University of Amsterdam MA Middle Eastern Studies
Secular Democratic Fear
A critical assessment of the actions and considerations of secularists in contemporary
Tunisia and Egypt
Thomas Bartels
Student no. 10548866
Master’s Thesis
Supervisor: dr. R.A.F.L (Robbert) Woltering Second Reader: dr. M. (Mariwan) Kanie
July 2017
When analyzing Middle Eastern politics, most scholars and journalists focus on the region’s Islamists. The Arab Spring protests and the following Islamist ascendance to power in Egypt and Tunisia gave scholars and journalists the chance to test Islamists’ democratic intentions. “Secularists” are often seen as the simple opposite of these Islamists and gain less attention as a result. Western suspicion towards Islam and the strong theoretical ideas connected to “modernization theory” both contribute to the assumption that secular actors are pro-democratic. However, actors that are dubbed secular have dominated authoritarian politics in the region since the emergence of modern nation-states. This study shows how the self-identification of being “secular” can sometimes lead to undemocratic behavior, when secularists fear the outcomes of democratic procedures more than the authoritarian alternative. In this study, this phenomenon is called “secular democratic fear”. Through interviews conducted in Cairo and Tunis in May and June 2017 and an analysis of statements and actions of secular political actors as documented in scholarly and journalistic literature, this study concludes that the power of secular democratic fear has influenced the events in both countries to a large extent. In Egypt, it eventually led to the end of a short democratic period. Indeed, this authoritarian comeback has been supported by secular political actors that claim to be pro-democracy and their choices seem to be largely influenced by the phenomenon of “secular democratic fear” as described in this study. The potent force of this fear can be explained by the fact that secularists in both Tunisia and Egypt
understand secularism as connected to “who they are”, more so than to the believe in a certain secular institutional arrangement. It makes the struggle with Islamists into an existential struggle. Therefore, when trying to understand the power and influence of secularism in the region, one ought to focus on the empirical reality of how “secularists” behave and rationalize their behavior, not on the “textbook definition” of secularism. Even more, the conceptual mess around secularism has made the concept a rather “empty” one and the Islamist-secularist dichotomy a false one; however, the subjective meaning that is given to secularism nevertheless makes the power of the concept very real. Secularism,
therefore, deserves more attention in itself, and not just as the simple antithesis of “Islamism”.
A Word of Gratitude
Before everything else, I would like to thank all those that have made this thesis possible: My supervisor, dr. Robbert Woltering, for a formative year.
All my interviewees, who found time in their busy schedules to patiently answer all my questions. Thank you for contributing to my research, especially considering the sensitive political climate some find themselves in. I hope for easier times.
Yasseen Montasser, Andrew Luther, Waleed Zayed, Salma Mustafa, Iris Kolman, Mohamed Soliman, Ahmed Karam Kamel, Nada Bahgat, Mona Mohy, Donia Elhassan, Hossam Shoab, Oussema Abbes and Safae el Khannoussi el Bouidrini. Thanks to all of you for the unlimited support, the time and the friendship.
Finally, a special thanks to Rana Abbawi, the First Secretary of the Dutch Embassy in Cairo, willing to invest time in my safety. To the Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy in Tunis, in particular Mouna Khezami, for the information she provided. To Koert Debeuf, for providing the first entrance into the Egyptian political scene.
List of Contents
Abstract 2 A Word of Gratitude 3 List of Contents 4 Introduction 6 1. Theoretical Framework 91.1. Secularization, modernization and democratization 9
1.3. Secularism’s variations in practice 15
1.4. A critical approach to the concept 16
2. Research Framework 18
2.1. Conceptualizing Secularism 18
2.2. Method 19
3. Secularism in the Arab World 20
3.1. The Early Nahda Period 20
3.2. The Time of Nationalism 22
3.3. The Time of Authoritarianism 25
3.4. Conclusion 28
4. A Secular Spring? 29
4.1. The Coming of a Tunisian Spring 29
4.2. Tunisia's Jasmine Revolution 30
4.3. Early stirrings in Egypt 34
4.4. The January 25 Revolution 36
4.5. Conclusion 40
5. Post-Ben Ali Tunisia 42
5.1. Activists and revolutionaries 42
5.2. Secular political parties 43
5.2.1. Old Parties 43
5.2.2. New political parties 45
5.3. Secular civil society 52
5.4. Conclusion 53
6. Post-Mubarak Egypt 56
6.1. Activists and Revolutionaries 56
6.2. Secular political parties 62
6.2.1. The SCAF 62
6.2.2. Loyal political parties 64
6.2.3. Oppositional political parties 66
Conclusion 72
Literature 75
Introduction
Western analysts usually try to discern the level of religiosity, or more specifically: “Islamicness”, when they focus on political actors in the Middle East. Are they “Islamists”? Are they “moderate”, or rather “radical” in their Islam? When this “Islamicness” is at its lowest, they are dubbed “secular”. From this classification, then, many assumptions follow; indeed, “Islam” is seen as an important causal variable. Violence, conflict, authoritarianism, they can supposedly all be explained by focusing on the role of Islam. Especially the discussion on the relation between Islam and democracy is a recurrent one.1 When Islam turns into “Islamism”, the debate gets even more heated. The question
whether political Islam and democracy are compatible might very well be the most asked question among people that have any interest in modern Middle Eastern politics.
1 Francis Fukuyama, "History is still going our way," Wall Street Journal, October 5, 2001; Bernard Lewis, Faith and power: religion and politics in the Middle East, Oxford University Press, 2010.
However, there is much less attention for the “secular” of the Middle East, the opposite of the “religious” in this supposed religious-secular binary. Besides the fact that, in general, there has been more attention for the “religious” than for the “irreligious” in scholarly literature,2 there is also a
specific bias against research on secularists within Middle Eastern studies. Stacey Gutkowski argues that particularly after the 9/11 attacks in 2001, a rather uncritical evaluation of secularism in the region has become dominant.3 Since the emergence of political Islam, the presumption that secular politicians
are somehow more pragmatic and more trustworthy as partners for the West has prevailed. This fixation on Islam has led to a lack of research on dynamics within “secular” political groups in the region, exactly because they are inherently “moderate” in their Islam.4
Besides being moderate, the theoretical background of secularism also contributes to associations with modernity and democracy. This theoretical foundation stems from the classic “modernization theory”, that, although often criticized, still influences much of political and social theorizing on sociological changes in the world today.5 The strong presence of this idea in Western
scholarship makes it even more counter intuitive to critically focus on the role of secular actors in the Middle East.
However, paradoxically, actors that are dubbed secular by the Western commentator are the ones that have been leading authoritarian systems in Middle Eastern politics grossly since the
emergence of modern nation-states. Because the Western security agenda focusses on Islam only from the perspective of “moderation”, and on secularism as inherently “moderate”, condemnation of authoritarian brutality of secular actors has sometimes remained marginal.6
When in 2011, seemingly out of nowhere, both president Zine Abidine Ben Ali of Tunisia and Hosni Mubarak of Egypt were ousted by a popular uprising, all scholars of the Middle East as well as political leaders were taken by surprise.7 The normative believe in the trustworthiness of secular
political actors once more came to light when journalists and scholars used the term Arab “Spring” when the uprisings seemed to be secular, but suddenly spoke about the coming of an Islamist “Winter” when Islamists won popular elections in both Tunisia and Egypt.8
2 Frank Pasquale, "Unbelief and irreligion, empirical studyfu and neglect of,"In The New Encyclopedia of Unbelief, ed. T. Flynn (Prometheus, 2007). 760—766.
