Saudi execution: unjust, and an unwise provocation // MADAWI AL-RASHEED - Wahhabi Religious Nationalism Has Moved From Mosque to Military
Bitter rivals for predominance in the Middle East, Saudi
Arabia and Iran are waging proxy wars against each other in Syria and Yemen,
but have so far avoided direct conflict. Yet they have been playing with fire
for years, so it is no surprise that their latest clash has quite literally
sparked a conflagration in one of their capitals. It remains unlikely that
there will be any head-on military confrontation between the two.
Yet Saudi
Arabia’s execution at the weekend of Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, a leading Shia
cleric, and the storming of the Saudi embassy in Tehran which was the response
to it, must worsen what is already a toxic relationship. It could also weaken
pragmatists and inflame internal differences in both countries at a time when
efforts to bring about settlements in Syria and Yemen need all the help they
can get.
The parallels between the Saudi kingdom and the Islamic
republic are in some ways very close. Both are influenced by a sense of Islamic
mission, a sense which has encouraged them in ambitions well beyond their
means. Both are quick to violence, abroad and at home, where there is little to
choose between them, for instance, in the high rate of public executions. Both have coasted
economically and politically for years on the income from their oil resources,
but are now approaching a day of reckoning. As oil prices fall, their populations rise and
the aspirations of their peoples increase, the strains are beginning to show.
In Saudi Arabia there are fissures between the religious and
the monarchical establishments which go back to the beginning of the state,
another between most Sunnis and jihadists such as al-Qaida, and a further
divide between central Arabia and the western region, where there are memories
of an independent past under the Hashemites. Then there is the Shia community,
which makes up between 10 and 15% of the population, suffers discrimination in
state employment and education, and is regarded as apostate and potentially
disloyal by a significant number of Saudis. When the Arab spring reached Saudi
Arabia in 2011, Shia discontent came into the open. Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr,
already known for his views on the unfair distribution of wealth in Saudi
Arabia (most of the oil is in areas populated by Shia), emerged as a leader of
the protest movement in the eastern, Shia area.
The Saudis reacted harshly and
the sheikh was among those arrested and charged with terrorist offences,
although he had always publicly abjured violence. His trial in 2014 was a farce. Under a previous government, a
discreet way of avoiding his execution might have been found. King Abdullah,
cautiously inclined to reform, had made conciliatory gestures toward the Shia
community. But his successor, King Salman, and his inexperienced son, deputy
crown prince Mohammad bin Salman, have made a virtue out of being tough and
aggressive both at home and abroad. As protests and demonstrations threaten to spread in Shia areas,
there will be a price to be paid for that now, in the shape of the further
alienation of the Shia community.
Iran has its own Sunni minority and has executed Sunnis on
dubious grounds. But its more important internal divisions are to do with the
balance between relative moderates, like President Hassan Rouhani,
conservatives and hardliners, reflected in its competing and overlapping
institutions. It is in the world’s interests, and in those of the Iranian
people, that the moderate camp at least keeps its end up, but the execution of
the sheikh could conceivably affect that balance.
The attack on the embassy does not seem to have been
officially sanctioned. Indeed, Mr Rouhani, although strongly criticising the
Saudi government,condemned the perpetrators. The implication must be that
hardliners, who were against the nuclear deal with the international
community, want to roll back modest liberalisation at home and are
inflexible on Syria, may have tried to seize the opportunity, as they see
it, to box their government in to more aggressive policies.
Much depends now on events in Saudi Arabia. If protests
there grow, and if they are then suppressed by force, followed by more arrests
and, potentially, more executions, the situation could slip out of the control
of governments in both Tehran and Riyadh. Both Iran and Saudi Arabia are
wasting their resources on aggressive foreign policies which have little chance
of ultimate success. Both are taking large risks. As they pull back from this
crisis it is to be hoped both will exhibit more sense in the future.
