiri Jihadi ideology
and rhetoric that resulted in two main developments
:
A shift in the struggle , mainly through massive terrorism,
from the heart of the Arab world into the ‘Wild
West’ of Central Asia and to Western countries or Western
interests in the region.
- Better cooperation between various groups and organisations.
In the Middle East examples are Hamas, the Palestinian
Islamic Jihad, and to some extent Hezbollah. On
the international scene, one can see this in the case of
the Egyptian, Pakistani, Kashmiri, Algerian, Jordanian,
Yemeni, and Sunni Lebanese groups.”
Seemingly, there is some confusion in Paz’s perception
of the Islamist phenomenon.
First point, one would ask: what is the link between Wahhabism
and Takfir? Were the Wahhabis – who are still
a majority in Saudi Arabia – takfiris, they would never
have been able to maintain any relationship with other
Sunnite Muslims who do not share their principles and
who are the majority in their respective countries. After
all, who launched the idea and founded the quite acknowledged
“Islamic Congress Organisation” acting on
behalf of Islamic states, but the Wahhabi Saudis? Takfir
is an exclusionist notion that asserts that the “others” are
not believers, and as such, they deserve to be considered
as foes of God. The clearest example of such an endeavour
is that of the Egyptian extremist group, labelled al
takfir wal hijra, which “executed” President Sadat on
these same grounds (not for political reasons).
Second point, what Paz figured out to be a “shift in the
struggle”, was rather a parenthesis, imposed by two factors
: a) the violence of the repression against the Islamists
– notwithstanding their moderation or their extremism
– in some Muslim countries and their forced
exile ; b) the calling for Islamic solidarity at the time of
the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Many Mujahedeen
thought that an experience in an armed struggle would
be useful on the day they return home to deliver the ultimate
fight. That is exactly what happened.
Third point, if we take a close look at the groups Paz
mentions, we would see that each one of them is related
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