Misunderstanding … arising from ignorance breeds fear, and fear remains the greatest enemy of peace. A common fear, however, which usually means a common foe, is also, regrettably, the strongest force bringing people together, but in opposition to something or someone.
– Lester B. Pearson4
When former Canadian Prime Minister Lester Pearson spoke those words in accepting the Nobel Peace Prize in 1957 it was during some of the darkest years of the Cold War. The “common foe” to be feared referred to the Communist powers, the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China. The ideology of atheistic Communism was frequently portrayed as the principal threat to Western Christian civilization and our way of life. With the passing of the Cold War, some argued that a universal triumph of Western liberal democracy was at hand, perhaps even a “new world order” of peace and prosperity. Others were more pessimistic, noting Iran’s Islamic revolution and contending that deeper forms of civilizational conflict were again coming to the fore to challenge Western values. Within this perspective, notably as expressed by Samuel Huntington’s “clash of civilizations” thesis5, radical Islam emerges as the principal, albeit more amorphous, threat to the West. This prediction of confrontations to come has also generated misunderstandings and fears that have been intensified by the terrorism and wars of the early 21st century.
A key problem with any claim of a fundamental incompatibility between Islam and Western values is stated by Emran Qureshi and Michael Sells: “The assertion, regardless of its merits, has become an ideological agent that may help to generate the conflict it posits. The sweeping generalizations of the clash hypothesis may also strengthen and embolden those parties that do pose a serious threat while at the same time making us less able to precisely locate and counter them.”6 In other words, simply assuming mutual antagonism inhibits a sound, nuanced appreciation of the nature of Islam, of contemporary manifestations of “political Islam”, and of the diverse political and social realities of Muslim countries. Moreover, as suggested by Benjamin Barber, the American democratic theorist and author of another seminal 1990s text Jihad versus McWorld, policies based primarily on fear of an external threat — with Islamic terrorism the current preoccupation of Western governments — can become counterproductive and self-defeating.7
Certainly many witnesses urged the Committee to avoid the trap of treating the resurgence of Islam in world politics as something instinctively to be feared. They also welcomed the Committee’s efforts to seek a better understanding of the role of Islam in order to improve international relations while reducing the real risks of hostilities and terrorist violence. Such knowledge will be essential to the success of Canada’s foreign policies in developing constructive relations with countries of the Muslim world.
In underlining this key introductory point, the Committee takes note as well of the important statement contained in the United Kingdom Government’s strategy paper on international priorities presented to the British Parliament in December 2003:
The possible confrontations of ideas most likely to affect the UK and other western democracies in the early twenty-first century stem from religion and culture. Religious belief is coming back to the fore as a motivating force in international relations. In some cases it is distorted to cloak political purposes. The question will arise most obviously in relations between western democracies and some Islamic countries or groups, despite the underlying shared values of our faiths and cultures. …
Managing relations with Islamic countries and peoples will be one of the most important strategic challenges for the UK and other western democracies in the next decade and beyond. We shall need to improve our understanding of their religious and political motivation. Our own Muslim communities will have a vital role to play. The agenda will include a serious effort to support peaceful political reform in countries of the Arab world.8
The Complexities of “Islam” and of “Islamism” as Political Ideology
Islam is one of the three great monotheistic world religions — the others being Judaism and Christianity — that share a common “Abrahamic” foundational faith tradition. As Professor Houchang Hassan-Yari of the Royal Military College of Canada told the Committee, “Islam sees itself as being the successor, if you will, of monotheistic religions, and not as a belief system which seeks to replace them.”9 One can speak quite properly of “Islamo-Christian civilization” as well as Judaeo-Christian civilization.10 Yet if these religions are siblings, they have also been historical rivals, sometimes violently so, as well as prone to internal schisms and divisions.11 Misunderstandings may have been deliberately propagated to justify actions that in truth have little to do with core precepts of submission to God’s will or the injunctions to work for peace and justice.
The challenge, as it was put to the Committee in India, is not to judge Islam based on the actions of Muslims, but rather to judge the actions of Muslims based on Islam. Moreover, as Professor Hassan-Yari had observed early on in our hearings:
Muslim countries and Islam are not the same thing. It is extremely important to make this distinction and that is why I often repeat in my course on the Middle East that if the prophet of Islam, Muhammad, were to show up in Muslim countries today, he would be executed by any one of the Muslim regimes, which illustrates just how wide is the gap between the original doctrine of Islam and today’s reality.12
Witnesses told the Committee to take care to distinguish Islam’s religious principles from its socio-cultural baggage in different places and times13, to appreciate its positive appeal to growing numbers of modern followers, to not blame Muslims as a whole for the criminal acts of a few, and to avoid simplistic labels and literal definitions — e.g., seeing all “fundamentalism” (a borrowed term from Protestant Christianity) as hostile to the West or equating the term jihad with “holy war”.