3 Stacey Gutkowski, “It’s not all about Islam: misreading secular politics in the Middle East,” Open Democracy, April 25, 2015, accessed on May 2, 2017.
4 Gutkwoski, “It’s not all about Islam”
5 Pippa Norris and Ronald Inglehart, Sacred and secular: Religion and politics worldwide (Cambridge University Press, 2011): 1.
6 Jonathan Fox, "Political Secularism and Democracy in Theory and Practice," The Oxford Handbook of Secularism; Gutkowski, “It’s not all about Islam”.
7 Gause III, F. Gregory. "Why Middle East Studies missed the Arab spring: The myth of authoritarian stability." Foreign Affairs (2011): 81.
8 James Phillips, "The Arab Spring Descends into Islamist Winter: Implications for US Policy," The
Heritage Foundation 20 (2012); Micheal J. Totten, David Schenker, and Hussain Abdul-Hussain, "Arab spring or Islamist winter? Three views," World Affairs (2012): 23-42.
Writing in 2017, six years have passed since the seemingly imperishable regimes of Tunisia and Egypt were both toppled, and a lot has happened since. Where both countries followed a similar path until their own variants of mainstream Islamists had been democratically elected, the countries have moved in different directions after these first Islamist-led governments saw their end. Where Tunisia developed into the first Arab country in more than three decades to receive a ranking of 3 or better for political rights on the Freedom House scale, Egypt has sunken to a score of 6 after the military regime has consolidated its power after toppling the Islamists.9 Whereas the actions of both
the Islamists of Tunisia and Egypt have been critically examined, how new and old secularist parties have responded to the events has received less attention.10
This study will focus on the actions of secular political actors in Tunisia and Egypt after and during the Arab Spring. The classical assumptions connected to the modernization thesis will be called into question, as this study shows secularism can sometimes lead to undemocratic behavior, when secularists fear their Islamist opponents more than the authoritarian alternative. In this study, this phenomenon is termed “secular democratic fear” and we will see how examples of this can be found in both Tunisia and Egypt. This study will furthermore provide some suggestions on what the
phenomenon of secular democratic fear can contribute to the understanding of the different outcomes in Tunisia and Egypt and the differences between secular political actors within both countries.
First follows the theoretical framework, in which the classical and critical ideas on the theories of modernization, secularization and democratization will be described. After outlining how
secularism and democracy have been linked historically and conceptually, this study advocates a critical approach to the concept, following that of anthropologist Talal Asad, that will allow us to analyze secularists with more conceptual openness. After this follows the research framework, in which the exact research questions and method will be described.
9 Alfred Stepan and Juan J. Linz, "Democratization Theory and the" Arab Spring"," Journal of
Democracy 24.2 (2013): 15-30; ‘Egypt, Profile,’ Freedom House, Freedom in the World 2017, accessed July 22, 2016, https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/2017/egypt.
10 For example: Robbert Woltering, "Post-Islamism in Distress? A Critical Evaluation of the Theory in Islamist-Dominated Egypt (11 February 2011-3 July 2013),"Die Welt des Islams 54.1 (2014): 107-118.; Franscesco Cavatorta and Fabio Merone, "Moderation through exclusion? The journey of the Tunisian Ennahda from fundamentalist to conservative party," Democratization 20.5 (2013): 857-875.
1. Theoretical Framework
1.1.
Secularization, modernization and democratization
The term secularism was first coined by the Brit George Jacob Holyoake in 1851. By inventing the term, Holyoake tried to promote a social order that is separate from religion.11 Sometimes, secularism is used to refer to a way of personally observing religion. According to Barry Kosmin, these social and psychological characteristics of an individual should be termed “secularity”.12 Secondly, the term “secularism” refers to a certain organization of social and political institutions.13 Since this is an “-ism”, it refers to a normative believe in such institutions as well. This normative belief entails that political institutions in a society ought not be dominated by religion, but be separate from it. Finally, secularism is sometimes used to describe a certain sociological process in which religion is slowly diminishing in importance in a society, i.e. in which such “secularity” is growing. Such a process, then, should be termed “secularization”.14
It should be noted that all these “forms” of secularism are related. It is now widely recognized that secularization is a dialectic process. When people are more secularized, institutions that promote religiosity lose plausibility and authority. Consequently, the religious message of these institutions will be less easily taken over, strengthening that same secularization.15 A lot has been written about this process of secularization and for this research it is important to shortly elaborate on the secularization 11 Charles Dubray, "Secularism," In Catholic Encyclopedia, ed. Charles Herbermann (New York: Robert Appleton, 1912).
12 Barry Kosmin and Ariela Keysar, eds. Secularism & secularity: contemporary international perspectives. ISSSC, 2007, 1.
13 Ibid., 1. 14 Ibid., iii.
thesis in its classic form, in which it is linked to the processes of modernization and democratization, as was mentioned in the introduction.
There are ongoing debates about how far secularization has progressed in different societies, whether the process is unidirectional or not and what its social and political consequences are.16 To
start off with, we should focus on the traditional assumptions of the “modernization theory”.
Modernization theory tries to conceptualize historically or typologically the development of societies. In this development, the focus is on the relationship between culture, economic progress, political development and democracy. Out of interpretations made by various scholars that studied the history of this approach, Wolfgang Knöble makes up a list of some important assumptions that are part of the modernization theory:
o Modernization is a global and irreversible process that started with the Industrial Revolution in Europe, but spread across the world after World War II
o Modernization is a process that leads “traditional societies” to change into “modern societies”, implying a sharp distinction between tradition and modernity
o In “traditional societies” there is a dominance of personal attitudes and role structures that form powerful barriers for economic and political development
o In modern societies, there is a predominance of secular, individualistic and scientific values
o Social change towards modernity in different societies will take place in a uniform and linear way17
Although these characteristics make it seem as if modernization theory is a clearly demarcated theory, Knöble also stresses that it often was not much more than “a bundle of hidden, but decisive,
assumptions in the minds of social scientists”.18
The “secularization thesis” is not only part of modernization theory, but actually an assumption that has been regarded, by some, as the “master model” of sociological research.
“Secularization” was ranked among the key historical revolutions transforming medieval societies into modern industrial nations.19 This shows how within modernization theory, many of the larger
processes are seen as both causes and effects of each other, which is another indication that these processes are often not well developed theories, but loose assumptions. Almost all the main social thinkers of the nineteenth century – Auguste Comte, Herbert Spencer, Emile Durkheim, Max Weber, Karl Marx and Sigmund Freud – believed that religion would gradually fade in importance.20
16 Ibid., 4-5.
17 Wolfgang Knoble, "Theories That Won’t Pass Away: The Never-ending Story," Handbook of Historical Sociology (2003): 96-97.
