Respecting religion and democracy

The Varsity

How moderate Islamic parties in Tunisia, Egypt, and Morocco are addressing the needs of their citizens

The uprisings during the Arab Spring toppled the region’s brutal dictators only to fill the resulting power vacuum with radical Islamic theocrats — or so say many pundits and politicians. But do their statements have validity or are these people merely irked by the recent electoral popularity of the Ennahda Party in Tunisia, the Justice and Development Party in Morocco, and the Freedom and Justice Party in Egypt? While each of these parties is expressly Islamic in outlook, can we be certain that they will act like the Ayatollah of Iran or the Taliban, or is there more to the political philosophies of the Islamic parties of North Africa?

In most cases the dictators that ruled North Africa before the Arab Spring suppressed religious freedom along with other human rights. While many of them spoke with the rhetoric of Islam, they undertook crackdowns of Mullahs who expressed theological opinions different from the state-sanctioned line. In Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood was one such organization. This resulted in the Brotherhood becoming one of the most vocal and visible organizations to oppose the regime during the Arab Spring. Writing in Foreign Affairs, Carrie Rosefsky Wickham explains that the Muslim Brotherhood’s support of the Freedom and Justice Party, and the party’s resulting popularity, has more to do with being known as opponents of dictatorship than it does their religiously inspired views.

The largest party after Tunisia’s recent election was the Islamic Ennahda Party. Its leader, Rashid al-Ghannushi, is a strong supporter of human rights, equality for women, and democracy precisely because of his strong Islamic faith. Al-Ghannushi’s public claims that the Koran mandates liberal positions have caused him to be banned from Saudi Arabia and Iran because of the fear that he would challenge the legitimacy of the undemocratic theocracies.

Similarly, Abdelilah Benkirane, the leader of Morocco’s Justice and Development Party, stated in an interview with the French newspaper le Parisien that, even though he supports Islamic democracy, he does not wish to impose strict Shariah law and that he did not enter politics “to decide the number of inches women’s skirts can be… It’s not my business… No one can challenge the individual freedoms of Morocco.” He then further stressed his understanding that the Arab Spring was a fight for greater freedom, not less.

In both Tunisia and Morocco, neither Islamic party holds more than a plurality of the seats in parliament. Their opposition in each case ranges from centrist, to liberal, to socialist, which means they will need the support from each of these factions in order to get any of their laws passed. As a result, any theocratic sentiment would probably be moderated by the need for secular political parties to support the proposal.

Since 2003, Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has led the Justice and Development Party, which is similar in ideology to the above-mentioned parties in Tunisia, Morocco, and Egypt. The most controversial action of Erdoğan’s premiership has been the attempt to dismantle the current ban on headscarves in public buildings and universities and allow Turkish women to decide for themselves whether or not to follow the Islamic custom.

In addition, Erdoğan has stressed greater democracy, civil liberties and liberalization of the economy through the rhetoric of Islam. This should be of little surprise to anyone who understands the influence within the party that Mustafa Akyol, author of Islam Without Extremes, holds. Akyol argues that human rights, free market economics, and representative democracy are not only supported by Islamic history but also mandated by Islamic religious doctrine.

By arguing this, Akyol, Erdoğan, and the Justice and Development Party bring the growing religiously conservative majority of Turkey into a moderate political movement. If they left the sizeable group outside of acceptable political discourse, they would risk empowering more radical groups — similar to the Taliban or the Ayatollahs — to influence those who felt ostracized for their faith. In this way, putting moderate Islamic parties in power can actually strengthen democracy and weakens the possibility of theocratic dictatorships.