Executive Summary

Islam and Democracy: Collision or Co-Existence?

(16 June 2003)

· This one day conference was held to address the central question of whether Islam and democracy are compatible with each other. The three featured speakers felt that accommodation was possible, but made heavy qualifications. A summary of the key points and highlights of the conference appear below.

· The keynote speaker, Professor Amin Saikal, Director of Middle Eastern Studies, Australian National University, spoke to the topic of “Making Sense of 9/11 in the Context of Islam’s Relations with the West”. Saikal opened by noting that despite declarations by President Bush (and others) that Islam is not the enemy in the war on terrorism, and a stated wish to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian crisis once and for all, that there was still a large amount of suspicion within the Muslim world about the intentions of the West (and in particular, the U.S.).

· Equally, many in the west are also suspicious of the Muslim world, and Saikal stated that there are three views that have emanated from the west: (i) the view espoused by Bush and Blair that the war on terrorism is not a war on Islam, seeking to stress the non-religious, non-ethnic, non-racist aspects of the anti-terror campaign; (ii) the view put forward by the Italian Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi, that the west is culturally superior to the Muslim world; and (iii) the opinion that Islam itself is the creator of terrorism (ref. Jerry Falwell, Pat Roberston, and Representative Tom Lantos).

· Saikal also explained reactions in the Muslim world to the west, and established a typology of groups that are antithetical to the west: moderate Islamists, radical Islamists (namely those that advocate violence, such as bin Laden), Conservative Neo-fundamentalists, and “grassroots” opinion which merges an Islamic identity with a nationalist concern over western domination.

• Dr Robert Wirsing, of the APCSS, spoke to the subject of Islam and democracy in the context of South Asia. He began by noting that religious radicalism in South Asia was often highly exaggerated, and sometimes misleadingly so, by the international media.

• Commenting on the recent gains by Islamist political elements, Wirsing cited a number of factors that had played into this, including the weakness of mainstream political parties and the growth of Pushtun nationalism (in the wake of events in Afghanistan). In essence, the 11% of the vote for the Islamist movement has to be seen in context of a broader political, identity and nationalist background – not simply an emergence of Islamic “fundamentalism”.

• Dr Wirsing finished by raising the issue of globalization. While many has stressed its positive developments, Wirsing noted that the soft power influence of the west was causing a good deal of resentment within the Muslim world. He suggested that this may be a more critical point of discord than the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

• Richard Baker, of the East/West Center, examined the issue with regards to Southeast Asia. In his introductory remarks he expressed the general point that democracy and religion were, fundamentally, opposed to each other. Religion has often been authoritarian in nature, and demands allegiance to the divine, oftentimes at the expense of the will of the people. Religion, Baker noted, has often been a “social weapon of mass destruction”.

• In a broad sweep of Southeast Asia, Baker focused mainly on Indonesia, which is the world’s largest Muslim country and the most important nation in Southeast Asia. He noted that the largest Islamic organizations, Nahdlatul Ulama and Muhammadiyah, which account for some 70 million members, were moderate, generally supportive of democracy, and had recently forged an understanding to cooperate in undermining the anti-democratic radical fringe elements.

• In Malaysia, by contrast, Baker noted that the relationship between mosque and state was more ambiguous, as religion was not altogether in the private sphere. Islam is the official state religion, while UMNO (the ruling party) and PAS (the main Islamist opposition) have been competing to use Islam as an electoral tool to out-do the other. Nonetheless, Baker saw no real prospect of anything like an Iranian style theocracy emerging in Southeast Asia.

• At the end of the session, each speaker was invited to sum up on the issue. All felt that Islam and democracy were, in theory, compatible. Saikal argued that in many Middle Eastern contexts an Iranian style accommodation between Islamism and democracy may have to be found. He warned against unrealistic expectations of democratic development, particularly as many regimes in the Muslim world are essentially illiberal.

• Saikal elaborated on this and other themes in the roundtable afterwards. On the issue of autocratic regimes in the Middle East, he cited the example of UAE, which has an extremely rich population. Yet he noted that political discontent was suppressed by the government, and this was often blamed on the United States for propping up this kind of regime. Therefore, even an affluent Arab population, one that has no poverty, still harbors anti-American suspicions. Others in the roundtable noted that many in the Muslim world had claimed to understand bin Laden’s anger at the west, even though they themselves fail to understand al-Qaeda’s puritanical brand of the Islamic faith.