18 Knoble, “Theories That Won’t Pass,” 96.
19 Pippa Norris and Ronald Inglehart, Sacred and secular: Religion and politics worldwide (Cambridge University Press, 2011).
The factual assumption about the diminishing role of religion has come under growing criticism since the 1990s. Many proponents have distanced themselves from it, as multiple indicators started showing that religion remains as important as ever.21 However, the discussion is not completely
over yet. Prominent political scientists Ronald Inglehart, Christian Welzel and Pippa Norris hold that both the secularization thesis, although refined, and the idea that modernization will eventually contribute to democratization still hold.22
Firstly, Inglehart and Norris in their 2011 book show that societies in which people’s daily lives are shaped by the threat of poverty, disease, and premature death remain as religious as before. These societies are also the societies that see their population grow fast. However, in rich nations, secularization has been proceeding since at least the mid-twentieth century. In these societies, fertility rates have fallen, leading to a situation in which rich societies are becoming more secular, but the world as a whole is becoming more religious.23 Furthermore, they link the problems that curb
secularization to “good governance”, thereby claiming that electoral democracy contributes to secularization.24
Secondly, Inglehart and Welzel in 2009 and 2010 argued that the idea that modernization leads to democratization also still holds. Modernization is not linear, they agree, it reaches inflection points, but each phase of modernization brings distinctive changes in people’s worldviews.
Industrialization, for example, leads to centralization of authority, secularization and a shift from “traditional” to “secular-rational” values.25 The rise of post-industrial societies brings yet another set
of cultural changes that increase emancipation from authority. In the end, high levels of economic development tend to make people more receptive of democracy.26 Important in this story is the idea
that a shift from agrarian to industrial society brings with it a shift from traditional to secular-rational values. As they write down: “Traditional societies emphasize religion, traditional values and respect for and obedience to authority”.27 So, they assume that secular values are also “rational” values and
contribute to a receptiveness to democracy. Religious values, on the other hand, make people more obedient to authority.
In theoretically or conceptually linking democracy and secularism, Inglehart and Welzel are also today not alone. For example, Jose Casanova defines secularism as ‘neutrality’, ‘providing equal access for all citizens to democratic participation’.28 Furthermore, the argument that democratic
21 Norris & Inglehart, Sacred, 4.
22 Ibid.; Ronald Inglehart and Christian Welzel, "How development leads to democracy: What we know about modernization," Foreign Affairs, 2009, 33-48; Ronald Inglehart and Christian Welzel, "Changing mass priorities: The link between modernization and democracy," Perspectives on Politics 8.02 (2010): 551-567. 23 Norris & Inglehart, Sacred, 215-217.
24 Ibid., 217.
25 Inglehart & Welzel, “How development,” 4. 26 Ibid., 5-6.
27 Ibid., 7.
governments should be free from religion is an argument that is deeply entrenched in liberal
democratic thought.29 Alfred Stepan, an authority in democratic theory, holds that because democratic
institutions should be free, religious institutions cannot have a constitutionally privileged position to mandate public policy.30 Similarly, John Rawls argues that the “truths of religion” should be kept away
from the political agenda.31 A similar argument has been voiced by multiple authors.32
There is also a recurrent argument that specifically the Islamic religion makes democracy less likely. Samuel Huntington is the most well-known voice of this idea. Huntington holds that the biggest difference between “Western Christianity” and the “Muslim and Orthodox worlds” concerns values linked to representative democracy.33 This claim is then given validity by focusing on the very real
“democratic deficit” of the Middle East and North Africa. Measurements of Freedom House in 2002 show that of the 47 countries with an Islamic majority, only one-quarter are electoral democracies.34
Inglehart adds that given this fact, it is commonly assumed that “they have little faith in the principles or performance of democracy, preferring strong leadership and rule by traditional religious
authorities”.35 Huntington explicitly links the political values of democracy to the Western separation
of church and state.36
The classic ideas of secularization, modernization and democratization have thus been revised to a certain extent, but are certainly still around. Usually, this is not based on empirical findings, but on liberal assumptions or broad definitions of secularism that already incorporate democracy. The next paragraph will provide some empirical findings that question this relationship.
1.2.
Indications of a different relationship
Surprisingly, the same Ronald Inglehart that linked rational-secular values to democracy, also shows an opposite reality in his empirical research. As a response to Samuel Huntington’s claims about Islamic values, Inglehart conducted a large-N quantitative research, in which for all other factors was controlled, and concluded that “there were no significant differences between the publics living in the
29 Ibid., 104.
30 Alfred Stepan, “Religion, Democracy, and the ‘Twin Tolerations,’” Journal of Democracy 11(4) 2000, 37– 56.
31 John Rawls, Political Liberalism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993).
32 Nicholas J. Demerath III and Nicholas Jay Demerath, Crossing the Gods: World Religions and Worldly Politics (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2003); Timothy Samuel Shah, "Making the Christian world safe for liberalism: From Grotius to Rawls," The Political Quarterly 71 1 (2000): 121-139.
33 Manus Midlarsky, "Democracy and Islam: Implications for civilizational conflict and the democratic peace," International studies quarterly 42.3 (1998): 485-511.
34 “New Study Reveals Islamic World’s Democracy Deficit,” Freedom House, Accessed July 22, 2017, http://www.freedomhouse.org/template.cfm?page=70&release=101.
35 Norris & Inglehart, Sacred, 136. 36 Ibid., 136.
West and in Muslim religious cultures in approval of how democracy works in practice, in support for democratic ideals, and in approval of strong leadership.”37
Jonathan Fox is another scholar that shows how secularism and democracy do not always correlate in practice. Fox conducted empirical research on the relation between democracy and political secularism by evaluating seventy-three democracies on their declared policies, as found in their constitutions and as measured by the RAS (Religion and State) dataset.38 The conclusions are
clear. Worldwide, nondemocracies are just as likely to declare themselves secular in their constitutions as democracies. The majority of democracies do not declare themselves secular at all. Among those democracies that did declare themselves secular, the vast majority does not meet any of the identified standards of political secularism; not even the most “loose” standards. Furthermore, there are five nondemocracies that do meet at least one of these standards. Fox concludes that there does not seem to be any significant link between traditional liberal democracies and political secularism in practice.39
There is also some literature that specifically focusses on secular political parties and civil society groups in the Middle East. Also in this debate, we can see the assumptions of secularism and democracy reflected. Because it was traditionally assumed that a strong civil society would lead to democratization, researchers on civil society had to come up with an explanation for the lack of democratization in the Arab world. One of those explanations was that civil society should per definition be “liberal and secular in ideology”, otherwise it is just not civil society.40 When defining
civil society as intrinsically secular, civil society in the Arab region is weak and therefore unable to pressure for democratization. In the second explanation, civil society is seen as a neutral variable, and so the scholars agree that civil society has been strong in the Arab world. However, it is still not suited to promote democracy, because it is largely Islamist.41 The nature of these Islamists organizations,
then, is undemocratic and illiberal.42 Singerman claims that the “imperative of secularism” must be
obeyed if a state is to construct a democratic political system.43
However, there is also a third view. In this approach the secularism-democracy assumption is left aside. Scholars accept that civil society has been strengthening, but hold that due to the authoritarian nature of the state, this civil society was either co-opted or created by the regime.44 Then, the Islamist-secular divide is of less importance, because also the Islamist-secular-liberal civil society groups contribute to authoritarianism. Wiktorowicz in 2000 for example showed how this has been the case in Jordan.45 In 37 Norris & Inglehart, Sacred, 146.