Wahhabi Religious Nationalism Has Moved From Mosque to Military
The contemporary wave of terrorism sweeping the world has its ideological roots in the revival of a militarized religious nationalism with Saudi Arabia at its heart. Unbounded by territory, it combines religion and politics to create a “pure” and godly community and brings together fragmented and culturally different people whose only common bond is Islam.
see also
The US is paying the cost of supporting the House of Saud
The contemporary wave of terrorism sweeping the world has its ideological roots in the revival of a militarized religious nationalism with Saudi Arabia at its heart. Unbounded by territory, it combines religion and politics to create a “pure” and godly community and brings together fragmented and culturally different people whose only common bond is Islam.
In the Arab world, religious nationalism was invented early
in the 20th century in Saudi Arabia, a kingdom whose goal was to unite
dispersed people and purify their religious beliefs and practices under the
leadership of the Al-Saud.
This unification took place as a result of a fringe Islamic revivalist
tradition, commonly known as Wahhabiyya, which
morphed into a military religious nationalist movement. With time, the project
went beyond simple piety: Sharia law and conformity to Islamic teachings were
rigorously applied. Under state patronage, this Wahhabiyya was
turned into a quasi-nationalist project. Its ideology has proliferated and now
inspires Muslims across the globe, fueled by petrodollars and
globalization.
Early in the 20th century, an all-encompassing Wahhabi
religious nationalism inflamed the imagination of a substantial section of the
population of Arabia. It provided the ideological tool to band together to
achieve independence from an ailing Ottoman empire that
had little control over this peripheral region of its realm. With a political
leadership eager to expand throughout Arabia and to assert its control over the
holy cities of Mecca and Medina, Al-Saud militarized the fragmented tribal
population, united them under an Islamic flag and mobilized them to wage war
against all those who refused their homogenizing theology and radical Wahhabi
message.
From the heart of Arabia they spread across the rest of the
Arabian Peninsula. They created a state that has remained hostage to the
Wahhabi agenda, bigoted interpretations of religious texts, and violent
strategies whose aim is to control the behaviour of Muslims and non-Muslims in
its jurisdictions.
With the consolidation of the state, the various Saudi kings
who have ruled since 1932 had to tame the beast they created. They had to
convince the vanguards of this militarized religious nationalism to respect
borders, not harass pilgrims to the two holy cities under their domination, and
allow Al-Saud full control of foreign relations.
In its efforts to institutionalize this unruly Wahhabi
religious nationalism, the state was forced to make concessions: It merged the
armed vanguards that had unified Arabia in the state’s nascent military
institutions, and granted the movement’s ideologues full control of domestic
social and religious affairs, especially education and the judiciary.
Detached from local cultures: Wahhabi religious nationalism was essentially detached from
local cultures, and as such had little respect for international borders or the
idiosyncrasies of local folkloric Islam. It sought to spread its hegemony
wherever it could, and to gain spiritual reward for bringing Muslims back to
the right path — as defined by their theologians. The Wahhabis thus
aspired to eradicate difference, diversity and pluralism not just inside Arabia
but beyond its frontiers. The latter project could only take place once they
controlled Arabia’s oil wealth.
This religious nationalism was ironically both universal and
local. Its universalism was rooted in its quest to spread among the global
Muslim ummah (or community). But this universalism was tainted
by sectarianism, and thus excluded those Muslims who did not share their
theology, both Sunnis and Shiites, not to mention other fringe sects within the
vast world of Islam. The first wave of the militarized religious nationalism —
dubbed as jihad against unbelievers during the first three
decades of the 20th century — consolidated within the boundaries of Saudi
Arabia.
This was supposed to make jihad turn inward, to launch
local religious purification programs to eradicate blasphemy, heterodoxy and
other social and religious behaviour that deviated from their norms. But vigorous proselytizing in the local context was not
enough to please the Wahhabist vanguard. They sought a global role, which was
granted to them by the Saudi leadership as it struggled to establish its
legitimacy both inside the country and abroad.
