Mehdi
Mozaffari is an Iranian exile who now works as a
professor of political science in Denmark's University
of Århus. Before the 1979 theocratic reaction
in Iran, he worked as head of the Department of
International Relations at Tehran University. The
author of many articles and books on Islam and Islamism,
he received much critical acclaim for Fatwa:
Violence and Discourtesy. In it, drawing on
the work of Erich Fromm, Mozaffari compared Ayatollah
Khomeini to Hitler by identifying two common characteristics:
a love of death, and an extreme egocentric character.
Such views have not seen his ratings soar amongst
the audience of Theocratic TV's Mullah and Mufti
show. He has been subjected to many death threats
from those irrevocably opposed to free enquiry.
Much
of his motivation is born of personal experience.
He has often spoken of how he and thousands of others
fled burkas, sharia, blood money, honour killings,
imams and Islamism in the Middle East, only to witness
the emergence of the same phenomena in Europe. As
witness he is determined to bear it. He warns that:
historical
experience has shown that those whom people fear
will win, eventually. We saw this in Nazi Germany.
There were too many Nazis, and people were scared.
I fear that this is where we are heading, once more.
He
has campaigned against Islamism in Denmark, site
of the anti-theocratic cartoons that led to much
controversy, murderous and racist violence against
the Danes and Norwegians, and the inversion of enlightenment
values by the Irrelevant Left. He seeks to protect
the openness of Danish society which Islamicists
are contemptuous of. In 2004 a leading Danish mufti,
for example, claimed that Danish women not wearing
the veil 'were asking for rape.' This type of sentiment
was considered okay by people who sent themselves
into paroxysms of rage over cartoons of little artistic
merit but which questioned the subjugation of women
by Islamicists. Medhi points to what he sees as
the irony in such perspectives
It
is astonishing that each time claims on freedom
of speech, free elections and gender equality strongly
arises, Arab and Muslim leaders immediately resort
to counter attacks, considering these claims to
be in contradiction with their culture and identity.
What they are saying is actually that despotism
and repression is more conform to Islamic and Arab
values than democracy and liberty.
He
views Islam as a totalitarian ideology which aims
at world domination. He rejects the notion that
change in Islamic societies will come as a result
of indigenous factors. Mozzaffari explains that
leaders such as Mubarak of Egypt, Assad of Syria
and the Saudi royal family have tried to build a
refusal front and have argued that democracy can
only come from within. This he sees as self-serving
because it allows the autocrats to remain secure
in the knowledge that no internal attempt at democracy
will succeed.
Islamic
leaders are not seeking democracy but "Islamocracy",
or Islam and democracy. "Islamic democracy"
as president (Mohammad) Khatami of Iran formulated
it means selection instead of election, a parliament
without real attributes, a judiciary without independence,
political parties without liberty, and mass communication
without a voice.
The
most contentious position held by Mozzaffari, and
which separates him from many of his co-signatories
to the Manifesto Against
Totalitarianism, is his support for the US led
war in Iraq. While Maryam Namazie, Antoine Sfeir,
Caroline Fourest and Taslima Nasrin have all signed
a Third Camp manifesto
against US militarism and Islamic terrorism, Mozzaffari
allows for no such equivalence, arguing that war
is essential because no internal democratisation
option is available. He contends that:
Four
interrelated factors are hindering a successful
internal and autonomous change, Oriental despotism,
the rentier economy, the domination of Islam, and
external interventionism. These elements constitute
a Gordian knot that can only be cut off by Alexander's
sword.
In
such a context war must be understood 'as an imperative
chirurgical intervention to break this vicious chain.'
Rejecting any suggestion that US plans to democratise
the Middle East are an American fantasy he argues
that 'the fantasy is rather to await the process
of democratisation to start by itself and to progress
slowly, gently and peacefully from within the Middle
Eastern societies.' He does not deny the existence
of democratic sentiment within the Middle East but
maintains it is so thoroughly suppressed that the
unaided flowering of any democratic movement will
be crushed.
As
a result of the US invasion 'for the first time
in history, democracy figures on the agenda …
it is not fully conformed to Max Weber's ideal type
of democracy; but there is no doubt that it will
be moving in this direction.' Despite the death
of the theocratic fascist, Sarqawi - some may find
a historical precedent in the 1942 Prague assassination
of Reinhardt Heydrich - many democrats and anti-theocrats
will have difficulty accepting that democracy is
the goal of the US in the Middle East. Experience,
good teacher that it has proven to be, is littered
with examples of democracy being suppressed by the
US. Sarqawi's implacable opposition to democracy
and freedom was hardly as developed and fine tuned
as that practiced by Henry Kissinger, a notorious
war criminal wanted for questioning in a number
of countries but now harboured by the United States.
In
opting to tackle the Islamicists Mozzaffari holds
that it is necessary to view Islamism as an ideology
and not a religion.
In
this way, we put forward the real face and real
nature of Islamism. The Muslims, especially among
the young people, who are potentially ready to give
their lives for the sake of Islamist ideals, will
find out that their struggle is not a part of a
religious duty but purely an ideological and political
one emanating from a dangerous utopia.
He
has also called for 'an international tactical or
ethical consensus' particularly in the West where
some political leaders employ anti-Islamic discourse
for political ends. This undermines the purpose
because it plays into the hands of Islamicists who
want to establish two things in the mind of Muslims:
'Islamism is the true face of Islam … the West
is an enemy of Islam.' For this reason it is essential
that politicians avoid attacking Islam the religion.