Taking the latter concept as a prime example of unfortunate confusions, Hassan-Yari insisted that jihad be properly understood in its two senses, the greater of which is as “an ongoing attempt at personal purification … an internal struggle within each individual”.14 It is the lesser jihad that could involve a defensive just war when the religion is attacked. Indian journalist and former parliamentarian M.J. Akbar acknowledged the “dialectic of war” that exists from Islam’s formation. But he argued that even when jihad allows armed force, terrorism is ruled out by the principles and rules of jihad which “are very clear that you cannot kill a non-combatant, you cannot kill women and children. You cannot, in fact, destroy palm tress and vegetation in a jihad. It is that strict a disciplined war.”15 The advent of “suicide terrorism” has unfortunately provoked further damaging controversies about the legitimate application of jihad. Notwithstanding the clear condemnation of suicide in the Qur’an, some, including several expert witnesses in Egypt, appear to try to justify such acts in the context of a political resistance struggle such as the Palestinian intifada as being acts of self-sacrifice or “martyrdom”.16 But as Noah Feldman told the Committee, it is the homicidal intent of such terrorism that should be the focus, and in that regard “there is a very strong argument to be made within Islamic law that even in the prosecution of a legitimate war justifiable under Islamic law terms one may not kill non-combatants, women, children, or other Muslims who happen to be bystanders.”17)
Dr. Üner Turgay, Director of McGill University’s Institute of Islamic Studies, observed that Islam is not only a profoundly personal religious choice but also a “way of life” embodying political, social and cultural aspects in constant and complex evolution. The interaction of Islamic traditions with modernization has been accompanied by “a great diversity of concerns and interpretations”. While there has been calls by some Muslim scholars for a renewal, liberalization or even “reformation” of Islam18, in many regions that same dynamic has been accompanied by strong countervailing trends “to recapture important practices of the past. … Muslims seem to be increasingly engaged in a search for their roots and identity. The resurgent strength of Islam must be viewed in this light. Social change in the Muslim countries, therefore, is marked by a bizarre blend of tradition and modernity.”19 In such a context, simplistic conceptions of Islam mislead more than clarify. Moreover, as Professor Karim Karim of Carleton University told the Committee: “Terminology can act as a trap and fix our perceptions of people in static and stereotypical manners. Words such as ‘fundamentalist’, ‘conservative’, ‘orthodox’, ‘liberal’ or ‘progressive’, when applied to Muslims, tend to conjure up very particular types of persons.”20
What most troubles non-Muslims as well as Muslims is not the rich variety of Muslim beliefs and practices but the emergence of extreme forms of politicized Islam that justify the use of violence against others. As the Committee’s first witness, Professor Salim Mansur of the University of Western Ontario, pointed out, this kind of Muslim “fundamentalism” is a modern ideological phenomenon that derives its appeal from a litany of historical wrongs that include the real and perceived failures of Muslim rulers. In his view it also developed reactionary intolerant characteristics similar to those of European neo-fascism, with fellow Muslims among its victims from the beginning.21 At the same time, other witnesses cautioned the Committee to be careful and discriminating when analysing “political Islam” or “Islamism” as a political ideology. Professor John Sigler of Carleton University observed that militant Islamists represent only a small minority of Muslims and are deeply divided among themselves over the justification of violence.22 Professor David Dewitt of York University made an important point about linking the political implications of Islam to its local circumstances, arguing that Islamism is neither a monolithic nor a necessarily conflictual phenomenon.23
While some studies emphasize confronting the dangerous anti-Western aspects of Islamist reaction,24 others tend to see in Islamist terrorism a desperation move that indicates the failure of an exclusivist backward-looking Islamist political project. In fact, a global expansion of Islam and Islamic consciousness can be viewed as assimilating Westernizing, globalizing influences and as capable of accommodating democratic ideas.25 An exaggerated fear of Islam’s influence on and within Western countries could also be seen to have counter-productive results.26 Whatever perspective is adopted, we agree that it is important to analyse the specific roots of Islamist radicalism rather than simply attributing its harmful consequences — not least for Muslims themselves — to Islam as a whole. To counteract what some have described as “Islamophobia” will require actions in good faith on the part of both Muslims and non-Muslims.27 Witnesses called for a rejection of extremist polarizations and for openness to self-critical examinations and moderate interpretations of religious traditions28 that promote a peaceful pluralism of cultures.
The Committee makes no claim to be an interpreter of Islam. Indeed we take to heart the advice of Nazeer Ladhani of the Aga Khan Foundation to “ringfence” the theological side of it29 that is beyond our competence. What we are interested in are the concrete manifestations of Islam that have important implications for Canadian interests and policies, in particular, on supporting positive pro-democratic developments in Muslim countries and improving relations between majority Muslim and non-Muslim countries. To move in that direction, we recognize that we need to have an appreciation of the world of contemporary Islam that fully takes into account its vast diversity and complexity.
