International Journal on Criminology Volume 3, Number 1, Spring 2015 | Page 27

International Journal on Criminology
of Arab youth.” The prominent French philosopher and journalist Bernard Henri-Lévy,
who arranged the Paris meeting between Sarkozy and the Libyan NTC, leading to France’s
recognition of the Libyan rebels ahead of NATO, proclaimed his profound conviction of
Arab democratic emancipation. Many intellectuals, journalists, and politicians repeated
the same refrain, providing a distant echo, albeit with many reservations, of the American
neocon project at the start of the March 2003 Iraq war for a democratic and liberal “greater
Middle East” (allied with other factors of course), the major difference now being the action
taken by the people themselves.
However, can we not detect “a slight whiff of ethnocentrism . . . of Occidentcentrism”
(Mathieu Guidère) in this approach that fits so well with European and American
history? Professor Guidère points out that, in Arabic, revolt and revolution are synonymous
(thawra), with negative connotations insofar as they lead to fitna (sedition) within the
ummah, the community of believers. This is why Arabs use the term “awakening” (nahda).
The main demand of the insurgents was for dignity, together with social justice and an
end to corruption—they were not or were hardly at all concerned with democracy. A basic
feature of the “Arab Spring” was the absence of leaders and thinkers; it was impossible to
perceive clearly defined ideologies and precise programs—hence the arrival of Islamist
and Salafist forces to center stage, the only ones to have a structure at organizational and
ideological levels.
Should we therefore fear this renewal of political Islam at the heart of the complex—
not to say confused—reality of this unprecedented situation?
The Failure of the “Islamist Autumn” and the Beginning of the Jihadist Ice
Age
The hope that democratic (if not liberal) political forces would be brought to
power was seriously dampened in the light of election results, which undeniably put the
Islamist parties in the lead.
For present purposes, Islamism is taken to mean an ideology that aims to restore
the dawla, or Islamic state, as idealized by those who sing its praises; it therefore implies
the winning of political power. Modernity is put to use by the Islamists, for whom in
reality “revelation is at the service of revolution” (Olivier Roy). The Muslim Brotherhood
movement (ikhwanis), founded by the emblematic figure of Hassan al-Banna in Egypt in
1928, is the mold for the Islamist movements that have spread throughout Islam.
Hamas in Palestine, the Libyan Party of Justice and Construction, the Egyptian
Freedom and Justice Party, the Ennahda Movement in Tunisia, the Moroccan Party of
Justice and Development: all are branches of the Muslim Brotherhood, having preserved
more or less close links with the head office in Egypt. They agree to play the democratic
game, even if they have resorted to violence during the course of their history (Hamas).
With their active community networks, they reach deep into Arab society, and their
actions have naturally borne some fruit. Despite this, they have not been able to match
up to the hopes they embodied, and have therefore reaped the bitter harvest of popular
disillusion.
The Ennahda Movement in Tunisia received 40% of votes at the Constituent
Assembly election on November 14, 2011, and its leader Jebali was appointed prime
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