If you want to discredit the Islamists, let them win.

If you want to discredit the Islamists, let them win.

The mistake that the current counterinsurgency doctrine makes is to keep Islamists in the opposition, either as a minority party in parliament or as an insurgency. If the ideologues of the war on terror are sincere in their description of the “Global Struggle against Violent Extremism” as fundamentally an ideological conflict, then keeping Islamists out of power is not only not a condition of victory, but is actually postponing the victory they seek. As long as Islamists never face the responsibility of governing a modern nation state, never have to take full responsibility for their policy decisions, economic strategy, and military tactics, Islamism as an ideology will never be entirely discredited. It will continue on indefinitely as the voice of the voiceless, offering solutions that have the virtue of having never been tested, and killing in the name of a world view that, because it has never been put to an empirical test, can never be decisively refuted.

An analogy can be made with the struggle for Marxist-Leninist revolution. A hundred failed coup attempts, guerilla wars, and terrorist campaigns were incapable of discrediting the Lenninist project in the public eye. The failure of “actually existing socialism” in the Soviet Bloc and the transition to authoritarian capitalism in China, by way of contrast, dealt the Leninist ideology a blow from which it never recovered, a blow so severe that it has damaged the prospects for other, non-Leninist projects of the Left. A similar failure or failures on the part of Islamist regimes could produce a similar effect: the discrediting of Islamism as a significant ideology of struggle.

Islamists can be divided into two camps. First, there are those for whom Islam is a convenient guise and justification for naked authoritarianism. The regime of Zia-ul-Haque of Pakistan or the current regime in Sudan are examples. While having to engage in a certain amount of contrariness concerning Western hegemony in order to maintain their credibility, regimes (and resistance movements) of this type are also, generally, willing to integrate themselves into the global economic order, provided their local prerogatives are maintained. The Islamism of these groups primarily consists of the token brutalization of women and criminals, justified by a very narrow and fragmented notion of “Shariah” or Islamic law. They are a counterpart of the various forms of Christian (American Militia, Chauvinist Russian Orthodoxy), Jewish (Settler), Hindu (Hindutva), and, yes, even Buddhist (Sri Lankan Nationalist) extremism that have arisen as ideological supplements of the more authoritarian versions of capitalism.

The second type of Islamist wants to tear down the existing infidel (or kafir) order and rebuild a new, purer, “Islamic” one in its place. Their project is essentially nihilistic, and grows not only from the social and economics repression that feed insurgencies and revolutionary movements in general, but also from the nihilism that is at the heart of modernity. The radical Islamist project is epiphenomenal, not the seed of a new order in incubation, but a symptom of capitalism’s decay. According to Simon Critchley “the active nihilist... tries to destroy this world and bring another into being” (Infinitely Demanding, 5). He then suggests that we “should approach Al-Qaeda with the words and actions of bin Laden resonating against those of Lenin... Baader-Meinhoff” (ibid. 5-6). This connection via the common origin in nihilism is key to the discrediting of this current of thought. Just as the Weather Underground, the Red Army Faction, and other domestic terrorist groups disintegrated during the decline of the Soviet Bloc and failed to be replaced after its fall, a series of discredited Islamist regimes could lead to the evaporation of radical Islamist insurgencies as a meaningful political force. The underlying forces of nihilism and socio-economic injustice that fuel insurgency would still remain, of course, but these could then be redirected into movements that are actually capable of resolving these problems.

Islamism is a dead end precisely because it doesn’t have concrete answers to the practical problems facing the Muslim world. The first type of Islamism is not interested in solving these problems; for the rulers of the authoritarian regimes of the Muslim world, social injustice is only a problem when it threatens their grip on power. Islamism actually makes the situation worse by providing an escape vent for social frustration. A government that can’t solve the problem of unemployment can instead solve the “problem” of women wearing pants (as happened in Sudan) or women smoking hooka (as happened in Gaza). A government that cannot provide meaningful rule of law can instead provide the brutalization of those accused of crimes as public spectacle. The second type of Islamism is not interested in anything so mundane as practical policy. Its “solution” is a radical re-ordering of the social space according to what it claims is the model of Medina. While a radical re-imagining of what world would look like post-capitalism is doubtless a vital task for anyone committed to substantial social change and such change is clearly mandated by the current state of the world, this re-imagining must be rigorous, precise, detailed, and deep. The origins of each of the problems posed by capitalist modernity must be plumbed, their likely trajectories charted, and their solution plotted in detail. The Islamists have failed to do this. They offer platitudes in place of answers, slogans in place of analysis, and bullets and bombs in place of sound methodology. This will only become apparent, however, if the Islamists are able to grasp the reigns of power and falter in the saddle.

The consequences of pursuing the current course in relation to Islamist currents are dire. In Pakistan, the Islamist discourse has seriously derailed the trajectory of the trends towards a popular revolution. Even the much vaunted Lawyers movement has been co-opted, as seen by the movements’ approval of the assassination of the Governor of Punjab during the recent controversy over the infamous blasphemy law. At this point, it is likely that only something like a Maoist Cultural Revolution could redeem the hope for a truly popular revolution in Pakistan. The defeat of Islamism (and any other reactionary or nihilistic ideology emerging in a similar mold) as a viable ideology is therefore a vital campaign in the struggle for a just global economic and social order. This can only happen if the emperor is allowed to go naked.