The Complex Contours and Dynamics of the “Muslim World”
When we speak of the “Muslim world” we recognize that this is only a convenient shorthand to describe a very complex reality. At the broadest level it encompasses the world’s approximately 1.4 billion followers of Islam as the religion founded by the Prophet Muhammad 1,400 years ago. They share a certain commonality as members of the ummah, the global community of believers, although as previously noted there are also important sectarian divisions as well as theological differences in the interpretation of Islamic law (sharia). Muslims constitute majorities in nearly 50 countries and significant minorities, totalling about 500 million people, in a number of others. (See Appendix I for a brief profile by country.) The Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), the headquarters of which Committee members visited in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, currently has 57 member and three observer states.
At the OIC’s tenth summit held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Lakhdar Brahimi, the UN Secretary General’s Special Representative to Afghanistan observed that “The Islamic world is indeed a mosaic not a monolith. It stretches from Indonesia to Morocco and from Central Europe to Southern Africa. It reaches into western Europe, the Americas, Australia and Asia. It comprises men and women divided by race, culture or language, yet united by the powerful bond of Islam.”30 For evidence of that continuing common bond, Dr. Sheema Khan, Chair of Council on American-Islamic Relations Canada pointed to the ritual of hajj, the pilgrimage that annually brings millions of Muslims to Mecca in Saudi Arabia. For all the variations of Muslim countries, there is still very much a Muslim world in that global devotional sense.31
The foundational religious importance of the Arabian peninsula also accounts for the Middle East being viewed as the “religious heart” of Islam, even though as Indian author and journalist M.J. Akbar explained, its “demographic heart” is Asian and there is an expanding diaspora of which Canada is now part.32 Barely one-fifth of the world’s Muslims today are Arab. Still it is in the Middle East that the most persistent sources of conflict lie and that has been the most affected by external interventions and wars (going back to the imperial machinations that followed the First World War and resulted in the creation of modern Iraq33). Looking into the current post-war future, Akbar observed that the region’s geopolitics and Islamic future are being reshaped by the fact that “For the first time in 1,400 years, Iraq will be ruled by a certain form of Shia majority government. … An area from the border of Syria, including in its penumbra some substantial part of Saudi Arabia, will be Shia dominated.”34
Brahimi’s speech to the OIC Summit acknowledged the great historical achievements of Islamic civilizations, yet went on to note that there is a pervasive sense of malaise within much of the contemporary Muslim world which he described as being in a “sad state”. Declaring that such a state is neither natural nor inevitable, he challenged his audience: “The Muslim peoples are capable of much greater things — and they know it. … only when Muslims enjoy their fundamental rights and freedoms — only when the Holy Qur’an is understood as enjoining education for all, and when the creative talent of so many Muslims, including women, is harnessed to develop the Muslim communities — only then will the Islamic world be able to assert its influence in shaping world events for the better.”
Much of the debate among Muslims is how to address that challenge given the often negative political and social circumstances of Muslim countries. We are conscious of University of Calgary Professor Tareq Ismael’s caution that the geo-religious term “Muslim world” can be very “precarious” as a political construct, especially if used to imply an opposition to the West.35 As Houchang Hassan-Yari pointed out, despite Islam’s foundational interrelationship of religion and political society, there are enormous differences at the political level within and among Muslim states ranging from the “totally democratic to totally dictatorial”. Moreover, territorial divisions have multiplied as part of the unfortunate legacies of imperialism and colonialism, the dissolution of the Ottoman empire (and abolition of the Caliphate in the 1920s), and the rise of competing secular nationalisms. Professor Saleem Qureshi of the University of Alberta argued that in Muslim countries emerging from imperial domination westernized elites and institutions have been discredited by their failure to deliver on promises to improve living conditions. Muslim countries have also gone to war with each other, as in the protracted Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s. Despite the creation of groupings like the Arab League and the OIC, there has been little evidence of cohesion within a Muslim world capable of acting as a recognizable unit in world politics.36
At the same time, as Professor Sami Anoun of the University of Sherbrooke observed, the general unease affecting a diverse and disjointed “Muslim space” connects to a series of complicated dialectics: between tradition and modernity, involving ethno-national liberation struggles (e.g., Chechnya, Kashmir), and struggles for more internal democracy. In many Muslim countries civil societies remain too weak. State structures are too bureaucratic and guilty of poor performance in meeting people’s basic needs. Demands for change are not being accommodated within countries in ways that most Muslims can feel good about, while foreign interventions are viewed with suspicion.37 Public opinion surveys of Muslim countries have shown strong aspirations for democratic rights and religious freedoms, yet paradoxically also rising levels of distrust of Western policies and motives, in particular those of the United States.38
