METODO Y PROCEDIMIENTO

Further shaping the current environment for collective action, and especially what alternatives are likely to gain popular support, is the failure of previous popular movements leaving a variety of discredited ideologies in their wake. As the end of the colonial era swept across Asia, the Middle East, and Africa the promise of

independence led many to believe that they would soon participate in the prosperity they had seen exported and enjoyed in Western nations. Contemporaneous Islamist thinkers – such as Rashid Rida, Ali Abd al-Raziq, Sayyid Abul-A’la Mawdudi, and Hassan al-Banna – debated the possible role of a renewed Islamic political order as opposed to nationalist approaches.41 However, while these theorists established ideological groundwork for later Islamist activists, for most Muslims the political dimensions of Islam were not of paramount importance and nationalism proved far more attractive as an organizing force as the new Muslim states achieved independence from European colonial rule.42 _{The failures of these newly independent governments to}

deliver quickly – because the development challenges they faced were great, the world economy started many of them off in a time of economic depression, and too often domestic elite corruption simply replaced foreign extraction – led in many countries to a perceived need for more authoritarian solutions and a further discrediting of ideologies associated with Western powers.43

Across large parts of the Middle East and North Africa political leaders turned to and promoted Arab Nationalism as a unifying solution, often with socialist ideals

replacing the economic liberalism and belief in private property espoused by former Western powers as with Nasser and the other Free Officers who came to power in Egypt and with the Baath party’s ascendency in Syria and Iraq.44 Cold War dynamics led to

41 _{Mandaville, Global Political Islam, 49-95.} 42 _{Ibid., 53.}

43 _{Beinin, Workers and Peasants, 114. Fuller, The Future of Political Islam, 69-70.}

Hinnebusch, Egyptian Politics Under Sadat, 11. Mandaville, Global Political Islam, 49- 95. Owen, State, Power and Politics, 27. Owen and Pamuk, A History of Middle East Economies, 6-7. Richards and Waterbury, A Political Economy of the Middle East, 176- 7. Wiktorowicz, "Introduction: Islamic Activism and Social Movement Theory," 7.

44 _{Hinnebusch, Syria, 36-7, 55. Richards and Waterbury, A Political Economy of the}

socialist ideals influencing Arab intellectuals and elites as many Arab nations aligned with and received aid and advisors from the Soviet Union given American support of Israel.45 Three principle factors caused the alternative of Arab nationalism to begin to lose its appeal: the failure of new development polices to deliver significant economic improvements;46 the tendency of these centralized authoritarian governments to close off avenues of political dissent; and, a series of significant foreign policy defeats. The 1967 Arab-Israeli conflict is perhaps the single most important of these, as Arab Nationalist leaders had exploited the Palestinian crises to redirect internal discontent and built up a perception that they would once and for all avenge earlier defeats by vanquishing Israel, only to be stunned by the perceptually crushing defeat of the Six- Day War.47 While authoritarian governments have remained in power across much of the Muslim world, similar local failures have increasingly delegitimized their rule and encouraged many to look outside current political structures for new hope to address perceived grievances.48

Many Islamic activists also criticize the Western dominated global system for failing to protect or equally show concern for Muslims over these years. Foremost is the perceived failure to support the Palestinian people in their grievances against Israel, but Islamists are also quick to list suffering and international inaction to aid primarily Muslim populations in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Somalia, Iraq, the Philippines, Indonesia,

estabslihed during this time period in states such as Egypt providng “free public education combined with dramatically expanded access to university” enabled “bright young Islamic activists to find each other and to use their relative expanded freedoms to engage with the broader movements then energizing the Arab world.” In social

movement theory terms an opening in opportunity space and establishment of networks that enabled mobilization around subsequently perceived grievances. Gerges, Journey of the Jihadist, 43.

45 _{Ayubi, Over-stating the Arab State, 200. Beinin, Workers and Peasants, 122-3.}

Hinnebusch, Syria, 38, 57-8, 153. Owen and Pamuk, A History of Middle East

Economies, 100. Richards and Waterbury, A Political Economy of the Middle East, 178.

46 _{Gerges, Journey of the Jihadist, 31-2.}

47 _{The 1971 civil war leading to the creation of Bangladesh as a separate nation from}

Pakistan had a similar effect. Esposito, "Political Islam.". Esposito, 1997, "Claiming the Center: Political Islam in Transition," Harvard International Review XIX (2).

Hinnebusch, Syria, 7. Richards and Waterbury, A Political Economy of the Middle East, 242.

Chechnya, Eritrea, Kashmir, Darfur, and the various Central Asian Republics.49 In many cases these conflicts are portrayed as Christian or Western powers actively oppressing Muslim populations, while the world turns a blind eye exercising a double standard as compared to other conflicts where the international community was quick to intervene. When Western actors have intervened many Muslims claim that these actions came too late or were motivated by other reasons.50

At the same time other alternatives were being discredited, a building list of perceived successes have increased popular support for Islamic alternatives. The Ramadan war of 1973, fought under the military slogan “God is Great,” was seen at least as redemption if not an Israeli defeat. The 1979 revolution in Iran brought to power what many view as the first truly Islamic state in the modern era, associated with the charismatic leadership of the Ayatollah Khomeini. The Iranian revolution and resulting American hostage crisis were also seen as striking a humiliating blow against Western powers who had backed the Shah’s return to power over the popular Mosaddeq in 1953. At the same time, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan began a decade long war ending with the defeat of a superpower attributed by many in the Muslim world to the strength of Muslim fighters who had travelled to fight from across the world.51 Islamist groups in the Palestinian territories and Lebanon have gained in regional popularity for standing up to Israel with some regionally celebrated successes, including in the case of Hizballah being seen as responsible for ending Israel’s occupation of Southern Lebanon in 2000 and then fighting with surprising resilience and possibly strategic success against Israeli forces in the summer of 2006. Finally, at a local level many Islamist movements have proven very successful at effectively delivering social services free of corruption.

49 _{al-Zawahiri, 2007a, "Ayman al-Zawahiri Interview Four Years After 9/11 (September}

2005)," In The Al Qaeda Reader, ed. Ibrahim, New York: Broadway Books, 177. bin Laden, 2007c, "Moderate Islam is a Prostration to the West (2002)," In The Al Qaeda Reader, ed. Ibrahim, New York: Broadway Books, 27. bin Laden, 2007e, "Why We are Fighting You: Osama bin Laden's Letter to Americans (October 2002)," In The Al Qaeda Reader, ed. Ibrahim, New York: Broadway Books, 199.

50 _{Lawrence, ed 2005, Messages to the World: The Statements of Osama bin Laden,}

Translated by Howarth, London: Verso, 86.

51 _{Esposito, "Political Islam.". Fuller, The Future of Political Islam, 9-11. Kepel, The}