38 Fox, "Political Secularism” 39 Ibid.
40 Sean Yom, "Civil society and democratization in the Arab world," Middle East 9.4 (2005): 15-32. 41 Diane Singerman, “The networked world of Islamist social movements” in Islamic Activism. A social movement theory approach, ed. Quintan Wiktorowicz (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2004). 42 Sheri Berman, "Islamism, revolution, and civil society," Perspectives on Politics 1.2 (2003): 257-272. 43 Singerman, “The networked world,” 2004.
44 Franscesco Cavatorta, Civil Society Activism in Morocco: 'much Ado about Nothing'?, Knowledge Programme Civil Society in West Asia, 2009, 11-12.
45 Quintan Wiktorowicz, "Civil society as social control: State power in Jordan," Comparative politics (2000): 43-61.
this approach, secular groups are critically studied in their national contexts and not assumed to be a force for democratization. Rightfully so, as these studies show that the majority of these secular groups have worked within the system of rule, and have thereby contributed to its existence. Cavatorta explains how the weakness of secular groups sometimes leads them to co-operate with an authoritarian regime to obtain some benefits.46 As Brumberg explains, some secular organizations prefer to “accept the devil they know, rather than taking the chance of seeing Islamists in power.”47
For Morocco, Cavatorta showed how secular groups contributed to some liberalizing measures, but that these measures were implemented top-down, not bottom-up and were thus undemocratic in nature.48 Cavatorta and Emanuela Dalmasso show this once more in a case study on the 2004 reform of the family code in Morocco. Secular groups and political parties fought for this and eventually succeeded, but the process simultaneously contributed to the authoritarian nature of the system.49 The secular women’s movement realized the reform might not find the support of the majority of Moroccans and therefore decided to bypass the Moroccan Parliament and political parties.50
A somewhat similar conclusion is reached by Cavatorta and Elananza in a study on coalition-building between secular and Islamist groups in Algeria and Jordan.51 They conclude that effective coalition-building between secular and religious groups does not occur, as mutual suspicions dominate their interactions. The autocratic regime, then, uses this division by dividing and conquering the opposition.52 In Algeria, this led to a situation in which the secular minority of the country approved of the military coup. “No freedom for the enemies of freedom”, as Goytisolo explains the sentiment.53 In Jordan, secular figures harbored similar suspicions. As one prominent figure emphasized, ‘the liberals do not mind cooperating with Islamists to establish a democracy in Jordan, but we fear that the Islamists might use democracy to gain power and then implement the policy of one man, one vote, one time’.54 This lack of trust leads to a situation in which the ruling elites use the fear of the secular organizations to legitimize their rule. So, Cavatorta and Elananza conclude: “the so-called democratic elements within MENA societies are the strongest advocates of dictatorship for fear that what they perceive to be totalitarian movements would seize power through the ballot box.”55 In a later study, Cavatorta shows the exact same pattern for oppositional activities in Morocco.56
This exact phenomenon shall be termed secular democratic fear in this study; meaning the fear of secular actors, that democracy will lead to a situation that paradoxically threatens either democracy, modernity, secularism or any of these in the modernization theory related concepts.
Concluding, the traditional secularization thesis has been a prominent and deeply entrenched idea in the thought of many important social thinkers in the nineteenth and twentieth century, but has increasingly been criticized. Nevertheless, the idea that secularization, modernization and
democratization are linked is still very much alive. Not only do prominent political scientists like Ronald Inglehart, Christian Welzel and Pippa Norris still defend the secularization thesis, they also defend the idea that modernization brings democratization. Furthermore, there is the idea that Islam and democracy are explicitly negatively correlated. However, multiple studies indicate that secularism 46 Cavatorta, Civil Society Activism, 12.
47 Daniel Brumberg, ‘Islamists and the politics of consensus,’ Journal of Democracy 13 (2002): 109-115. 48 Cavatorta, Civil Society Activism, 34.
49 Francesco Cavatorta and Emanuela Dalmasso, "Liberal outcomes through undemocratic means: the reform of the Code de statut personnel in Morocco," The journal of modern African studies 47.04 (2009): 487-506. 50 Ibid.
51 Franscesco Cavatorta and Azzam Elananza, "Political opposition in civil society: An analysis of the interactions of secular and religious associations in Algeria and Jordan," Government and
Opposition 43.4 (2008): 561-578. 52 Ibid., 578.
53 Ibid., 574.
54 Cavatorta and Elananza, "Political opposition,” 575. 55 Ibid., 576.
56 Franscesco Cavatorta, "‘Divided they stand, divided they fail’: opposition politics in Morocco," Democratization 16.1 (2009): 137-156.
and democracy are not always linked in practice. In the Middle East, there have been explicit examples of what I call secular democratic fear in the past.
1.3.
Secularism’s variations in practice
Secularism understood as an institutional arrangement can differ a lot in practice. Barry Kosmin places the origin of secularism in the two revolutions of the 18th century, notably the French and the
American and shows that both produced a very different intellectual and constitutional tradition of secularism. The category associated with the French Jacobin tradition promoted atheism and was unreservedly antagonistic to religion, because it arose from the historical reality of a joined revolutionary struggle against despotism and religion, the monarchy and the Roman Catholic
Church.57 The French regime of “laïcité” is what is the direct result of this. The American revolution
on the other hand, was less anti-religious, characterized by indifference to religion or encouragement of religious pluralism.58 Coming from such different historical trajectories, a scale between the
polarities of “hard” and “soft” secularism can be established.
Soft secularists accept that law, politics, art and learning should not be controlled by religious institutions, but they also want government to accommodate religious behavior. The reason that it developed in this way is that this secularization was actually combined with an effort to revitalize religious consciousness at the individual level. Paradoxically, the achievement of a secular order was thus meant to accomplish, in part at least, religious ends.59 In countries that developed a “hard”
secularism, the social-structural secularization was instituted to secularize the consciousness of people. It thus had a completely different goal.60 Alfred Stepan concludes that democracy does not
need a complete separation between religion and the state. However, what is necessary is “a degree of institutional differentiation”.61 Stepan captures such a situation with the term “twin tolerations”,
because religious authorities do not control democratic officials while democratic officials do not control religion. Because many different forms of secularism are possible, Stepan speaks of “multiple secularisms”.62
1.4.
