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As to the situation of the elite, by virtue of its inevitable selfish narrowness and inability to support and maintain the necessary level of knowledge and technology, it will be extremely unstable and vague.
Naturally, the list of the numerous problems which have, evidently, no solution and which are facing humanity at the time of its qualitative change and transfer to a new state, is much longer and broader: a journal article has objective limitations. Nevertheless, a thorough apprehension and conceptualization of a range of the problems raised will contribute, as it seems, to a better management of our societies. And social sciences are a means of searching for the truth and ensuring mankind's progress.
"Svobodnaya mysl," Moscow, 2015, No 1, pp. 32-50.
Leonid Isayev,
Senior instructor of Political Science Department,
Higher School of Economics
"ISLAMIC STATE": ANOTHER VERSION
In his lectures on the history of philosophy Hegel wrote: "Islam has long left the world historical arena and returned to Oriental calm and quiet.' One hundred years later, at the beginning of the 20th century his words were echoed by the leader of the Algerian Sheikhs-ul-Islam Abd al-Hamid Ben Badis: "The dreams about the revival of the caliphate will never come true, and the Muslims will ultimately understand it." Evidently, for one hundred years which divided these two thinkers such words were quite justified. However, today, against the background of the developments in the Middle East one is hardly able to talk of Islamic religion in terms of "calmness" and "quietness." Doubtless, the situation in the region in 2014-2015 is really unprecedented: the terrorist Islamic grouping has not only succeeded
to set up its own state with all necessary attributes, but also to broaden its boundaries all he time. Paradoxically, this has taken place at the time when the failure of political reforms inspired by Islamism has clearly been revealed in a number of Arab countries, above all, in Egypt, Tunisia, Syria, Yemen, and earlier in Sudan. It is important to pay attention to the structure named "Islamic State." At its sources stood the former regional organization "al Qaeda" - "al Qaeda in Mesopotamia," which was replaced first by "al Qaeda in Iraq," and then "Islamic State in Iraq and Levant" (ISIL). In the summer of 2014 the grouping again renamed itself "Islamic State", thus having renounced any geographical affiliation. Its basic principles are not new; they are based mainly on pan-Islamism of the mid-20th century. In 1980, the journal of the Egyptian "Muslim Brothers" entitled "Ad-Dawaa" propagated the idea about the need "to turn the 20th century into the century of 'the triumph of Islam' and unification of all Muslim peoples in a 'single nation' within the bounds of one state." Although the outlines of the suggested state have never been quite clear, the pan-Islamists have always opposed "regional narrowness" of nationalist concepts and put forward universalism and internationalism of Muslim brotherhood. In practice, this has always concealed the "hegemonic aspirations" of the ruling circles of certain countries. This was true of Ottoman Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and the Islamic Republic of Pakistan (at the dawn of its foundation). The "Islamic State" was no exception. Despite a great volume of everything written and spoken about it, the reasons for its emergence on Iraqi territory have not been disclosed well enough. The present tragic state of Iraq is directly connected with the reasons put forward by the United States to justify its military interference in that country. It should be borne in mind that the Ba'athist regime and "al Qaeda" had for a long time been at loggerheads, and Saddam Hussein and his associates rejected Islamism as such, be it Shi'ite or
Sunni. In 2003, prior to the occupation of Iraq, there were no "al Qeada" units in the country, but after American troops landed there they emerged and became active, operating against the Ba'athists, the coalition forces, and the Iraqi army.
The real reasons for the American invasion of Iraq lay not in the U.S. striving to seize Iraqi oil or reshape and democratize the Middle East, but in the promise given by President George Bush Jr. to the American people after the tragic events of September 11, 2001, that the United States would fight "al Qaeda" not on their country's territory, but very far from its borders. The official substantiation of the coalition forces' invasion of Iraq contained not only the assertion that the Ba'athist regime possessed chemical weapon, but also the statement of the contacts between Saddam Hussein's regime and "al Qaeda." A joint resolution of the two chambers of the U.S. Congress directly said that Iraq presented a real threat to the United States and the Persian Gulf countries because it had chemical and biological weapon and because it supported and hid terrorist organizations on its territory. The resolution entrusted the U.S. administration with taking measures "against international terrorists and terrorist organizations, or persons who planned the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, or helped perpetrate them..." In compliance with his promise the troops of the coalition headed by the United States entered Afghanistan at the end of 2001 and in January 2002 the Taliban regime connected with "al Qaeda" was wiped out. However, the Talibs who have fled from Kabul and the strike forces headed by Osama bin Laden continued a successful guerilla war, having based themselves in the hardly accessible districts of Waziristan and Baluchistan, from where the coalition forces were unable to squeeze them out. The entire course of the American invasion of Iraq makes it possible to conclude that the United States has deliberately destroyed the Iraqi regime in order to
turn that country into a springboard for the fight against "al Qaeda." Thus, the United States seemed to "kill two birds with one stone." It destroyed the dictatorship in Iraq, which was inacceptable for many countries of the region and for many Iraqis themselves, and at the same time provoked "al Qaeda" to operate on the territory where it would have to fight in disadvantageous conditions. Indeed, in contrast to Afghanistan, where "al Qaeda" operated in mountain districts in habitual conditions and with support of local residents, the situation in Iraq was completely new for its fighters.