Many witnesses saw education and dialogue as imperatives to begin to better understand and cope with these troubling dynamics. Nazeer Ladhani of the Aga Khan Foundation stressed the need to address damaging “misperceptions” of the Muslim world that neglect the many positive interactions of Islam with other religious-cultural traditions, that assume an incompatibility of Islam with secular modernity and liberal democracy, and that portray the Muslim world as “intellectually stagnant”. Improving understanding as a basis for policy will require overcoming stereotypical simplifications and pursuing pluralistic encounters. As he put it:
Because the Muslim world is so diverse, Canada’s relationship with it needs to be nuanced, multidimensional, and responsive to the dramatically different issues, opportunities, and challenges [of different regions and countries] … We must also be careful not to view or approach our relations with countries of Muslims solely through the lens of religion or to view all conflicts involving Muslim peoples as inherently rooted in religion. Rather, Canada needs to cultivate dense, multifaceted relationships with governments at all levels, civil society institutions and communities of interest within the Muslim world that can address the range of mutually important issues in their full complexity.39
From a “Clash” to a “Dialogue” of Civilizations
Many people who spoke to the Committee took issue with the “clash of civilizations” thesis as being a critical impediment to mutual understanding and better relations. Although usually attributed to Samuel Huntington, Richard Bulliet points out that the idea of such a “clash” is hardly original and was used in reference to Islam by American Protestant missionaries in the 1920s.40 The current post-Cold War usage of this controversial phrase stems from a seminal 1990 Atlantic Monthly article by the noted historian Bernard Lewis. In “The Roots of Muslim Rage”, Lewis seems to connect the sources of Islamic extremism with a classical conception of Islam as antagonistic towards other religions and Western modernity. The result “is no less than a clash of civilizations — the perhaps irrational but surely historic reaction of an ancient rival against our Judaeo-Christian heritage, our secular present, and the worldwide importance of both.” Huntington drew on this analysis to elaborate (in a 1993 article in Foreign Affairs and a 1996 book cited earlier) a more sweeping hypothesis that sees a resurgent Islamic movement as being in ideological conflict with the West and having “bloody borders”.41
Numerous critics of Lewis and Huntington contend that this leads to a negative caricature of Islam that ironically becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, strengthening the hand of Muslim extremists who are only too eager to assert a fundamental hostility between “true” Islam and the Western world. Rather than a clash of civilizations, various analysts and commentators have suggested instead a clash of “fundamentalisms”42, “eschatologies”43, “definitions”44, or “perceptions”45. Some attempt to explain how religious factors have been exploited to provoke conflicts that are really political and/or ideological in nature. Some broadly lament “a confusion of misunderstandings, crude stereotypes, and parallel absences of self-knowledge”.46
Clearly this is contested territory that can all too easily lend itself to the kind of media and popular distortions to which many Muslims understandably object.47 Ways must be found to distinguish a positive Islamic affirmation and search for identity and purpose from the threat posed by Islamic terrorism or perceived in extreme versions of Islam such as the puritanical “Wahhabism” that Saudi Arabia is often accused of exporting. Far from being in denial about the problems within Muslim societies, many Muslims appear frustrated by a situation that blocks change from below while reinforcing opposing rhetorical extremes.
Raja Khouri, National President of the Canadian Arab Federation, saw the Muslim world as being “caught between extremist zealots subverting Islam to serve their aggressive ends, on the one hand, and corrupt, incompetent dictatorial regimes on the other. The vast majority of Arabs and Muslims, however, reject extremism and look to enhance civil society through representative governments. … How the West responds to growing extremism and polarization may determine whether the world heads towards peace and prosperity or war and catastrophe. The ‘us versus them’ attitude espoused by the current U.S. administration and extremists in the Muslim world is a sure way towards the latter.” Khouri argued that “friendly dictators” should be condemned and a helping hand extended “to reformists, intellectuals, human rights advocates, and civil society in Muslim countries so we can help them reform themselves.”48 Critics argue that the West sends out damaging mixed messages when it identifies Islam with dangerous forms of anti-Western militancy yet remains complicit in supporting repressive Muslim regimes.49
In rejecting an ideological clash of civilizations approach, many witnesses called for alternative initiatives to foster instead a mutually respectful “dialogue of civilizations”. Aspects of this would involve various inter-church and interfaith activities, academic and educational exchanges, among a range of nongovernmental activities already taking place that could be expanded and intensified. At a more global and intergovernmental level, John Sigler referred to the initiative a few years ago for such a dialogue that was proposed within the United Nations — with the strong support of the reformist president of Iran, as we heard in Tehran — but that was almost immediately dealt a severe setback by the terrible events of September 11, 2001.50
Given what has happened since, including the continuing threat of terrorist violence in the name of Islam and the deepening of negative attitudes towards Western intervention in many parts of the Muslim world, it seems to us more important than ever to renew efforts to avoid conceptual antitheses that virtually preordain future hostilities. Working pragmatically and cooperatively on finding paths for constructive political and inter-cultural dialogue presupposes mutual respect and comprehension of the other. That will not succeed if there are implicit claims of superiority by one side or if fear becomes the dominant motivation for engagement with Muslim societies.