A critical approach to the concept
As we have seen, what secularism as an institutional arrangement means in practice can differ a lot. Talal Asad, a famous critic of secularism, tries to provide an anthropology of the concept and does so by questioning the meaning of it. According to Asad, secularism is not merely the separation of religious from secular institutions in government, because this separation can also be found in 57 Kosmin and Keysar, Secularism & secularity, 2.
58 Ibid., 3. 59 Ibid., 8.
60 Kosmin and Keysar, Secularism & secularity, 8-9. 61 Stepan and Linz, "Democratization Theory,” 17. 62 Ibid.
medieval Christendom and the Islamic empires. “Secularism” also presupposes new concepts of “religion”, “ethics” and “politics”.63 Asad points out how secularism is indeed part of the “project” of modernization that encompasses several interlinked projects.
However, this does not mean that Asad agrees with the modernization or secularization thesis. Being a “project”, certain people in power seek to achieve this secularism, and in doing so, also give shape to it.64 In this project of modernity the notion that this constitutes “disenchantment”, meaning a direct access to reality and the stripping away of “myth” and the “sacred”, is a salient feature.
However, this idea of a historical disenchantment is part of a “triumphalist” history of secularism that should be countered. The secular is not continuous with “the religious” that supposedly preceded it and is thus not the latest phase of a sacred origin. Furthermore, liberal democracy does not indicate the end of “myths”, but has replaced certain religious myths with secular ones.
Liberal democracy expresses two of such secular myths that are at odds with each other. First there is the “Enlightenment myth”, of politics as a discourse of public reason, in which knowledge enables the elite to direct the education of mankind. Secondly, there is the myth of universal suffrage, in which the politics of large numbers will represent the “collective will”, by quantifying the opinions of individual citizens. ‘Power to the people’, if you want.65 “The theory of state toleration”, as Asad calls the idea of state neutrality in political secularism, is based on these contradictory foundations: on the one hand, elite liberal clarity is supposed to restrain religious passion, but on the other hand, democratic numbers allow majorities to dominate minorities, even if both are religiously formed. This contradiction that is inherent in the liberal assumptions on the project of modernization is a strong theoretical explanation for the concept of secular democratic fear. More simply put; how do secular actors cope with the possibility that universal suffrage might lead to religious domination over secularists?
Also, “the secular” is not a simple break from “the religious” and thus not an essence that excludes the sacred. Rather, “the secular” often overlaps with “the religious”, because both are not essentially fixed categories. Even more, Asad holds that there is nothing that is essentially secular or essentially religious.66 The causal effects are interpreted completely different in Asad’s understanding of the concept. Secularism does not cause democracy nor does democracy cause secularism.
Secularism is nothing real or essential, but an idea that shapes reality. This shaping of reality can happen in multiple directions, because it only depends on how people construct the idea of secularism and what they subjectively think it motivates them to.
Concluding, we have seen that, in practice, it is wrong to simply assume that secularism and democracy are positively related. This empirical reality, shown by multiple researchers in this theoretical section, can be explained by considering Asad’s anthropology of the term.
63 Talal Asad, Formations of the secular: Christianity, Islam, modernity (Stanford University Press, 2003), 1-2 64 Ibid., 13.
65 Ibid., 61.
2. Research Framework
2.1.
Conceptualizing Secularism
This paper will not go into the question whether “secularism” has any “real” essence, because in this paper the focus shall be on the meaning people give to “their” secularism. I shall not determine for others whether they fit the objective category of a secularist, because I agree that this category is subjective. Therefore, no “official” definition will be adopted. This is especially useful, because as many actors that have been interviewed in this study strongly connect the terms “secularism”, “secularity” and “secularization”, there is a chance you might call someone a “secularist” that subjectively feels he or she is very anti-secularist. Let me explain this by a short example. Person A and B might both agree on the same institutional arrangement of religion and politics. According to a certain definition, this system might be a secular system, making them “secularists”. However, person A is himself very religious and therefore absolutely not “secular” and also fiercely opposed to a societal process of “secularization”. As person B is atheist and feels he wants to promote the lifestyle and social values of secularity, these two people might find themselves diametrically opposed to each other in political and social life. This subjective difference in self-identification has way more social and political importance than the “objective” judgement of a researcher, which in the real world, has suddenly no meaning at all.
As Asad explains, in modern anthropology, comparing “embedded concepts” between societies should not be about what the origin or original form of this concept is or should be, but about the powers the concept releases or disables in a society. So, how identifying as a secular -whatever that may be in practice- influences someone’s opinion on democracy is a highly relevant question.
Secular democratic fear, as already explained earlier, refers to a form of hesitation or fear for democracy as a result of the idea that some aspect of secularism might be in danger by a practice related to democracy. Concretely, this might mean that someone feels the lifestyle that is related to their secularity is threatened by the ascendance to power of Islamists through elections. In another situation, someone might feel the “modern nature of the secular state” is threatened by this same event. The theoretical background, case selection and conceptual understandings lead to the following research questions:
Main question:
o How has secular democratic fear influenced events during and after the Arab Spring in Tunisia and Egypt?
Sub questions:
o How has secularism been constructed historically in the Arab World and what has been its link with democracy?
o What was the role of secularism and religion during the Arab Spring and can we find instances of secular democratic fear during this time?
o Did secular democratic fear influence the behavior of secular actors after the uprisings in both countries?
o Is there a clear difference between the Tunisian and Egyptian case and how can this difference be explained?
2.2.
Method
This research is based on qualitative in-depth interviews with different actors in Tunisia and Egypt, conducted in May 2017 in Cairo and June 2017 in Tunis. In Tunisia, interviews have been conducted with a representative of the two biggest political parties that claim to be secular: “Nidaa Tounes” and “Machrouu Tounes”. Besides these two big parties, an interview with the party leaders of the smaller secular party “Afek Tounes” has been conducted. Besides these political representatives, an interview has been conducted with the president of the Arab Institute for Human Rights (AIHR), a secular civil society organization based in Tunis. In Egypt, interviews have been held with multiple activists that had been involved in different ways during the revolutionary events and thereafter. Besides these activists, interviews have been conducted with representatives of the “Social Democratic Party”, the “Wafd Party”, the “Constitutional Party” and the “Strong Egypt Party”. Due to the current political climate in Egypt, it was difficult to speak to officials of the current regime. However, an interview has been conducted with a senior civil servant that was, under the condition of remaining anonymous, willing to provide some insight information. Also a political commentator that is known for his pro-regime stance has been interviewed.
When certain important political actors are not represented in interviews, the information in this research is collected through both interviews conducted by others and secondary sources, such as a bulk of academic research.
3. Secularism in the Arab World
In this chapter, a historical overview of secularism in the Arab world and in particular in Egypt and Tunisia shall be given. The main point of focus here is how secularism has been understood historically and how it related to democracy in earlier times. Because this chapter only serves as a background to the following chapters in which the contemporary relation between secularism and democracy will be analysed, only the broad patterns that are necessary to understand for contemporary politics will be considered. These include the so called “Arab Nahda” period and the time of
colonialism, the period of Arab nationalism with a specific focus on Gamal Abd el-Nasser in Egypt and Habib Bourguiba in Tunisia and finally, the period of Hosni Mubarak and Zine Abidine Ben Ali before the outbreak of the Arab Spring.