Mozaffari,
demonstrating that it is political Islam rather
than religious Islam he attacks, has, despite signing
the Manifesto Against Totalitarianism alongside
Salman Rushdie, in the past been critical of the
author of Satanic Verses on the grounds that
freedom of speech is not absolute and where it is
employed it should not be understood as license
to insult the feelings of those who have deep religious
beliefs. He identified a major tension between the
West's uncritical support for Rushdie's right to
free expression and the fact that in practice within
the West freedom of expression is not practiced.
Mozzaffari
has a very uncompromising stance towards Islamicists,
feeling that dialogue has proven a waste of time
as Islamicists only see it as a sign of weakness.
'Nothing positive has come out of different dialogues
of diplomacy with totalitarian regimes and groups
in general, and nothing positive with Islamists
either.' He makes no bones about the alternative
to dialogue: 'the answer is short and brutal: pressure
… war should not be excluded as a last resort.'
If Islamicism is to be avoided without at the same
time confronting Islam, there are three interrelated
options for achieving this: 'continuous pressure
on Islamists and, if necessary, conduct of war;
dialogue and cooperation with moderate Muslims;
and effective support to democratic forces inside
the Muslim world.'
Mozzaffari
does not buy into the clash of civilisations thesis
propounded by Samuel Huntingdon some years ago and
which still remains influential to this day. 'If
there is a clash, the clash is not between civilizations
or between religions. The real clash occurs between
democracy and despotism.' In the West theocratic
despotism battles it out in structural conditions
that weakens its effect. Muslims there, according
to Mozzaffari, are far too dispersed to form a compact
bloc. There are two groups: Muslim Believers and
Cultural Muslims.
Islamists
are predominantly issued from the first category.
Cultural Muslims represent an agglomerate of peoples
embracing agnostics, liberals, socialists and so
on. In general, Cultural Muslims do not represent
any tangible threat. The attention therefore must
be oriented to the Muslim Believers who roughly
are divided into Moderates and Radicals. Both are
potential sources for Islamism; the former lesser
than the latter.
His
advice on how to identify a Radical Muslim today
in the West would, with eminently good reason, produce
convulsions in the human rights and civil liberties
communities:
Now,
how to identify a Radical Muslim today in the Western
countries? In this regard, there are a number of
helpful indices. First, a Radical Muslim is of course
a believer, who practices the rituals of Islam.
But, this alone is not enough. A Radical Muslim
is a man (rarely a woman--perhaps because Prophet
Muhammad expressed his skepticism over women's capacity
to hold a secret!). A Radical Muslim is constantly
in communication with others. He can be a lonely
man in the city and locality where he lives, but
is with permanent communication with the outside
world. Communication goes through mail, e-mail,
fax, telephone (mobile and public) and so on. He
is also a man who reads much and is generally a
quiet person carefully avoiding clashes with the
police and other public authorities. He is also
traveler, a globetrotter! He is a young man with
an average age of 25-27 years. In Southern Europe,
Radical Muslims are issued from North Africa (Algeria,
Morocco and Tunisia). In the U.K. essentially from
Pakistan. In Scandinavia, from Palestine, Lebanon,
Egypt and Pakistan. Iranian Islamists are working
under the auspices of Iranian authorities, generally
as diplomatic personnel or as business persons.
It
is not explained by Mozaffari how disseminating
such a typology could possibly avoid lending itself
to racial stereotyping and the emergence of a surveillance
society in which people are monitored, tagged and
targetted on the basis of their ethnic and age profile.
Activities, considered normal in most societies,
such as avid reading, e-mailing and avoiding clashes
with public authority, are suddenly imputed with
sinister and malign intent when indulged in by those
with olive skins.
Moreover,
if there is any such thing as humanitarian military
intervention, the situations which demanded such
a course of action - with a stronger claim to it
than was ever made on behalf of Iraq - and which
were spurned, such as Rwanda in 1994, can only cause
many to cast a jaundiced eye over narratives that
depict the war in Iraq positively. Whether for purposes
of power and security in a world where nation states
remain key actors, or for reasons of imperialist
expansionism in search of new markets and resources,
either of these two strands as explanations governing
the Western penetration of Iraq seem more robust
and convincing than the notion of helping the natives
who for long Western foreign policy exploited.
It
is against such a background that the contribution
of Mehdi Mozaffari is to be evaluated. He has been
at the forefront of resisting Islamicism. His challenge
to the theocrats and their fascism feeds into a
discourse that is conducive to wider democratisation.
But it is difficult to juxtapose within the same
conceptual democratic framework his articulation
of democratic values alongside the creation of typologies
that seriously undermine freedoms ostensibly guaranteed
by democracy. Furthermore, his endorsement of the
war in Iraq cuts him off from a hinterland of thinking
and sentiment, that would otherwise find his activism
and writings laudable from a human rights perspective,
but suspect when situated midstream of a flowing
strategic current, pumped out and directed by those
most central to the construction of neoconservative
perspectives.
There
is much that his critics can learn from Mehdi Mozaffari,
not least his insights into the nihilistic content
of an eschatological Islamicism. If he in turn is
willing to listen to them, in particular to their
discourses on the limitations of military intervention
as currently structured, a crucial dialogue of dissent
may open up, out of which more realistic and humanitarian
strategies for human emancipation may burgeon.
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