This conference was held on 6 October 2005 at the Institute of Political Science, in Aix-en-Provence by François Burgat, director of the CNRS and researcher at Institut de Recherche et d'Etude sur monde arabe et musulman and at Maison Méditerranéenne des Sciences Humaines.
During the conference Mr Burgat stressed several ideas, which we will try to summarize in this course point, before enlarging the discussion on two subjects. First of all, Mr Burgat tried to define Islamism, a term which is not considered as such in the field of political science. There is nothing pathological in this term and what has been observed since the 1960’s in these (Muslim) countries is a usual process of differentiation which has followed the colonial period.
Recently we have observed the phenomenon of «talking Muslim », without necessarily «acting Muslim ». But to define what «talking Muslim » exactly means is hard to do, because the common denominator is transocial, which means that there are different social categories and different factors that come into play and their interactions are unpredictable. But Mr Burgat acknowledged that the use of Islam for political purposes is common.
Western countries do not always understand this multiplicity of « talking Muslim » which leads to errors and misunderstandings, and according to Mr Burgat, Western countries sometimes even commit errors out of self-interest. He went as far as stating that through the criminalization of their enemies, some countries try to eradicate them.
Subsequently to these intentional or unintentional misundestandings the theology of the war was born in the 50’s with the Muslim Brotherhood. Mr Burgat described three temporalities in this theology of the war.
The first stage took place during the colonisation and brought the creation of Muslim Brotherhood in 1928.
Then, during the period of war for independence (1950-1990) important internal changes took place in several countries. The elites that were in place during the colonial period were chased away, because they were too westernized, and replaced by those who kept their culture, traditions and religious customs.
Since 1990 we have observed the radicalisation of the theology of the war, mainly through the figure of al-Qaïda. According to Mr Burgat, this is mostly due to the rise of imperialistic claims from Western countries after the end of the Cold War. Mr Burgat quoted, for instance, the Gulf War, the embargo on Iraq, or the 1996 Summit in Charm El Cheikh, where Islamic terrorism was defined as the enemy number one, as examples of these imperialistic claims.
In the conclusion of his conference, Mr Burgat tried to present the means the Western countries have used until now to enter into relation with the Muslim world. First it was by « hard power » or Western Jihad, as Mr Burgat put it. This basically means that Western countries exaggerate the discourse of the Islamic representatives in order to make them look like religious fanatics, which gives them a good reason to refuse to talk to them and see if they have any political plan.
The second means seems to be the instrumentalisation of education. According to Mr Burgat, for Western countries to democratize means to make the other accept a little bit of our culture. This seems to be particularly true in France, where they are able to communicate only with those who conform to the idea that France has a monopoly on culture, knowledge, savoir-vivre….
In 1995, the European Union used the Barcelona Process as a means to open a dialogue in the Mediterranean zone. Ten years later, in 2005, we can conclude that this process was a failure.
In his conference, Mr Burgat mentioned the Barcelona Process and the use of Islam for political ends. In this course point we would like to develop these two themes.
First of all, the idea of Barcelona Process was launched on the European Council in Corfu in 1994. The conference was held in Barcelona on 27-28 November 1995, it united 27 countries and it aimed to establish the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership with the overall objective of turning the Euromediterranean basin into an area of dialogue, exchange and co-operation guaranteeing peace, stability and prosperity. The Barcelona Process had three main objectives.
First it aimed at politics and security through the non-proliferation of weapons, and fight against drugs, terrorism and illegal immigration. Economic and financial partnership was the second objective. Shared prosperity was supposed to come out of sustainable economic development and mainly out of free trade zone, that was to be established by 2010.
The third objective was supposed to be to develop social well-being through the respect of human rights and cultural cooperation.
These aims were all very ambitious but the Barcelona Declaration had only the force of an announcement without any legal force. When it comes to the respect of human rights, EU didn’t set any concrete objectives. Some experts even think, that the only real objective of the Barcelona Process was the economic one, that was supposed to open new markets for European goods and secure cheap raw materials and labour for European companies.
Since 9/11 the euro-mediterranean relationships are in decline and as we have seen recently in Melilla and Ceuta the illegal immigration is becoming a real challenge for the EU.
Another question approached by Mr Burgat is the use of Islam by the governments. But he did not develop and illustrate this point.
After the decolonization, Arabic countries wanted to show their own culture and identity, different from that of Europe. One politician, Nasser, used the “Pan-Arabic” culture to strengthen his power. Egypt was really divided and poverty was everywhere. So, adopting this ideal, based on the Arabic and Muslim identity, was a means to create an unity, a “nation”. And Nasser spread his program to the other countries and was a leader of the theory of nonalignment .
In the nineties, Islamism grew in Egypt, after the end of the Cold War, because the government was in the same situation : the Soviet Union, the main ally of Egypt, has disappeared and it was important to reassure the population, to avoid the fall of the executive. Then, Islamism and terrorism installed terror in this country. Tourism, the main income, was so affected that the government stopped all the subsidies to the extremist groups, to avoid the Egyptians rebellion.
Like Egypt, the Algerian executive used Islamism to consolidate their position, in the 90's . And it is possible to see for instance the Iranian revolution as an example of the use of Islam for political ends. Some authors, like Olivier Roy, has shown that the fundamentalists have become political actors, instead of remaining religious ones. Since fundamentalists have the power, the religious is just a sham discourse, and not a political program.
Here is the problem of the western perception of the fundamentalists. Mr Burgat insisted on the fact that the western executives choose their interlocutors : they want to negotiate only with moderate ones. But sometimes, the choice can be difficult and on the slant. Mr Burgat took, for instance, Tariq Ramadan as an example . This person can be considered in Europe like a moderate Muslim (it is Mr Burgat’s opinion). But he is really clever by using another discourse, more extremist, facing Muslims in Arab countries. What attitude could be adopted : accepting negotiations with the fundamentalists, offering them the possibility to spread their ideas ; or refusing to discuss with them, so giving them a victim status ?
If we take Morocco for example, King Mohammed VI, chief of Islam in this country, refused at first to authorize the PJD, the fundamentalist party. He did not want to allow this side of Islam be too important and influential. But this ban was used by the PJD and they became victims of the king’s unlimited power. Mohammed VI, at the next elections, had to recognize the PJD, because of this party’s large score. In this country, rejecting the fundamentalists had the reversed effect : they are becoming increasingly influential inside the population.
So, discussing with fundamentalists may be a solution to show everybody that their discourse is fallible.