In other words, by its invasion of Iraq the U.S. army has destroyed quite a few structures of Islamic radicals in a number of Arab countries and thus dealt a serious blow at "al Qaeda." However, turning Iraq into an arena of battles between foreign forces and the Ba'athist structures and the main Islamic grouping entailed numerous losses among the peaceful population and growing discontent with foreign occupation. In addition, the contradictions inherent in the overthrown regime, which were cruelly suppressed, came to the fore as soon as Saddam Hussein went off the scene.
Ethnic and confessional struggle in Iraq which divided the Kurds, Shi'ites and Sunnites at the time of Saddam Hussein but were harshly suppressed by the authorities came to the fore after 2003. A specific feature of the exacerbated conflict was the fact that it was not the Kurds or Shi'ites that had been a weaker side in it, as it was the case earlier, but the Iraqi Sunni Arabs who had always been more educated and secularized section of the population in the country. The weakening of the positions of Sunni Arabs in Iraq can largely explain the rapid successes of the "Islamic State" in the North-western part of Iraq inhabited mainly by the Sunni population who received the extremists as liberators from the Shi'ite regime. As a result, in the course of several months the fighters of the "Islamic State" were able to take the
territory of the "Sunni triangle" in Iraq under their control, as well as three provinces in Syria. The total number of the population there amounted to about 10 million. For the sake of justice it should be noted that the present exacerbation of the ethno-confessional contradictions in Iraq is not a result of the collapse of the Ba'athist regime alone and the following foreign occupation; it has deeper historical reasons underlying the present-day Iraqi statehood. Iraq in its present boundaries was created in 1920 by uniting three former provinces of the Ottoman Empire: Baghdad, Basra and Mosul, with the population of Baghdad and Basra mostly Arab and poly-confessional with a slight predominance of Sunnites. On the contrary, Mosul was dominated by Shi'ites and its northern part was mostly inhabited by Kurds. The Hashemite Kingdom of Iraq set up under the British mandate where the brother of the King of Jordan took the throne could be considered an "artificial formation," just as some Arab historians regard the Kingdom of Jordan. Popular uprisings which shook the kingdom in the period between the two world wars had, as a rule, not only a class, but also confessional nature, inasmuch as their main participants were the Shi'ite popular masses. The Kurd national movement was also developing during that period: the first major uprising of the Kurds took place in 1931-1932 and was headed by Mustafa Barzani. The second such event was in 1943. The Kurds continued to rebel after the overthrow of the royal regime in 1959. In other words, ethnic and confessional contradictions were the permanent factors determining the domestic political situation in Iraq throughout its entire history as an independent state. Despite numerous attempts to resolve these conflicts they were never completely eliminated. For one, Saddam Hussein, who never hesitated in the methods "to pacify his subjects," was only able to turn the conflict between Iraqi confessions and ethnic groups to a smouldering state, but he could not eliminate it completely. After the
overthrow of the Ba'athist regime the conflict flared up again, but this time there was no strongman in Iraq, who would have been able to suppress the threat to the very existence of the state.
The policy pursued by the provisional coalition government and after that by the Shi'ite government of Iraq has only aggravated the complex situation. In May 2003 the provisional government adopted two laws which laid the foundation of the country's reconstruction: on elimination of the Ba'athist rule and order from Iraqi society and on liquidation of government and state structures. The first of them actually sanctioned purges of the political and civil elites, and the other one served as the basis for the liquidation of the special services, as well as political and military structures of Iraq. In August of that year the High national commission on "de-Ba'athization" began to work, which became especially active during the stay in power of Ibrahim al-Jafari's cabinet. At that time the candidates of Sunna political parties were not allowed to take part in the election campaign. A new Constitution of Iraq was adopted in 2005, which banned the Ba'ath party and removed from all government posts people who had been Ba'ath party members for the past ten years. The policy of the then prime minister of the country Nuri al-Maliki was aimed, among other things, at harassment of the Sunni minority and prevention for its members to increase their representation in government bodies. His policy has largely contributed to the Sunna inhabitants of Iraq preferring the "Islamic State" to their "democratic" country.
