Dr Faisal Al Qassem
It is strange and rather funny that once the West was finished with investing in the term “Islamophobia” for its own purposes, Arabs began to use this term, but this time against each other; why not?
Arabs do not mind blindly imitating Western traditions that offend us. One can understand how the West manufactured the term “Islamophobia” to achieve certain political, military and cultural aims, but it is difficult to understand how the victims of this term, the Arabs, are using it to upset each other, and consequently offending Islam.
“Islamophobia” has returned, especially after the Arab Spring, whose major result was Islamists winning elections in some Arab countries.
An Islamist party won in Tunisia; then there were the Muslim Brotherhood and Salafis in Egypt. Islamists took the lead in the scene in Libya in the beginning.
In other words, the rise of a strong Islamist political landscape through electoral victory made their opponents, especially leftists, liberals, secularists and the remnants of fallen regimes band together to warn of the Islamic threat to the fledgling democratic politics in the Arab region in the wake of the Arab Spring.
The Islamists undoubtedly did not act well after coming to power in Tunisia and Egypt. The majority of Tunisians voted against them in the last election because of their failure to run the country after the revolution, especially on the economic front.
It is true that the first months of the Muslim Brotherhood’s rule in Egypt were not very encouraging. But this does not justify in any way the demonisation of Islamists, who are portrayed as a big threat to the country’s revolutions.
Here it should be noted that any party that comes to power after a popular revolution will suffer the fate of the Islamic parties that came to power after the revolutions in Egypt, Tunisia and Libya.
This is because people’s aspirations are usually very high, and the legacy of the fallen regimes is often very bad. Therefore no party, whatever talent it has to rule, can address the situation with a magic wand.
Let us not forget the condition of the Islamists who came to power. They did not have long-standing experience in ruling, particularly since they had spent most of their time in prison because of persecution and restrictions on political activity.
Consequently, you should not exploit their failure to rule after revolutions, crush them, and remove them from the political arena with no chance to return.
If you observe the media campaigns being waged by the Islamists’ opponents, you will be amazed.
Some warn of the Islamization of the entire public sector, while others warn of Islamic tyranny. Many do not even argue that some of the Arab countries do not want to overthrow the regime in Syria, fearing the rise of Islamists to power.
Secularists and supporters of the fallen regimes have tried everything they can to intimidate the Islamists in a way that exceeds the ugliness of the Western-style media that has prevailed over the past two decades. They portray the new Islamist as being a terrifying monster.
I do not know why Islamists are portrayed as demons. Isn’t it better to accept the results of democratic elections than to demonise Islamists in this obsessive way?
Isn’t intimidating Islamists a blatant attack on democracy and their followers, who number in the millions? Isn’t portraying Islamists in this way a reflection of the weakness of their opponents? Isn’t it incumbent on the enemies of the Islamists to attract people by presenting good programmes in their electoral and political campaigns rather than by defaming their opponents?
Those who warn Arab societies of the Islamic threat have not learnt lessons from the West, despite the campaigns waged by the Western media against the Islamists over the past twenty years.
Despite that, the Islamists have been achieving victories in Arab streets. When they got a real democratic chance, they achieved successin elections. This is reinventing the wheel, instead of manufacturing it!
The anti-Islamist political movements should look for new ways to challenge Islamists rather than imitate Western methods that failed to discredit the Islamic movement and instead made it more powerful.
What is more serious in the light of this campaign against the Islamists in many countries is that moderate Islamist parties participating in politics would become extreme, following in the steps of the Islamic State if their opponents use dirty ways to remove them from the political scene.
Where will the democratic Islamic groups go when they find all doors and windows shut in their faces? Will the extremist groups, which have become a major threat to internal and external security, be a preferred destination for the moderate Islamic forces?
The author is a columnist and presenter on Al Jazeera TV channel