3.1.
The Early Nahda Period
The Arab Nahda or “renaissance” is an historical period that is characterized by an increase in social, political and religious debates among intellectuals in the Arab world. When a new class of educated Arab intellectuals became aware of “Western” ideas and institutions, while at the same time feeling the pressing power of the states behind these institutions, they started to ask questions about “Western progress”, “Eastern stagnation”, science, education, gender relations and religion.67 Although it is not entirely clear when this period started, usually, the Nahda refers to a period from the beginning of the 19th century until the mid-20th century.68 This period overlaps with the emergence of different forms of nationalism, which will be described in the next paragraph.
The most important thinkers of the early Arab Nahda were no secularists. Rifa’a Rafi’ al-Tahtawi (1801-1873) is considered to be the first Nahda thinker and clearly stressed that all the modernizations that should be implemented in the Islamic world should be compatible with the established values and principles of the Sharia.69 The same can be said about important Nahda thinkers like Khairuddin Al-Tunisi (1810-1899), Jamal Al-Din Al-Afghani (1838-1897) and Muhammad Abduh (1849-1905). According to all of these thinkers, in its true essence, Islam is perfectly compatible with the desired aspects of modernization.70 Their proposed innovations in society or religion are legitimized by reinterpreting religion.
Most of these thinkers clearly had problems with “selling” certain ideas that might be inspired by “the West”. Part of this has to do with the fact that Western states, besides being strong powers to be emulated, had become colonizing powers to be despised. The thinkers of the second half of the eighteenth century went to great lengths to combine modernizing measures with religious speech, in order to prove they were not giving in to Western cultural colonization. Muhammed Abduh came up with the “middle path of Islam” as a solution to this problem.71 With this approach, Abduh tried to conciliate the main characteristics of Islamic faith with the “fundamental principles of modernity”, which should be understood as science, civilizational progress and reason. 72 Secularism was not seen as one of these fundamental principles. Even more, Abduh came up with this approach exactly because he saw a danger in society splitting in a different religious and human sphere.73 So instead of being in favor of such a differentiation, often associated with secularism, Abduh tried to counter it.
Other important Egyptian thinkers of the early Nahda period, such as Qasim Amin (1865-1908), often seen as the Arab world’s first proponent of women’s rights, similarly came forward with progressive ideas about what they perceived as “modernity” and in opposition to despotism, but without letting go of a religious framework to reach their arguments.74 Another towering figure of the early Nahda is the Syrian thinker Abdel Rahman al-Kawakibi (1848-1902). He similarly argued against despotism and the lack of political freedom, but clearly not against the importance of Islam in politics. Where the West opted for a path moving out of the sphere of religion, Easterners are different, he asserts, and do not need a religious renewal.75
At the end of the nineteenth century and in the beginning of the twentieth century, a group of intellectuals in the Arab world started to call for a de facto separation between the realm of religion and the realm of society.76 This more pronounced “secularism”, so you will, came for a large part from 67 Albert Hourani, Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age, 1798-1939 (London: Oxford University Press, 1970): vii; Kassab, Contemporary Arab Thought, 20-22.
68 Hourani, Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age; Kassab, Contemporary Arab Thought. 69 Azzam Tamimi, "The renaissance of Islam," Daedalus, 132 3 (2003): 51.
70 Tamimi, “The renaissance.”; Kassab, Contemporary Arab Thought, 25-29. 71 Hourani, Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age, 27.
72 Kassab, Contemporary Arab Thought, 27. 73 Hourani, Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age, 136. 74 Kassab, Contemporary Arab Thought, 33. 75 Ibid., 39.
Lebanese and Syrian Christians.77 Naturally, these Christians did not need to religiously defend themselves against Western influences, and could thus easier adopt more outspoken secular thoughts. Concluding, at these early times, Arab intellectuals already started experiencing the difficulty in finding a balance between innovating ideas and tradition. These thinkers played with the idea of democracy and also with ideas that are sometimes linked to secularism, such as religious freedom.
3.2.
The Time of Nationalism
Different forms of nationalism have formed a strong political force in the Arab region during the twentieth century. As said, the idea of Arab solidarity was first voiced by Christian thinkers in the region. This happened in the context of the Tanzimat reforms in the Ottoman empire. Because the breaking down of the communal structure of Ottoman society caused some problems between
Christians and Muslims, especially in countries like Syria and Lebanon, some Christian thinkers at the end of the nineteenth century called for “Arab” or “Syrian” solidarity.78 All of these forms of
territorial or cultural solidarities could eradicate the “sectarian” identity struggles that started to pose a real danger to minority communities. A leading figure of this early nationalist period was Bustrus al-Bustani. Bustani actively sought to abandon religious solidarity in order to establish Syrian society on a new basis of national and patriotic solidarity.79 Another main figure of this tradition and also a Syrian Christian is Constantine Zurayk (1909-2000). According to Zurayk, secularism is the most essential characteristic of nationalism, because nationalism must eliminate all sectarian strife within a nation to be able to work.80 However, it is not anti-religious, because when such a secular order is established, religion can thrive again.
In Egypt, at the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century, some thinkers of the later Nahda period started to make arguments that closer resemble the popular
understanding of secularism today. Ahmad Lufti al-Sayyid (1872-1963), for example, did not try to defend Islam or to restore to Islamic law to ground his arguments in.81 Freedom of despotic rule was the most important aspect of his thinking.82 Al-Sayyid had the nation as the center of his thought. He ignores any theory on an Islamic state, umma or Islamic law, but writes about national morality, law and interests.83 This “secularism in practice” is made explicit by the younger Ali abd al-Raziq (1888-1966), who published a book on the relation between Islam and political authority in 1925. The caliphate had just been officially abolished by Mustafa Kamal and al-Raziq argued that prophet Muhammad only had a prophetic function and did not exercise political authority.84 Religion has nothing to do with one form of government or another, Raziq argued. His book received sharp criticism from all over the Islamic community.85 These early nationalist thinkers thus promoted some form of secularism and also a certain form of political freedom or democracy in their thought.
After the First World War, Egyptian nationalism grew into a movement that was not just for the elite, but could mobilize the masses as well. The new leader of this movement was Sa’d Zaghlul (1859-1927), who established a delegation (wafd) to negotiate Egypt’s case for independence at the Peace Conference after World War I.86 Due to Zaghlul and his supporters’ pressure, the British government granted Egypt (limited) independence in 1922. Zaghul and his supporters established the
77 Kassab, Contemporary Arab Thought, 31 78 Ibid.
79 Ibid.
80 Abu Rabi, zurayk, history of modern mid east. 81 Hourani, Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age, 172. 82 Ibid., 177-178
83 Ibid., 182.
84 Hourani, Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age, 186-187.
85 Souad Ali, A religion, not a state: Ali 'Abd al-Raziq's Islamic justification of political secularism (University of Utah Press, 2009).
