Arab Spring A Process

It began with the Palestine, and has gone on to replicate itself in Libya, Egypt, Tunisia, and now Syria. The Arab Spring is turning out to be a movement from friendly tyrants to an unfriendly Islamist democracy. But should it be a surprise? Afterall, as early as 1970s the secular Shah of Iran was replaced by a theocracy that now talks of obliterating Israel from the face of Earth.

In mid-1990’s controversial scholar Samuel Huntington in his now famous book “The Clash of Civilizations” – the title itself borrowed from Islamic scholar Bernard Lewis – had written that in the Muslim world, in almost every country, the most likely successor regime waiting in the wings was an Islamic one. A decade and a half later it’s coming true to the chagrin or otherwise of the rest of the world.

So, essentially, what we are seeing now is the product of an Islamic Resurgence that began on the back of the Oil boom of 1970s. From its earlier stage Islamization of the social and cultural space it is now at a vantage of occupying the political space in nation after nation. The economic surge and a youth bulge gave the Muslim world a movement akin to the Christian Reformation. Long before we even heard of it, the Muslim Brotherhood had created a charity supra-structure with schools, colleges, hospitals, and other charities – a sort of religious-welfare-state-within-the-secular-state – which is now being leveraged for attaining political power.

As terror group Indian Mujahideen broke on the national stage in 2008 a disturbing pattern emerged. That of well off and well educated youth involved in these activities. This rather out-of-context mention is actually connected with what has happened in much of the Muslim world as part of the Resurgence. Huntington calls it a revolution, and like all revolutions it’s driven by the youth and the intellectuals. It is not for nothing that the Islamist appeal is particularly strong in technical institutes, engineering faculties, and scientific departments. In Iran, for example, literacy was 15 per cent in 1953 when the Shah ruled. It was 49 per cent when the Shah was overthrown in 1970s.

Understandably thus, it is not for nothing that our own IM boys come from similar well educated and well off backgrounds. So is it worrisome for us? Well Huntington would want us to take heart. The Oil boom and the youth bulge peaked in mid-90s and would taper off over the next decade, he avers. Bringing down with it the rabidity and the accompanying violence as the ageing Islamists possibly jaw-jaw over war-war. Amen is only what one can say.