They had to pledge to correct Muslim beliefs and practices
everywhere, using their newly acquired petrodollars to globalize their
movement. Religious education, mosques, and religious centres had to be
established around the world to ensure Muslims would be brought back to
“authentic” Islam. From the 1960s onward, Wahhabi religious nationalism went
global.
US unleashed Wahhabi nationalism: With the Cold War, Western governments, especially the
United States, mistakenly considered the Wahhabis an antidote to leftists and
secular nationalist revolutionary movements. Together with its Saudi ally, the
U.S. unleashed Wahhabi religious nationalism on the world, especially in the
hotspots of Afghanistan and beyond. Preaching was not enough: The vanguards had to carry arms,
mixing their proselytizing with an armed struggle to defend Muslims from
occupiers and transgressors. These short-sighted policies resulted in a
global jihadi movement, intellectually associated with the
original Saudi-Wahhabi nationalism of a bygone era.
Today, the discourse, symbols, strategies and iconography of
this old Wahhabi ideology are inspiring pious and not-so-pious Muslims across
the globe. The message is known for its zeal and promise of empowerment, both
of which are associated with the fraternity of a recently acquired religious
identity, separate from local culture or tradition. The originators of this
wave watch and applaud the spread of their teachings from their comfort zone in
Riyadh.
This religious group believes in the eradication of cultural
and religious difference, in sectarianism, gender discrimination, and the
destruction of archaeological and cultural artefacts. It preaches hatred
against a whole range of groups.
Their reading of religious texts is literal and
ahistorical. They imagine the past as a glorious episode to which all
Muslims should return. In their relations with non-Muslims, they focus on
historical atrocities committed against Muslims and seek revenge. For many
Saudis, the recent attacks in Paris prompted
a process of remembrance of historical atrocities committed by the
French in Algeria. Images of Algerian martyrs were widely shared on social
media — as if this attack could be considered a response to the horrors of the
Algerian war of independence. The attack
on the Russian civilian plane in October was also labelled as an act
of revenge, retaliation for Russian atrocities committed against Muslims in
Afghanistan, Chechnya and, more recently, Syria.
Those who have experienced the ugly side of globalization —
permanent exile, uprootedness, anomie, and disempowerment — are most
susceptible to the identity that religious nationalism promises. You can be
rich or poor, educated or ignorant, settled or immigrant. It doesn’t matter. This is an ideology based on a false sense of history,
victimhood and revenge. Its quasi-universalism, clear lines between good and
evil, insiders and outsiders, and fixed gender roles are appealing in a world
where fluid identities are celebrated. With no real alternative, and given the
world’s increasing connectedness, it is likely to keep attracting zealous
followers.
Ugly zeal: The zeal of religious nationalism turns ugly when it moves
from the mosque to the military. And even uglier when it becomes the religion
of the state. Whether in Saudi Arabia or in the nascent so-called Islamic
State, where religious nationalism holds people together by the power of the
sword, it is difficult to imagine an alternative way of being Muslim.
In Saudi Arabia, the airstrikes on Yemen launched in March
proved a shrewd move for the government: They sparked the imagination of many
Saudis who saw them through the prism of their old Wahhabi tradition as
countering the hegemony of a rival Shiite power, namely Iran and
its alleged Zaydi
Houthi clients. The Saudi leadership could not simply watch a rival
power such as the Islamic State take all the credit for eradicating heretics.
Both Saudi Arabia and the Islamic State came into being as a result of the same
type of ideology. Their interests may clash but they share a common goal.
Unless religious nationalism is replaced by new
identities about being citizens in a bounded nation in which people enjoy
equality and rights, we will continue to see a repeat of the terrorist
atrocities committed in the name of Islam.
http://thewire.in/2016/01/03/wahhabi-religious-nationalism-has-moved-from-mosque-to-military-18488/see also
The US is paying the cost of supporting the House of Saud