“Wafd Party” as an official political party after independence and they won the first elections.87 Wafd was nationalist and Zaghlul referred to the nation as a ‘sacred union’. Differences of religion did not matter for this national bond, he asserted.88 The Wafd gave formal adherence to the idea of a
separation of politics and religion.89 His project was not democratic, for it put forward the idea of a single national interest that had to be defended by the Wafd only.
The “secular” ideas were given more substance in the writing of Taha Hussayn. In his 1938 book on the future of culture in Egypt, 90 he explains the significance of modern Europe as the final stage of a process of civilization. This idea comes close to the idea of the modernization and secularization theses. Hussayn agrees that religion and blind faith are part of a “first stage” in a modernization project. A balance between religion and reason in which each rules supreme in its own sphere, then, is the final situation or “stage”.91 Also democracy should be adopted, because it would lead to the freedom needed for the right education.92
After the Second World War, the West had lost some of its “moral ascendency”. Nationalism changed and many countries experienced “revolutions” that led to military regimes. In this part, the focus will be on Gamal Abd el-Nasser in Egypt and Habib Bourguiba only. Other important “secular” political forces, such as the Ba’ath parties, are not taken into account, because of their limited
relevance for Tunisia and Egypt. Gamal Abd el-Nasser had become the leader of the Free Officers revolution in Egypt in the year 1954, after king Faruqs regime was ousted in 1952. The goal of this revolution was to unite the Arabs in one nation, as Nasser first declared.93 This also meant the end of theorizing about democracy. Arabs should unite in order to be able to counter imperialism and Zionism. Unity means strength, Nasser believed.
Jankowski claims that Nasser and his government rejected religion as a political referent. His only public discussion on religion in the 1950s “clearly indicates a personal preference for a separation between religion and politics into distinct spheres of human activity.”94 Nasser in 1954 literally said that the Quran is not suitable as a source of policy or political doctrine, because it is a very “general text”.95
In Tunisia, Habib Bourguiba is the central figure of the independence project. After
proclaiming the Tunisian Republic in 1957, Bourguiba became the first president of the country. In his neo-Destour Party, religion was rejected as basis for political management, but religious symbols were still used to mobilize people. 96 The Neo-Destour managed to impose a modernist consensus on the masses that was the product of a Western-educated elite, Murphy writes.97 After 1959, the Neo-Destour party won all 90 seats in the National Assembly and instituted a constitution that made the Neo-Destour the only party responsible for ruling the country.98 Bourguiba’s priority was to create a national feeling of solidarity to a nation-state of which the party and his person stood symbol. His rule was therefore in no way democratic.99 Bourguiba introduced a constitution that proclaimed Islam to be Tunisia’s religion and determined its president should be Muslim, in order to please conservative forces.100 However, simultaneously, Bourguiba tried to reform the nature and influence of that Islam. 87 Ibid., 213.
88 Ibid., 215.
89 Hourani, Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age, 325.
90 Taha Husain, "Mustaqbal al-Thaqafa fi Misr [The Future of Culture in Egypt]." Cairo: Matba'at al-Ma'arif wa-Maktabatuha 1944 (1938): 6-11.
91 Hourani, Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age, 328.
92 Abdel Fatth Galal, "Taha Hussein," Thinkers of education (1994): 6.
93 James P Jankowski, Nasser's Egypt, Arab Nationalism, and the United Arab Republic (Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2002), 154.
94 Ibid., 155. 95 Ibid.
96 Emma Murphy, Economic and Political Change in Tunisia (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016): 46. 97 Ibid., 48.
98 Ibid., 50.
It is this second part, the reform and control over Islam that is best remembered. As Rory McCarthy points out, multiple authors have described the period of Bourguiba as entailing a complete “cultural shift”, or even a “social and psychological revolution”.101 Bourguiba was a cultural
modernizer that sought to shape Tunisia to the ideals of a “triumphant laicity”.102 In other words, Bourguiba led a top-down project of secularization and succeeded in this.103
When looking at what this secularism then specifically entails, one must conclude that reality is more complicated. True, Bourguiba effectively undermined the power of religious scholars.104 However, Bourguiba often did so by employing religious language himself. He spoke about the use of
ijtihad (religious interpretation) and asked for religious legitimation for his measures from supportive
religious scholars. The Personal Status Code of 1956 is usually seen as a symbol for Tunisian secularism, because it banned polygamy, introduced the women right to divorce and set a minimum age for a girl to marry.105 Still, traditional Islamic law was upheld in other areas, such as inheritance. Furthermore, Bourguiba explicitly rejected a “secular” model in which the state was “ignorant” of religion.106
McCarthy shows how Bourguiba used religion in different ways depending on the ends that suited different circumstances.107 Bourguiba presented his own reinterpretation of religious traditions and did not remain neutral on the subject. As McCarthy holds, Bouguiba’s secularism was therefore not meant to separate religion and state, but to subordinate religion to the goals of the modern state. This is confirmed by many authors.108
From the 1970s onwards, this approach faced some opposition from those that sought a renewal of Muslim values. When the Islamist movement started to emerge, they were seen as the complete opposite of Bourguiba. The supposed binary between two diametrically opposed cultural projects for society, that of Islamism versus that of secularism, remains relevant in Tunisia today and emerged in this period.109
3.3.
The Time of Authoritarianism
From the 1980s onwards, movements of political Islam started to gain influence around the Arab-speaking world. Simultaneously, authoritarian regimes consolidated their autocratic rule across the region. Scholars often speak of an “Islamic revival” from the 1970s onwards, something that is largely attributed to the failure of “secular” state projects of socialism and nationalism.110 Sadat’s position towards religion was more ambiguous, although also he is usually classified as a “secularist”.111 He started off more tolerant and lenient towards the Muslim Brotherhood, allowing them some space in the public realm. In 1971, he ratified a constitution that secured Islam as the religion of the state and 100 Ibid., 50; Rory McCarthy, "Re-thinking secularism in post-independence Tunisia," The Journal of North African Studies 19.5 2014, 736.
101 McCarthy, "Re-thinking secularism,” 734; Charles Antoine Micaud, Tunisia: The Politics of Modernization (New York, Praeger, 1964).
102 Elbaki Hermassi, "The Islamicist Movement and November 7," Tunisia: The Political Economy of Reform (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1991): 193-204.
103 Clement Henry Moore, Tunisia since independence: the dynamics of one-party government (University of California Press, 1965).; Alexander Christopher, "Tunisia: Stability and Reform in the Modern
Maghreb," (Abingdon: Routledge, 2010). 104 McCarthy, "Re-thinking secularism,” 735. 105 Ibid., 736.
106 Ibid.
107 McCarthy, "Re-thinking secularism,” 736-737.
108 Abdelkader Zghal, "The reactivation of tradition in a post-traditional society," Daedalus (1973): 225-237.; Kenneth Perkins, A history of modern Tunisia (Cambridge University Press, 2014).
