Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community - View Single Post - Muslims call for the death of English school teacher...

roachboy · 11-30-2007, 07:54 PM

i cant pretend to know in much detail, and i have to go in any event, but i bit this background section from the linked article and paste it here.

what's happening seems in general terms consistent with this, yes?

very strange regime.
i'm kinda curious about it now, actually.

Quote:

2. THE INTELLECTUAL FOUNDATIONS OF THE SUDANESE ISLAMIST REGIME[1]

Western views of Islamist movements tend to be simplified and monolithical. Broadly speaking they are regarded either as belonging to an "Iranian" model or to an "Algerian" one. A fiercely religious state in one case, a madly violent insurgent group in another. The Sudanese Islamist movement is neither. It is a well-organized political movement with a large number of satellite organizations (women's groups, professional associations, press groups and so on) largely patterned on the organizational structure of the old-style communist parties. It has existed for fifty years under a variety of names and has finally reached power after protracted political struggle.

It started as al-Ikhwan al-Muslimun (the Moslem Brothers) in the 1940s and 1950s, became al-Jebha al-Mithaq al-Islamiya (the Islamic Charter Front) in 1964 after the fall of the Abboud dictatorship, existed clandestinely during the Nimeiry years without a name, turned into al-Jebha al-Qaumiya al-Islamiya (the National Islamic Front) after Nimeiry's fall in 1985, dissolved itself during the 1989 coup d'état (which it had organized) and was recently (January 1996) reborn in the form of a "national" single party with the name of Mutammar al-Watani (Patriotic Congress - PC). This development has been possible because of a fundamental characteristic: in spite of its chameleon-like quality and many names the movement has held to an unswerving view of its ultimate goal - the creation of a modernized version of an Islamic State. All the while, as it turned and twisted into many different tactical positions, the Sudanese Islamic Movement has kept a clear view of what it was aiming at and never seemed to be overly concerned about moving practically in the opposite direction from its goal, as long as the goal itself remained clear.

How can this goal be defined and how does it articulate with day-to-day tactics? The Sudanese Islamist Movement is a direct heir to the original movement of the Moslem Brotherhood, created in the 1920s in Egypt by Hassan al-Banna. But very quickly, during the Abboud dictatorship of the 1950s, the Sudanese branch of the Movement started to distinguish itself both by its willingness to adopt modernist ideas and by its extremely realistic approach to practical politics. This meant two complementary things: firstly, in philosophical terms, a practical reopening of the doors of ijtihad,[2] and secondly, in political terms, an acknowledgement of modern realities. But it would be a mistake to see this resolute practice of ijtihad as some kind of "revisionist theology" leading to a modernist approach through the abhorred process of bida'a (innovation). The ijtihad advocated by the Sudanese Islamist movement is adaptive: it intends to change in order the better to preserve and its goal is an Islamic State ruled by shari'a, even if the practical modalities of that Islamic State have to be slightly different from the practice of the Caliphate. In other words, the Sudanese Islamist Movement aims at a conservative revolution, much in the same way as the Fascist movements of the 1920s and 1930s were aiming at a revolutionary re-arrangement of conservative ideas through the promotion of l'Impero Novo (the New Empire) or of the Volksgemeinschaft (National Community).

The key concept of the Sudanese Islamists is the concept of tawhid which, in the sense used by al-Turabi, can be translated by "unity of purpose". For Turabi, religious worship is not limited to the essentials of Islam (the five daily prayers, zakat and so on). As this world is only a transition to the Hereafter, any act, including all kinds of worldly endeavours, can be seen as religiously meaningful. Thus anything is potentially religious if seen in the right light, if useful to the cause of Islam. This articulates with the notion of ketman (mental reservation) common in Islam. If a Moslem is faced with overwhelming force by the kuffar (unbelievers) he can lie, he can violate all the dictums of Islam, he can do anything as long as it is done with a mental ketman in which he says silently to himself: "this act is done for the good of Islam, bismi'llah er-Rahman er-Rahim [in the name of God the Merciful and the Misericordious]". This has led to the development of a form of Islamic casuistry, called Fiqh ad-Darura (the legal rules of necessity), not unlike the moral and political philosophy developed by the order of the Jesuits in Europe during the Counter-Reformation. Within such an intellectual framework the basic principle of Aristotelian logic, i.e. non-contradiction, does not apply. We have here a system of Islamic dialectics where elements do not exist by themselves and in themselves but only within a continuum where structures change and permute, where tactics is all and where principle is nothing, so long as the tactics can all be subsumed under the heading of a general goal, namely the Islamic State.

It is in this perpective that one needs to see the recent developments in the Sudan which seem at times paradoxical. "Democratic elections" which are neither democratic nor even elections, the signature of a "peace agreement" with allies and not with the enemy, a "political opening" created from the re-assertion of the same old slogans - these "developments" seem to be mere window dressing. But their promoters believe in them, and indeed such bizarre political devices have worked for the Sudanese Islamists in the past. For example during the time between the successful Islamist coup d'état in July 1989 and the end of that year, the National Islamic Front (NIF) leader Hassan al-Turabi was jailed and his party outlawed, when the truth was that the NIF had planned and carried out the coup d'état and Turabi was the brain behind the operation. But it was imperative at the time for the Islamists to avoid or at least to delay a possible counter-move supported by Egypt, whose General Intelligence Service had in fact also prepared a clandestine intervention, so that when Turabi's coup d'état took place there was considerable uncertainty about who was doing what.[3] Thus some almost theatrical arrangements were made, with Turabi being kept in jail during the day and going out secretly at night to attend important meetings. Absolutely improbable statements were released by the new government which denied having anything to do with the NIF. Ridiculous as this may sound it created enough of a doubt to prevent Cairo from undertaking any counter-move and it even fooled some of the country's most seasoned politicians who were jailed together with Turabi, including Mohamed Osman al-Mirghani, the present head of the opposition National Democratic Alliance.[4] With the success of such political antics to their credit, the Islamists in Sudan believe in the power of the will and in the potential success of the improbable. Both depend on the help of God which they feel is behind them. After all even ordinary Sudanese will call their country, with tongue-in-cheek humour, beled al-farhat al-kubra (the land of the great wonders).