Islam and the Trajectory of Globalization

Rational Idealism and the Structure of World History

Louay M. Safi

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000483543
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

The book examines the growing tension between social movements that embrace egalitarian and inclusivist views of national and global politics, most notably classical liberalism, and those that advance social hierarchy and national exclusivism, such as neoliberalism, neoconservatism, and national populism. In exploring issues relating to tensions and conflicts around globalization, the book identifies historical patterns of convergence and divergence rooted in the monotheistic traditions, beginning with the ancient Israelites that dominated the Near East during the Axial age, through Islamic civilization, and finally by considering the idealism-realism tensions in modern times. One thing remained constant throughout the various historical stages that preceded our current moment of global convergence: a recurring tension between transcendental idealism and various forms of realism. Transcendental idealism, which prioritize egalitarian and universal values, pushed periodically against the forces of realism that privilege established law and power structure. Equipped with the idealism-realism framework, the book examines the consequences of European realism that justified the imperialistic venture into Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America in the name of liberation and liberalization. The ill-conceived strategy has, ironically, engendered the very dysfunctional societies that produce the waves of immigrants in constant motion from the South to the North, simultaneously as it fostered the social hierarchy that transfer external tensions into identity politics within the countries of the North. The book focuses particularly on the role played historically by Islamic rationalism in translating the monotheistic egalitarian outlook into the institutions of religious pluralism, legislative and legal autonomy, and scientific enterprise at the foundation of modern society. It concludes by shedding light on the significance of the Muslim presence in Western cultures as humanity draws slowly but consistently towards what we may come to recognize as the Global Age.

The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9781003203360, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.

1 Globalization facts and faults

DOI: 10.4324/9781003203360-2

Globalization as currently perceived is a historical process originated in Europe and has its roots in the rational impulse of the Enlightenment. The impulse is liberal democracy that has survived the turmoil of the twentieth century, including two world wars and a long cold war that produced countless skirmishes. With the defeat of European nationalism in WWII, communism expanded into East Europe, further invigorating the former Soviet Union. The liberal democratic project nonetheless continued with the same vigor, as it remained confident of the superiority of its vision that it developed a new field of modernization studies that anticipated the eventual transformation of non-Western societies, particularly those of the Middle East, from religious-traditional to secular-modern cultures. Modernization theory’s assessment was not without merit, as Middle Eastern societies embraced liberal democracy, first in Egypt in 1919 as a result of a popular revolution that ended British colonial rule and established a parliamentarian democracy, and later in Syria in 1947 as it ended the French colonial rule and established the first republic in the Arab world. Liberal democracy did not survive for long in the Arab societies and was replaced by military rule. The collapse of the two Arab liberal regimes was not protested by Western democracies. Instead, the new military dictatorships were immediately embraced; for example, two coups were orchestrated by the Truman’s administration in 1949 and 1952 in the Middle East. By the early 1970s, the call to return to traditional Islamic culture and politics was echoed across Arab and Muslim countries, as an increasing number of people became disillusioned with coercive secularism and fake elections managed by the Arab junta, as well as the open attacks on Islamic symbols and cultural traditions. One such attack took place in Syria, in 1981, when Hafiz Assad, the father of the current president, sent his paramilitary forces to the streets of Damascus to force women to take off their headscarves.¹

The Soviet Union eventually collapsed in the late 1980s, leading Fukuyama to declare the end of history and the triumph of liberal democracy as the United States won the cold war against Soviet communism. Yet two years later, Huntington surprised the academic world when he declared the end of hope in modernization’s ability to plant the spirit of liberalism outside the Western world and urged the West to end its faith in global convergence and focus instead on the coming clash of civilizations. The far-right and the anti-globalization forces took Huntington’s thesis to heart, as it spoke to their fears and prejudices. Huntington’s clash of civilizations thesis soon became the rallying cry of the neoconservatives and, most recently, of national populists who have invoked it frequently to explain international and local events, particularly violence committed by Islamist groups. The clash paradigm constructed by Huntington is disturbing not only because it forecloses the possibility of greater cooperation but also because it empowers extremist movements across the world. The clash paradigm represents an impulsive reaction by a decorated scholar who decided to bail out from the intellectual framework he embraced throughout his academic career. The arguments he makes are complex and reveal contingencies and raise questions that he never considered or asked. Why did liberal democracy fail to establish a foothold in Muslim societies? Did the United States pursue the right strategies in the Middle East, Africa, or South America to bring the populations in these regions closer to liberal democracy? Could liberal democracy take alternative forms, and pursue different paths, in non-Western societies? These are relevant and important questions in the debate about the future of globalization and the fate of liberal democracy that need to be asked, and we will address two of these questions in this chapter, leaving the third question to be tackled in subsequent chapters.

World order and the global threshold

The fall of the Soviet Union in 1989 emboldened the advocates of convergence theory that anticipated the emergence of a global culture, galvanized around the notions of democracy, open society, and free enterprise. Francis Fukuyama published in the same year his widely read and cited article, later expanded into a full-fledged book titled The End of History and the Last Man. The article-turned-book declared the end of the rivalry among competing political ideologies and the triumph of liberal democracy, announcing thereby the end of the search for alternative political ideologies. The formal dissolution of the communist system and the emergence of a democratic Russian Federation led to more intense discussions in political and academic circles about the nature of the emerging reality that replaced the cold war. This led to various formulations around the notion of “globalization.” Globalization as an academic notion predates the end of the cold war but has become quite popular since the early 1990s, as its usage underscores the need for a new term to describe the expanding networks of social processes and new models of communication, collaboration, and exchange that brought greater integration among social, economic, and political actors. Along with the collapse of the Soviet Union came the liberation of Eastern Europe from totalitarian governments, the reunification of Germany, and the weakening of authoritarian regimes in South America and East Asia.