The struggle of the Iraqi leadership against the defeated Ba'ath party was associated with the struggle against Sunnites. It is indicative that the backbone of the "Islamic State" army is Sunnites who have fled from persecution of the new authorities of Iraq because of their alleged connections with the Ba'athist regime. The two key figures among the top leaders of the "Islamic State" - Abu Ali al-Anbari in Syria and Abu
Muslim at-Turkmani in Iraq are representatives of high-ranking officer corps of Saddam Hussein's army.
In the mid-20th century the Egyptian public and political figure and one of the ideologists of the "Muslim Brothers" Sayid Qutb in his book "Islam: The Misunderstood religion" paid attention to the possibility of playing on contradictions as a serious weapon in the Muslims' hands. He wrote, among other things, that the advantageous geographical position of Muslim countries - between the old world and the new world - would enable them to manage the balance of forces. Then they will be able to support one or the other side guided by their own collective interests, but not the desire to serve eastern or western imperialism. Conformably to the present time, despite the presence of highly qualified officers it is hardly possible to overestimate the might and potential of the "Islamic State": its army numbers about 10,000 men and is far from being a serious military force, especially taking into account the absence of heavy weapons. The secret of its present successes should be sought not in their strength, but rather in the weakness of their enemies conditioned by the deep crisis of international relations in the Middle East after the "Arab spring" developments.
The "Arab spring" which has touched all countries of the region has definitely become the turning point not only in the socio-political development of certain Arab countries, but also in the functioning of the entire system of interstate relations. The year 2010 preceding the "Arab spring" was the highest peak in regional cooperation. Despite all and sundry claims presented by regional actors to one another, they interacted quite effectively, ensuring collective security in the Middle East. In this connection mention should be made of the idea to create an "Arab zone of good-neighborliness" voiced by the then General Secretary of the Arab League Amr Mussah in March 2010. In his view,
such structure could simplify the principles of interaction of the Arab world and the states surrounding it. The then Premier of Turkey T.R. Erdogan supported the idea. At the time the question of including Iran in the "Arab zone of good-neighborliness" was also discussed actively, which could be regarded a great step along the road of Iranian "integration" in the Arab world.
However, the practical realization of this idea is obviously a thing of the future. The Arab governments have plunged into the domestic problems of their countries, and diplomatic relations in the region have rapidly changed beyond recognition. In this context, the position of Turkey is indicative enough. Its political system was considered almost ideal, especially in Egypt after the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak during the "revolution of January 25." Premier Erdogan's visit to Egypt in the summer of 2011 evoked a great social upsurge among the Cairo young people. However, after the next "revolution of June 30" during which the military ousted the Islamists from power, the Turkish achievements began to be devaluated in Egypt, and the culmination of the reappraisal was the official expulsion of Turkey's Ambassador from Egypt at the end of 2013 because of his alleged interference in the internal affairs of the country.
During the past four years two events dealt a heavy blow at the system of inter-Arab relations. The first was the conflict in Syria and the other was the collective filibuster of the countries of the Persian Gulf with regard to Qatar. The Syrian turmoil has not only divided the states of the region into supporters and opponents of President Bashar al-Asad, but in actual fact, it excluded the very possibility of a dialogue with the existing Syrian regime on the subject of evolving joint methods of opposing the "Islamic State." Now it is simply impossible to imagine a situation in which Syria could sit at a negotiation table with such key actors responsible for security in the region as Turkey or
Saudi Arabia. It is clearly seen that the exclusion of Syria, one-third of whose territory is controlled by the "Islamic State," from the international coalition, shoots down the idea of a positive outcome of the operation against the Islamists. The problem is aggravated by the fact that Iranian "integration" in the Arab world is still in a deadlock, and relations between the Shi'ite government of Nuri al-Maliki in Iraq and the Persian Gulf countries have remained strained right up to the resignation of the Iraqi leader in the summer of 2014. To boot, Tehran's influence on the political processes in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon remains quite strong. Finally, the conflict within the "Arab six," which previously seemed unshakeable, has added fuel to the fire, having made the regional situation still more complex. Of course, Saudi Arabia could restrict Qatar's ambitions, if it so wished. However, Qatar's financing the Muslim Brothers in the entire Arab world, from Morocco to Iraq, bears fruit. In the Maghrib countries and in Yemen the project of political reforms on the basis of Islamism has reached a stalemate, whereas in Iraq and Syria it is on the upgrade. A no small role in it has been played by assistance coming from the Persian Gulf countries to the local insurgent groupings during the past four years.
