If there has been another attempt to find an alternative
way to live in
the modern world that merits our attention, it is the phenomenon known
variously as Islamism, political Islam, or Islamic fundamentalism (we
are not concerned here with the large number of Muslims who have
adopted a historically Western modernity pretty much as is). This
movement had roots in the Wahhabism of eighteenth-century Arabia, but
as a response to the modern world it took shape in the first decades of
the twentieth century and became a major factor in the politics of the
Islamic world in its last decades. In terms of strength and weakness,
it can be seen as a reversal of Marxism.
In intention, at least, Islamic fundamentalism was
not at all
futuristic; its object was to restore the glory of an ancient past that
is part of the cultural heritage of Muslims all over the world. It thus
resonated with the values of a vast religious community and could give
coherence to a great diversity of Muslim grievances, particularly
against the West, ranging from military intrusion to cultural
pollution; in such contexts it made effective use of the aptness of
traditional monotheism for generating intercultural estrangement (as
opposed to the mutual understanding that religion is now expected to
promote in the West). Thus unlike Marxism, and to a far greater extent
than nationalism, Islamic fundamentalism offered to keep faith with the
past of its adherents. But if its linkage to the Islamic heritage was
clear and strong, its commitment to full-blooded modernity was by the
same token somewhat in doubt. At the beginning of the twenty-first
century, the nightmare for the enemies of the Islamic fundamentalists
was not that Muslim zealots might inherit the earth through possession
of a more effective technique for running it but rather that they might
wreck it if they succeeded in borrowing the technology to do so. In its
confrontation with the numerous economic, social, and political
problems of Muslim populations, the main thing Islamic fundamentalism
had to offer was faith.
Unlike Marxism, Islamic fundamentalism seems assured
of a certain
future, though it is hard to tell how long this may last or what it may
be. Fundamentalism might, of course, prove too inflexible to be viable
as a way of inhabiting (as opposed to disrupting) the modern world—a
case of forlornly notching a boat to mark a spot. In that case, one
might anticipate that it would eventually fall into disuse, much as
Marxism has already done. Alternatively, fundamentalism may in the end
prove flexible enough to be compatible with the substance of
modernity—the social and cultural infrastructure of modern wealth and
power. In this context it is worth remembering the Meiji Restoration:
nineteenth- century Japan successfully gate- crashed the modern world
under the pretence of returning to a past that had been in abeyance for
the best part of a millennium. It is true that Japanese culture was
marked by an eclecticism that does not sit well with current levels of
zeal among Islamic fundamentalists. But consider the case of Iran,
where this zeal has been gradually dissipating since the fundamentalist
revolution of 1979. As of the opening years of the twenty-first
century, it is not hard to imagine a future in which the revolutionary
heritage, without actually being repudiated, might serve mainly to
provide the trappings for a modern nation much like any other. If this
happens, fundamentalism in the Iranian context will have become a
variant form of nationalism. Sunni fundamentalism may in the end go the
same way. There is already an interesting analogy with Marxism in one
respect: fundamentalism has come closest to political success as a form
of anti-imperialism. Whatever the eventual outcome, it seems unlikely
that Islamic fundamentalism will deliver a different way of being
modern, as opposed to a different way of reconciling modernity with an
ancient allegiance. But let us return to the firmer ground of the
present.