The Aftermath of September 11, 2001 and the “War on Terrorism”
A number of witnesses told the Committee that Muslims themselves feel victimized by the fallout from the attacks on the twin towers and the Pentagon in 2001 and the subsequent “war on terrorism”. There is resentment of counter-terrorism measures that may appear to target Muslim populations and of rhetoric that seems to imply that Islam bears some of the responsibility for terrorism carried out in its name. And while repressive regimes have been overthrown by military force in Afghanistan and Iraq, there is little sign that the internationalized diffuse jihadism spread by networks such as al-Qaeda can be defeated either militarily or through security measures alone.52 While some analysts such as Gwynne Dyer contend that the threat from Islamic terrorism is often exaggerated and exploited to serve the agendas of those in power, there is no question that it constitutes a real risk to be taken seriously into the foreseeable future.53
Professor Farhang Rajaee of Carleton University described September 11 as “a very important wake-up call” for Muslims as well as the world as a whole. It led to a realization that the heartland of the Muslim world is haunted by an ideology of Islamism that justifies violence.54 In a detailed submission accompanying his testimony on the anatomy of such terrorism, Rajaee states that:
Its root lies in the emergence of what may be termed as “the rage of empowered dispossessed.” What one observes among Muslims is the empowerment of a generation who feel exploited and wrenched away from their identity and roots, empowered by the very same processes such as modernization and globalization that caused those feelings. The tragedy is that their empowerment is guided or rather misguided by an ideology of extremism and polarization … the diabolical ideologization of Islam and its emancipating heritage. What is striking is that the Muslim world, with its historical track of toleration and peaceful growth, as a civilization, displays a high degree of violence and terrorism.55
As Rajaee argues, it is important to understand the phenomenon of Islamic terrorism, not in any way to justify or apologize for it, but in order to overcome it by getting at the roots of its growth and appeal. That in turn raises the question of the most effective means to be employed. Rajaee suggested the metaphor of the surgeon or terminator versus the health care worker or gardener to describe contrasting approaches. The problem with the former approach of elimination advocated by “terrorologists” is that it is not discriminating. It fails to understand or address sources of accumulated and perceived injustices that form part of the terrorism’s “triangle” of sense of injustice, empowerment, and ideology.56
No country can afford to be complacent about terrorism and its potential impact. That includes Canada, as Reid Morden, a former head of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) made plain when he observed in the spring of 2003: “Here in Canada about a year ago the Toronto Star published a very long article surveying the attitude of the 50-plus mosques in the Greater Toronto area, and it reached the sobering conclusion that while a vast majority of those mosques promoted a moderate and inclusive message, a very substantial minority preached a much more radical and violent message. We shouldn’t be surprised. Terrorism and the violence associated with it are not new to Canada.”57
David Dewitt made the point that it is in Canada’s interest to become much more aware of the varying features of Muslim civil societies without glossing over the extent to which extremism can infiltrate those societies. “Lumping them [Islamist forces] all together in terms of the Taliban, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, or Jamaat Islamia is as mistaken as assuming that all mosques and imams are under the influence of the Wahhabi. … nor should we … pretend that there are no extremist forces at play both within Muslim countries and within the larger Muslim world, influenced and supported directly by some Islamic institutions or indirectly through groups and governments. That holds for institutions in Canada, the Islamic schools and mosques, as elsewhere.”58
If the association of Islamist extremism with contemporary terrorism is a particularly sensitive problem for Muslim communities, especially in the wake of “9/11”, it should also be seen as a problem for the policies of Western governments which must take some responsibility for redressing the conditions that have led to the rise of this extremism. That challenge of both critically understanding and responding to the extremist threat within the Muslim world was bluntly stated by Houchang Hassan-Yari:
It [Islamic fundamentalism] is a reaction to the inability of this system of nation-states to create a democratic system. It is a reaction to these dictatorial regimes, to this colonial system, to this imperial system we have today. Basically, it is a reaction to the endless failures of Islamic countries. And finally, I would say that the people trying to capitalize on these failures are frauds. If you want to get rid of the fanatics, the extremists and fundamentalists, you just have to put an end to the external meddling in the domestic affairs of these countries. Paternalistic behavior has to be abandoned. The humiliation of these people has to be stopped. The Arab-Israeli conflict needs to be halted. … ties between dictatorial regimes and western interests in general, and American interests in particular, must be cut.59
Iris Almeida, Director of Policy, Programmes and Planning for the International Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Development made a related and reinforcing point in the Committee’s last public hearing when she emphasized that “we cannot understand the Muslim world if we don’t understand the reality of humiliation that many Muslims in the world over the last couple of years have been experiencing by global policies, by international media. This humiliation is at the root of a lot of the atrocities and expressions of incivility. When I talk about humiliation I mean isolation, I mean poverty. You know those three go hand in hand.”60
The Spread of Islam and Liberal-Democratic Values
The apparent desire expressed by Muslims themselves for more democracy within Muslim countries, contrasted with the persistent lack of democratic freedoms and accountable government in much of the Muslim world, constitutes one of the most difficult challenges of the current international context. Only 8 of 46 Muslim-majority countries are electoral democracies. At the same time, surveys in many Muslim countries show that these majorities do not necessarily want a Western-style secular democracy. But, as Sheema Khan of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (Canada) puts it, “the practical question remains: How can Muslims combine democratic ideals with the strong presence of their faith?”61 Some see the separation of religion and state and recognition of equal rights for women as remaining problematic areas in working out a liberal-democratic interpretation of Islam. Others argue that there is nothing intrinsic to Islam that conflicts with modern standards of democracy and the individual human rights that have been affirmed in United Nations and other international instruments.