Fukuyama labored in The End of History to ground his arguments in Hegelian philosophy, which gave his thesis greater depth as he placed it firmly in world history. He did that partly by uncovering patterns of historical change and partly by grounding his arguments in Greek psychology. Before we turn to examine his arguments and their theoretical foundations, it might be useful to contemplate the significance of the historical moment that distinguishes our current sociopolitical conditions. Undoubtedly, the fall of the Soviet Union generated, for those who believe in freedom and accountable government, new optimism and excitement, as the end of the greatest totalitarian system accompanied the advent of new technologies, particularly in the field of digital communication that made information easily and freely accessible across the globe. The advancement in computing technology, the explosion in Internet use, the mushrooming of global TV networks, and the convergence of information technology in the smartphones and tablets, all reduced distances and brought people closer in ways never experienced before. The last decade of the twentieth century has also seen the expansion of world trade and the rise of China and the Asian Tigers: Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan. The economies of these East Asian and Southeast Asian countries were celebrated by neoliberal economists as miracles and as testaments for the wonders of neoliberalism.

Yet globalization cannot be explained purely by technological and economic developments, as we must consider the sociopolitical dynamics generated by the advocates of classical liberalism. Technological advancements and recent breakthroughs in communication and transportation technologies have been instrumental in bringing about the phenomenon we call globalization, but at the heart of this new experience lies international systems and worldwide networks that facilitate collaborations and exchanges among political, economic, and corporate actors. Globalization as we know it today is shaped by the development of international law and organizations, and advanced by optimistic political and intellectual visionaries, who believed in the power of global cooperation for improving the human condition. Globalization owes its ability to expand in the postcolonial world to international law and organizations that provide the infrastructure for economic and political cooperation. The call for building governing institutions to maintain world peace was first introduced by the United States at the conclusion of WWI and led to the foundation of the League of Nations. President Woodrow Wilson who led the efforts was rebuffed by the United States Congress and by the American public that was then wary of imperial politics. The United States was also instrumental in the second attempt to form an international governing body after WWII, as President Roosevelt announced the formation of the United Nations (UN) Organization in 1945. Globalization is rooted today in an elaborate international system that grew gradually around UN activities. This relatively brief international experience has successfully laid down the infrastructure for a burgeoning global governance, which we may perceive as “the sum of the many ways individuals and institutions, public and private, manage their common affairs. It is a continuing process through which conflicting or diverse interests may be accommodated and cooperative action may be taken.”² The word “governance” is key here as it distinguishes the evolving political structure that lies at the foundation of the emerging global order from a closely related and more familiar term, i.e. “government.” Both government and governance refer to a system of rules administered by political agencies. However, while government involves activities undertaken and supervised by a formal authority, commanding law enforcement bodies to ensure compliance, “governance refers to activities backed by shared goals that may or may not derive from legal and formally prescribed responsibilities and that do not necessarily rely on police powers to overcome defiance and attain compliance.”³

Global governance is a better term to describe the complex system of rules, agencies, and networks that coalesce to produce the international conditions that place us at the threshold of an emerging global order. At its most basic level, global governance includes the system of international norms shared by peoples who belong to different nations and cultures. The rules of international law, which grew out of treaties and agreements among the member-states of the UN, have created a system of soft law administered by a growing number of intergovernmental organizations (IGOs). By the turn of the twentieth century, over 3,666 multilateral new treaties were concluded, administered by a myriad of IGOs, including the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the World Trade Organization (WTO), and International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), to name just a few. These organizations provide many services necessary for formulating and implementing decisions and policies made by the specialized bodies within the UN, including “information gathering and analytical functions, dispute settlement procedures, and operational capabilities for managing technical and development assistance programs, relief aid, and force deployments.”⁴

One interesting aspect of the growing networks of organizations linked to global governance, that could potentially have a far-reaching impact on the emergence of a global civil society, relates to the formation of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that work along with IGOs. The number of NGOs has grown to more than 6,500, with considerable input and influence over the work of the international governmental organizations. Topping the list of internationally active NGOs are household names, such as Wikimedia Foundation, Partners in Health, Oxfam, BRAC, International Rescue Committee, PATH, CARE International, Médecins Sans Frontières, and Danish Refugee Council and Ushahidi. The institutions of global governance have no enforcement mechanism and rely completely on the voluntary agreements of member-states to abide by international treaties. However, many member-states find themselves unable to resist the benefits they could get by abiding by international rules. The existence of IGOs and NGOs dedicated to the verification of compliance of established rules is helpful but far from being effective. There is still considerable amount of arbitrariness, unfairness, and inadequacy in the way global governance works. We will return to consider further this aspect of the current system of global governance, but, for now, it is important to point out that the system is in full sway as many states are eager to enjoy the benefits of direct capital investment and reduced tariffs and thus must submit to the WTO and, in turn, are subject to considerable fines or loss of membership if they fail to abide by the WTO rules. Similarly, the IAEA, set up to ensure that signatories to Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, provides an incentive to states that voluntarily abide by the terms of treaties in the form of technical assistance programs to non-nuclear weapon countries for developing peaceful uses of nuclear energy.⁵

The myriad of institutions and organizations currently involved in the international system has evidently laid the foundation for global governance, but t...