109 McCarthy, "Re-thinking secularism,” 734.
110 Geneive Abdo, No God but God: Egypt and the triumph of Islam, (Oxford University Press, 2002): 7. 111 Ibid., 22.
sharia as a principle source of legislation, but one of his most famous slogan remained “no politics in
religion and no religion in politics”.112
After Sadat was murdered by a plot of jihadist Islamist, his vice-president Hosni Mubarak became president of Egypt and remained in that position until he was ousted from power when the Arab Spring protests erupted in 2011. Mubarak’s position towards religion was not less ambiguous. After starting with a conciliatory tone and the release of many political prisoners, Mubarak eventually brutally attacked the militant trend of Islamism.113 Furthermore, even “moderate” Islamists who never engaged in violence were imprisoned. However, indeed like his predecessors, Mubarak still tried to earn religious legitimacy from the public by using Islamic symbolism.114 This position might be explained by his double interests. Egypt received grossly $2.1 billion in U.S. aid annually for taking the role of a loyal partner of the United States in the fight against the Islamic movement.115
Simultaneously, the Islamic resurgence in the country was also something that asked for Islamic legitimacy to please the masses. This forced Mubarak to also surf the wave of the new Islamic resurgence in his country.
In an interview in the German Der Spiegel, Mubarak explained that in Egypt the same could happen as what had happened in Algeria, comparing the Muslim Brothers with the Islamic Salvation Front. Mubarak argued that this is what happens if you mix religion and politics, something he would therefore never allow. “As long as I am president, religion and state will remain separate”, Mubarak promised.116 This outside presentation as a “secularist” helped to legitimize the crackdown on the real political threat of the Islamists. Whether truly “secular” or not, his rule was autocratic and any political competition therefore constitutes a threat. Especially when this competition promotes democracy.
In Tunisia, the reign of Habib Bourguiba ended in 1987, when he was removed from power in a constitutional coup led by Zine el Abidine Ben Ali, his prime minister.117 Ben Ali promised to economically and politically liberalize the country and bring democracy.118 Just like Sadat had done in Egypt, also Ben Ali tried to bring religion back in his discourse and emphasized Islam is a source of national identity.119 In the National Pact, the Arab and Islamic character of the state was asserted. The “uncompromising secularism” of Bourguiba was rejected. Ben Ali stated that the Tunisian state should watch over the values of Islam and refer to them.120 He granted amnesty to the Islamist leader of the Mouvement Tendence Islamique (MTI) Rachid Ghannouchi and invited Islamic leaders in exile to return.121
Nonetheless, Ben Ali’s government also claimed to be determined that religion should not have political manifestations except through state sponsorship.122 Ben Ali eventually refused to legalize the Islamist Ennahda, a political party that emerged out of the MTI. The state is the only defender of Islam to the Tunisians and should manage religious affairs, which is why a religious political party trying to do the same was unacceptable, he argued.123 Furthermore, it had become clear that these Islamists represented the only real opposition to the ruling RCD party.124 In his opposition to Ennahda, Ben Ali seemed to be mainly driven by the incentive to counter all forms of real opposition to his rule. The secular groups were more cooperative and in this way contributed to Ben Ali’s “secular” but more importantly, authoritarian, rule. A ruthless campaign of annihilation developed 112 Mohammed Zahid, The Muslim Brotherhood and Egypt’s Succession Crisis (London and New York, I.B. Tauris Publishers, 2010): 82; Geneive Abdo, No God, 54
113 Geneive Abdo, No God, 14; 74. 114 Ibid., 14.
115 Ibid., 22.
116 Geneive Abdo, No God, 78. 117 Murphy, Political Change, 5. 118 Ibid., 6.
119 McCarthy, "Re-thinking secularism,” 742. 120 Murphy, Political Change, 174.
121 Ibid., 179. 122 Ibid., 180
123 McCarthy, "Re-thinking secularism,” 743. 124 Murphy, Political Change, 180.
later in Ben Ali’s rule and focused on the Islamists, but also on those leftists that did oppose the regime.125 The crackdown on the “Islamists” was thus not just based on a real ideological difference.
However, among Ben Ali’s supporters, a clear example of secular democratic fear can already be found. As they believed the Islamists favor a project that is reactionary and anti-modern and if it succeeds, it would reverse all gains made by Tunisia, democratic commitments by Islamists are seen as just a strategy to take power. These Ben Ali supporters believe that they need the state to defend them from the ruthlessness of the Islamists. As Emma Murphy holds, for these Ben Ali supporters this perceived conflict between “secularism” and “Islamism” is a zero-sum game.126 The crackdown of the Islamists, although largely motivated by authoritarian survival, was perceived by these secularists as a necessary tool to save the “laic” tradition of the country. Cavatorta and Haugbølle speak of a Tunisian “myth of laïcité” that existed domestically among the secularists and internationally. The ruling and economic elites believe that the country is highly secularized, not aware that in reality a revitalization of Islamic values had occurred. This “secular nature” of the country could be questioned.127
Furthermore, the assumption for some was that Ben Ali’s project was positive and pro-democracy, because it was based on the expansion of liberal rights, although no real democratization took place.128 Ben Ali in this way managed to be depicted as a secular and liberal modernizer that slowly tried to construct a democratic political system and that opposed and fought religious extremism.129
So, the “secularism” of Ben Ali did not lead to democratization. Rather, it legitimized a campaign against the Islamists and it led to both international and domestic support for an authoritarian political system.
3.4.
Conclusion
The main focus point of this chapter was how secularism was understood historically and how it related to democracy in different times. Firstly, we have seen that during the early Nahda period, intellectuals sought a balance between respecting and defending tradition and promoting innovations. Their arguments sought religious legitimation for ideas linked to democracy and political freedom. Indeed they tried to find ways to be democratic without secularization of society.
Secondly, during the ‘time of nationalism’, some authors did attack religion as a basis for solidarity, in order to fight sectarianism and strengthen unity. Authors such as al-Raziq that more aggressively fought the idea of a political role for Islam, were heavily critiqued, underscoring the difficulty of seemingly opposing “tradition”. These early thinkers construct their secularism in connection to the concept of “freedom”, thereby linking it to “political freedom” as well, often opposing despotism and favoring democracy. However, with the emergence of nationalisms that sought independence, a different frame emerged. The battle for independence asked for “unity” and a single national interest, something that can threaten democratic freedoms. Both Nasser in Egypt and Bourguiba in Tunisia had national independence and progress as their main goals, which led to an authoritarian system in which religion was used to mobilize the masses and simultaneously
subordinated to prevent popular religious movements to threaten the unity. So, their interpretation of secularism as the subordination of religion to the state-project did not lead to democratization at all. Rather, it legitimized authoritarianism. This distinction between secularism as “freedom” and secularism as part of “unity” will remain important in this paper.
Furthermore, in the times of Mubarak and Ben Ali a new use of secularism became important. Because both regimes should not be seen as ideological, but as pragmatic authoritarian, they used the concepts of “religion” and “secularism” at the same time. Their use of secularism led to foreign aid 125 Ibid., 6.
126 Ibid., 7.
127 Francesco Cavatorta and Rikke Hostrup Haugbølle, "The end of authoritarian rule and the mythology of Tunisia under Ben Ali," Mediterranean Politics 17.2 2012, 190.
128 Ibid.