A compellingly optimistic view of the integration of Islamic and democratic ideas was presented by the Committee’s final witness of 2003, Dr. Noah Feldman, a professor at New York University Law School who has been a constitutional advisor to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq and members of the Iraqi Governing Council. In his noted book, After Jihad: America and the Struggle for Islamic Democracy, he states:
Today Muslims around the world embrace the elegance, logic, and depth of Islam perhaps more warmly that at any time in a century. In Islam’s language of justice, morality, hope, and commitment , they find not only religion, but a vital force in the realms of politics, society, and the spirit. At the same time, as their reliance on Islam grows, Muslims are also embracing the ideals of self-government and freedom associated with democracy. To an increasing number of Muslims, these democratic values resonate with Islam and can develop in tandem with it. Wherever advocates have been free to speak out or run for office in the name of Islamic democracy, they have found an eager audience.62
Writing over a decade ago historian Bernard Lewis had accepted that a compatible development of Islam and liberal democracy was an open possibility. But he saw the question of how to encourage and not inhibit democratic development in Muslim countries in the light of twin temptations “to which Western governments have all too often succumbed, with damaging results.” The temptation of the right has been to accept non-democratic and even dictatorial regimes as a manageable evil provided that they are seen as friendly to Western interests, thereby harming internal democratic oppositions. The temptation of the left has been to apply pressures to which the dictatorships are impervious but which prove too much for the “more moderate autocracies”. According to Lewis: “The pressure for premature democratization can fatally weaken such regimes and lead to their overthrow, not by democratic opposition but by other forces that then proceed to establish a more ferocious and determined dictatorship.”63
Indeed the Committee at times heard arguments along the lines that external countries should be exceedingly careful what they wish for when promoting democracy and human rights. Push too hard, for example, for free and fair elections and the result may be to bring to power a radically Islamist government hostile to Western aims. The first such election could be the last. Michael Bell of the University of Toronto, a former Canadian ambassador to Middle Eastern countries, counselled caution.
I don’t think we should use the term ‘democratization’, because then we get into a question of Islamic radical groups saying “We’re all for democracy”, and governments saying “Well, we’re all for democracy, but we’re faced with these threats to overthrow the regime and it values, and therefore we can’t tolerate them.” Frankly, I doubt that many of those who seek to replace existing regimes by revolutionary force would end up being very different from the present regimes.64
But in contrast to the sceptics of strong and externally supported democracy-building measures, Noah Feldman argued forcefully against another temptation to be avoided. He also urged that Canada contribute its experience to the pivotal prospects for democracy in Iraq.65 Coincidentally on the same day that U.S. President George Bush was outlining a new “forward strategy for freedom in the Middle East” in a speech marking the 20th anniversary of the National Endowment for Democracy66, Feldman put it to the Committee that:
We need to change our policies — we in the United States especially, but again I believe I’m speaking for other western democracies as well — to encourage and support governments that show active signs of democratization and distance ourselves from governments that continue to violate human rights and that do not listen to the voices of their own people. We must not give in to the temptation — and it is a great temptation — to listen to governments in the region that tell us that if it were not for them the alternative would be worse; the alternative would be Islamic politics.67
Feldman emphasized that a substantive change in policies was “by far the more important” dimension of a strategy of pro-democratic engagement with Muslim countries. While that strategy might include new public diplomacy measures — see, for example, those proposed in a bipartisan report to the U.S. Congress in October 200368 — it will have to deliver real change, overturning a legacy of mistrust, lack of credibility as well as perceived legitimacy among many Muslims that is the Achilles heel of democracy promotion overtures.69 This will be a key test for whatever ambitious “Greater Middle East” initiative for democratic reform that President Bush may propose to G8 partners at the summit to be hosted by the U.S. in June 2004.70 Critical reactions have underlined complex challenges still to be addressed in launching genuine democratization processes in this region.71
Following Feldman, one of the elements of a revised approach would be to affirm an interpretation of Islam that explicitly supports liberal democracy. As he expressed it:
The crucial thing that I think we in western democracies need to do is to remind ourselves that the word “Islam” does not inherently mean what the extremists would like you to believe it means. It can mean a system of values and beliefs that respects God’s sovereignty and simultaneously gives room for the exercise of individual rights. Even though it’s uncomfortable for us to take sides in a debate about what someone else’s religion might mean, whether we like it or not we are taking sides in that debate just by having a foreign policy that engages other countries in the world, just by having our own views and values. I think we should get over the feeling that we can’t say what we think the right beliefs are, and we should just espouse our liberal values openly and say, “We’re all for your religion, because you tell us it has all these great liberal things in it.”72
