A common frame of analysis for examining political reform in the Arab world is to group the region’s political actors into three groups: secular democrats, Islamists, and loyal regime supporters. This approach makes it easier to talk about the challenges secular parties face in crafting a space between the regime and popular Islamist groups; it buttresses the profile of leftist activists making great sacrifices to fight for reforms in their own countries; and it offers a convenient lens for explaining the fears more established political actors have of conservative Islamists coming to power in the advent of electoral democracy.
While many of these arguments are well-founded and carry a good share of analytical gravitas, they can also perpetuate rigid political categorization that obscures a deeper understanding of regional political dynamics.
Take Islamists: when various Islamic political groups (moderate, militant, salafist) are lumped into one category of opposition, their differences become erased and they lose their agency as potential actors for reform. What happens in the case of Morocco where moderate Islamists comprise the only true democratic party in parliament and “secular democrats” have all but vanished?
In fact, throughout the Middle East and North Africa, most secular democrats have either been co-opted or lost their historical constituencies due to out-dated ideologies. Furthermore, Islamists and socialist parties (the secular democrats of decades past) are no longer diametrically opposed but, in several countries, have worked together either in parliamentary opposition (Yemen) or in governing at the local level (Morocco).
The specter of Islamists coming to power and imposing strict Islamic law is an overblown fear shared primarily by secular-oriented regime supporters who employ a variety of repressive measures to stifle the Islamist opposition. Moderate Islamists have put aside unrealistic dreams of shariah and focused on Islamic values of justice—translating them into notions of transparency and good governance, and becoming desirable governing partners for parties of many different stripes.
By relying on rigid and broad categorizations, one would fail to see that Islamists might be the most natural anti-corruption partners in certain contexts, or that today’s true Arab democrats are not all “secular” and that most secular elites are anything but “democrats.”
Published Date: January 26, 2010