A combination of all factors have formed a favorable foundation for the emergence and spreading of the "Islamic state" on the territory of Iraq and Syria. The opponents of the Islamists often act without proper coordination, and are quite often at loggerheads with one another. The most vivid confirmation of their disunity has been the fact that not a single country of the coalition wishes to begin a land operation against the "Islamic state," preferring to shift responsibility for this step on its neighbors. As to the West, it continues, just as its allies, to render financial and military assistance to the forces fighting Bashar al-Asad, ignoring the fact that a greater part of this assistance falls into the hands of al-Bagdadi and his followers.
In the latter half of the 20th century a view was widespread according to which religious concepts had already fulfilled their function, having "awakened politically" the Muslim peoples and rallied them together in the fight against "foreign oppression." Preponderance of Islam in the public and political life of the Arab countries was regarded as a means for "diversion of the attention of the popular masses from solution of the vitally important political tasks." It was supposed that this phenomenon would be short-lived, inasmuch as "socio-economic and cultural progress inevitably causes the growth of secularist tendencies." However, real life has shown that the potential of revival tendencies in the Muslim world has not been exhausted in our time. The rapid growth and major successes of the "Islamic state" are a vivid confirmation of this. It would be wrong to regard the "Islamic state" as an uncivilized gang of brigands and murderers who publicly torture and kill citizens of western countries. To date this organization has become a strong state structure which was able to create a full-fledged state with borders, an army, a system of political power, its budget, and, what is more important, the population supporting it. The "Islamic state" is not like the half-mythical "al Qaeda" hiding in inaccessible mountains and making sporadic attacks on various continents. This is a quite objective political reality of the 21st century which has entrenched itself in the Middle East with its "land of Islam" and has been waging a war against the "infidels." This state formation has become an attractive alternative for thousands of Muslims the world over dreaming of Islamic revival. The phenomenon of the "Islamic state" has once more reminded us that it is too early to delete Islam from the pages of universal history; the ideas of restoration of Islamic caliphate proved to be viable and tenacious. The well-known Indian political figure and one of the chairmen of the Indian National Congress Maulana Abul Kalam Azad justly noted
that religion was like a powerful steam engine requiring highly-skilled operators. In the hands of unworthy people it can cause a terrible disaster. To our great misfortune, today religion has fallen into the hands of fasiqs, who have turned it into its opposite. And now it is not clear where we are going to.
References
1. This article is based on the results of the project "Russian Policy in the Middle East: Opportunities and Limits of Cooperation with Countries of the Region."
2. G.W.F. Hegel. Lectures on the philosophy of history.
3. Z. Levin. Islam and Nationalism in Eastern Countries: Ideological Aspect. Moscow. Nauka Publishers, 1988, p. 67.
4. M. Stepanyants. Muslim Concepts in Philosophy and Politics: XIX-XX centuries. Moscow. Nauka Publishers, 1982, pp. 124-125.
5. Joint Resolution to Authorize the Use of United States Armed Forces against Iraq. White House. 2002. October 2. - http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/ news/releases/2002/10/2002100
6. M. Qutb. Islam: The Misunderstood Religion. Delhi: Board of Islamic Publications, 1968, p. 45.
7. M. Desai. Maulana Abul Kalam Azad: A Biographical Memoir. Agra: Shiva Lal Agarwala, 1946, p. 83. See more at: http://www.nlobooks.ru/node/5957 - sthash. SFOSArKw. dpuf
"Neprikosnovenny zapas, " Moscow, 2015, No 1(99), pp. 241-251.
V. Kim,
Ph. D. (Philosophy), Assistant professor, Amur Humanitarian-pedagogical State University EXTREMIST POTENTIALITIES OF RELIGIOUS FUNDAMENTALISM: FROM ITS SOURCES TO OUR DAYS
Fundamentalism as an ideological current has spread in the modern world practically in all religions and also in the spheres of