Other witnesses agreed that recognition and encouragement should be given to moderate liberal directions within Islamic thought, especially if these have a harder time getting a hearing than the confrontational rhetoric of vocal minorities.73 Professor Turgay accepted that: “Muslim intellectuals today must come forward and claim their religion from the radicals. … When we shrink from it, fundamentalists move in.”74 In later testimony he added: “We have to challenge some of the policies of Muslim governments. … Many Muslim governments are hiding behind Islam [and] cultural relativism, if you will. As Canadians, we have to argue for at least a minimum common denominator. … These are our very basic values.”75 When it comes to supporting democracy and human rights in the Muslim world, David Dewitt argued that “neutrality is not an honourable or necessary posture. We should take positions and they should reflect our values.”76
Professor Hassan-Yari was among those pointing out that ideas of democracy, freedom, justice, equality and tolerance can be traced back to Qur’anic sources and early Islamic practices, “but it is imperative to update them”.77 For example, the concept of shura or community consultation could be given a more vigorous democratic interpretation adapted to modern circumstances, according to Turkish Professor of Islamic Law Osman Tastan.78 As to the notion that Islamic law, sharia, is anti-liberal in some fundamental respects, Professor Feldman stressed that it is a form of common law that requires historical human interpretation and wise application. As he put it: “I don’t think we should react in fear to the idea of the word sharia just because some of its less sophisticated practitioners have used it in a way that’s obviously deeply offensive to liberal sensibilities.”79
The historically close connection of religion and politics in Islam is both complex and contested. It has given rise to arguments that the spreading public influence of Islam (even symbolically — witness the furious controversies that have erupted in countries like France over women and girls wearing the Muslim headscarf or ‘hijab’) could threaten the political sphere’s secular autonomy that is seen as a guarantor of democratic equality.80 But the boundary separating religion and state has also been a problem for Judaeo-Christian political traditions to overcome. (As remarked by a witness in Turkey, an Islamic society with a consciously secular political constitution, it was Christian Europe that produced notions such as “the divine right of kings”, and religion remains an important factor in the politics of some Western democracies.) Countries such as India and Indonesia, with majority or very large Muslim populations, have demonstrated that Muslim countries can be democracies. Muslim minorities also participate as active citizens in Western liberal democracies without seeing that as in conflict with their faith. Feldman argues convincingly that secular democracies can accommodate the practice of Islam and that Muslim societies can evolve democratically without losing their Islamic character.
Human Rights Challenges, Equality for Women and for Minorities
A crucial aim in the promotion of moderate Muslim democracies will be to ensure that Muslim countries are able to progress along their own distinctive democratic paths in ways that also increase, or at least do not diminish, respect for the equal rights of all citizens of those countries. That includes the rights of women as well as men. It also includes the rights of religious, ethnic and other minorities. In some cases, the main focus may be on a struggle just to achieve basic recognition for these rights; in other cases, it may be to prevent any erosion of existing rights. Varying country circumstances may also determine what are realistic objectives in terms of ongoing efforts to both defend and advance the equality of rights and to end discrimination.81 For example, as the report addresses later, the situation of women in Turkey is obviously vastly different from the conditions confronting women in other parts of the Middle East such as Saudi Arabia. But what is at stake in all these cases is the compatibility of Islamic influences on states and societies with the standards of human rights that have been affirmed by the international community through the United Nations. That is the bar that must be reached and maintained.
A key issue therefore is the development of Muslim approaches that in practice observe fundamental individual human rights and freedoms, applying equally to women and to minorities. This is among the questions that have emerged forcefully in the current attempts to forge new constitutions for Afghanistan and Iraq that will respect democratic-human rights principles and Islamic law while obtaining popular legitimacy. More broadly, there are issues of violence against women, such as so-called “honour killings”, or systematic discrimination against women, notably in educational and economic spheres, that must be faced by many Muslim societies.
Canada and other liberal democracies therefore need to consider how best to support women’s groups and other civil-society forces working for human rights reforms and improvements. For example, Canadian assistance is making a difference in supporting the Women’s Rights Fund in Afghanistan.82 Another promising avenue of support could be through the activities of transnational non-governmental coalitions and networks, as also suggested by the testimony of Mr. Jean-Louis Roy, President of the International Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Development, who referred to his Centre’s longstanding association with the network known as “Women Living Under Muslim Law”, as well as to its work with civil-society partners in Africa, the Middle East, and Asia.83 It was pointed out that even very small sums can go far in underpinning this valuable work.
In raising these kinds of positive interventions to support an expansion of human rights in Muslim countries, it should be clearly understood that this is not a question of simply imposing “our” values on others. The Committee sees this as a common endeavour based on shared values and mutual respect that includes respect for the Islamic faith. We note that Iranian human rights lawyer Shirin Ebadi, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize on October 10, 2003 (the first Muslim woman to be so honoured), shortly before Committee members held meetings in Tehran, has insisted that Islam is fully consistent with the advancement of women’s rights; rather the problem is with male-dominated societal and cultural practices. In her Nobel speech in Oslo on December 10, Ebadi declared:
Some Muslims, under the pretext that democracy and human rights are not compatible with the traditional structure of Islamic societies, have justified despotic governments, and continue to do so. Islam is a religion whose first sermon begins with the word “Recite!” Such a sermon and message cannot be in conflict with knowledge, wisdom, freedom of opinion and expression, and cultural pluralism. The discriminatory plight of women in Islamic states, whether in the sphere of civil law or in the realm of social, political and cultural justice, has its roots in the male-dominated culture prevailing in these societies, not in Islam. This patriarchal culture does not tolerate freedom and democracy or equal rights of men and women, because it would threaten the traditional position of the rulers of that culture.84
Another Muslim democracy and human rights activist argues that segregation of the sexes and discrimination on the basis of gender, however ubiquitous in Muslim history, “have no justification at all … in our religion’s original message. It has come from an extra-Islamic idiom, and labelled with the name of Islam.”85
Senator Mobina Jaffer, the first Muslim woman appointed to the Canadian Senate, told the Committee that: “Indeed, Muslim women do suffer in the hands of bearded fanatics who drape themselves in the cloak of Islam, yet the position of these zealots is untenable when weighed against the tenets of the faith.” She encouraged the Committee to ask direct questions about the real extent of Muslim women’s educational/political rights and their freedom to choose: “Are women themselves making these choices or are they being made for them by others?”86
In short, it also comes back again to scrutinizing the behavior of Muslims and Muslim regimes from a clear and inclusive standpoint of democratic rights and fundamental freedoms for all, while avoiding the trap of attributing abuses to Islam itself. Making Islam the problem can be as simplistic and misleading as the opposite mantra of extreme Islamists that “Islam is the solution”. Without a broadening of knowledge and dialogue in relations with the Muslim world, there are unlikely to be credible solutions emerging that respect both democratic values and human rights. And that should concern us all.
Looking Ahead
Canada is being called upon to become more engaged and more resolute in its diplomacy towards the Muslim world. As Salim Mansur appealed to the Committee:
Canada needs to take a much greater interest in the Muslim world. It is one-fifth of humanity, it has a tremendous potential, it has a great civilization from the past, and if it is properly assisted in meeting its shortcomings, the gains can be of benefit for all of us in our increasingly globalized village. But Canada must not remain distant and fearful of making right judgements about problems the Muslim world faces, problems that can become transnational, as did Muslim fundamentalism. … There are more Muslims around the world intimidated, abused, and silenced by the politics of Muslim fundamentalism, especially women and minorities within the Muslim world, who look to us for their reprieve, and we betray them when, for the wrong sorts of politics or political correctness, we stand aside without actively joining the fight against such tyranny and oppression carried out in the name of religion.87
At the same time, Canadian policy will have to develop sophisticated capacities to address an array of situational challenges as diverse as they are complex, including in the way that we respond to the phenomenon of Islamist extremism. As John Sigler advised:
So we need an analysis that gets beyond simple categories and to comparable experiences across cultures and time. The primary emphasis in the war on terror must be on enhanced police and intelligence professionalism, all of which must be held within the protection of basic human rights. Our own need for understanding what has happened and what needs to be done is to greatly expand our sense of history and the complexity of multiple layers of reality, and most of all, for dialogue and the building of bridges, not further barriers to shared identities and values in a complex globalized world.88
There is much to be done. Heading into the Government’s planned comprehensive review of Canada’s international relations policies, it is worth recalling that the subject addressed by this report is one that was completely absent from the last official foreign policy statement Canada in the World issued in 1995, even though that was after the first major attempt by Islamist terrorists to bring down the World Trade Center towers. Any complacency should have been banished by the events of September 11, 2001. However, a sufficient and sustained policy focus remains a largely unfinished agenda.
Accordingly:
RECOMMENDATION 1
The Government of Canada should explicitly recognize relations with the countries of the Muslim world as an important area of foreign policy attention and strategic planning. In addition, the Government should use the forthcoming international policy review as a means to deepen Canadian public engagement on issues of foreign policy development involving Muslim communities in Canada and relations with Muslim countries.
RECOMMENDATION 2
The Government of Canada should strengthen the analytical and diplomatic capacities required to be effective in enhancing Canada’s relations with the countries of the Muslim world.