Islamic justice
& development parties
Atif
Noor Khan
In its history in political work, the identity issue overwhelmed the Islamic
movement and was a top priority for issues like Islamic State, rule of Islam
and applying Sharia (Islamic law). These identity-oriented issues were the core
of any political slogan or party platform they may propose. Even when political
or legal restrictions prevent them from making public the identity issues, they
have been including them in their slogans, speeches and platforms like Turkish
Islamic leader Necmettin Erbakan who was forced by the strict legal
restrictions in the Kamalist secular system to raise the slogan of building a
fair system and bringing the country back to the age of glory and prosperity.
Everyone knew that he implicitly means establishing the Islamic system that
applies Sharia and restores the Caliphate. In this context,
Islamic parties have been keeping in their memory the issue of identity not
only in their programs but also in their names. The most well-known parties
have names which either directly reflect their Islamic identity like “the
Islamic Party” in Malaysia, “ the Islamic Action Front “ in Jordan or “the
Islamic Salvation Front” in Algeria . Or they give a priority to a pillar of
the Islamic project like “Sharia Party” (an Islamic party draft in Egypt), “Virtue
Party” in Turkey or
“Movement for the Society of Peace” in Algeria.
However, a decade ago, the phenomenon of Justice and Development parties
emerged to put justice and development issues a central position in their
discourse and names as well. The phenomenon started in Morocco with the
establishment of the Justice and Development party (PJD) in 1998 to extend to
the Arab and Muslim world in the shape of parties which are already founded and
others which are still under construction. In Turkey, the middle generation in
the Islamic movement established a party with the same name Justice and
Development (AK Party); in Indonesia, Islamists established the party of
Justice and Development and in Malaysia Anwar Ibrahim, the former leader of the
movement of Muslim Youth, founded a new party named the Keadilan party, or the
People’s Justice . In Iraq, a Shiite
Islamic group adopted the idea and established a party named Justice and
Development, although it is still in the sidelines of the overall Islamic scene
in the political scene in general. In Mauritania, Islamists
established “The National Gathering for Reform and Development” , another
variation of Justice and Development coined by their Moroccan Islamic
neighbours. It has a charisma and influence in the Mauritanian Islamic case.
There is also a botched attempt in Bahrain, and
another one in Egypt, in a group
on the margin of the Islamic movement but were rejected by authorities. All of
them are parties or drafts of parties bearing the name of Justice and
Development which emerged from the Islamic movement in their countries.
We are seemingly facing a phenomenon that needs to be studied specially that it
presents questions more than answers. The first question is why this
name-Justice and Development- mushrooms in drafts of Islamic parties, while
traditional names related to the core of the Islamic ideology like Al-Umma
(Nation), Sharia (Islamic Law), Al-Islah (Reform) and Al-Nahda (Renaissance)
retreated. This change may be with a bigger and a deeper shift that the Islamic
phenomenon has witnessed in the past two decades. This shift moved it from a
political platform to a social platform as a part of the changes in the Islamic
and Arab societies, and changes all over the world which is witnessing the
waning or end of ideologies. In the midst of this change, the social platform
and its slogan (justice and development) have become more attractive and more
powerful to pave the way for these Islamists towards power. We can also link
between this phenomenon and what took place throughout the last decade,
including reviews inside the Islamic discourse mostly related to the Islamic
vision of the idea of a state and its excessive sensitivity to the issue of
identity. Most of these reviews were carried out under pressure of the secular
criticism to the Islamic political discourse accusing it of using hollow
slogans and ideology. However, the phenomenon can be at the same time linked
with increasing demand especially in the West and the United
States for “Moderate Islam” whose
characteristics of moderation are determined with abandoning the political and
coming closer to the social and developmental.
Finally, the phenomenon has a confirmed link with social and class changes
inside components of the Islamic movement itself that generally witnessed a
social tide on the one hand and coming closer to people, their cares and
interests on the other hand, making it moving further from the strict and pure
ideological nature, hence traditional issues of this ideology like rule and
sharia retreated.In the Justice and Development parties, we should have a stop
at what can be considered a common factor that gathers them and make them be
collective considered a phenomenon. Definitely, the similarity exceeds the
issue of bearing the same name or its variations. There are other factors that
gather them. I think that they revolve around a general approach that gives
priority to the demand of achieving justice among people, and developing
societies. Thus, they give the issue of justice and development a priority
sometimes at the expense of the issue of identity and related issues. As every
country has its specialty and every Islamic movement has its own experience,
The Justice and Development Party in a traditional Muslim Arab country like
Morocco- a state which is based on a religious legitimacy (state of the
commander of the faithful) is different from Kamalist Turkey that canceled the
caliphate and established a secularist model that wants to end any thing of
Islamic nature. While the elite and grassroots of the Moroccan Islamic movement
are more related the Islamic rituals, symbols and meanings, unlike its Turkish
counterpart where the relation with the west is deep-rooted not only on the
geographical level but also as a view and a future project adopted in any
reform view. Thus, be careful lest you are deceived that they are similar.
Assessing the Justice and Development experience in a decade, how far these
Islamic parties have a development model that distinguishes them from other
liberal and socialist parties. Add to this seeking to know details of this
model in economy and social affairs in general. In this regard, we will be
surprised to know that this model that links its origins with a certain Islamic
vision, is either identically similar to the western economic and development
model as is the case in the Turkish Justice and Development Party (AK party) or
People”s Justice in Malaysia ( where there is a relation with the western
capitalist model and its centers, and the big influence of neo-liberalism) , or
it is like Moroccan Justice and Development party (PJD) which is closer to the
market economy, with a social role from the country and with a hesitation or
unsettling of core issues like the distribution of wealth and the policy of
economic monopolies, the challenging issue in a country like Morocco, or that
its visions are incomplete because it is still young and for the specialty of
its country as is the case in Mauritania which is still closer to the stage
before the foundation of the modern state.Future questions over the phenomenon
of Justice and Development parties are still unanswered especially concerning
issues related to the model it offers in Islamic political work. These
questions include the ones related to how far the development approach as an
alternative to the identity approach is stable without backpedaling in a time
of in which the identity discourse rises or how far the Islamic movement,
whatever its care for people”s issues and development, exceeds the identity and
applying Sharia issues, and the way or forms through which identity issues are
handled for the Islamic movement represented by the Justice and Development
parties, if we agree that it is difficult for them to fully exceed them. Add to
this how these Islamic parties understand Islamic Sharia, and how far they
disagree with traditional Islamic counterparts and finally view of these
parties, specially in countries that took considerable steps in modernism and
secularization, to ways of lowering the authority of Sharia in a secular
reality. Here, we can know a huge diversity in experiences of the Justice and
Development parties. The Moroccan PJD party for example distinguished between
the missionary and political, to cover up its withdrawal from identity issues
leaving them to a separate missionary movement and to be dedicated to political
issues. However, it did not and can”t get fully divorced from identity issues
in a country where Francophone has a big influence, specially in the cultural
circles although its political regime is a monarchy. While the Turkish party
did not stop for long at such issues. It got fully divorced from them and
presented itself as a political party that cares for identity issues that enjoy
a Turkish consensus, and is finally having a secularist Kamalaist hue with an
influential national spirit.It is difficult to give a final or decisive answer,
but tentatively, there is a disparity between responses of the Islamic Justice
and Development parties in front of these challenges and problems. We are
seemingly in front of two contradictory kinds of response and other responses
are in between: Two models: one of them seeks to Islamize modernism as is the
case in the Moroccan Justice and Development Party (PJD) while the other the
Turkish AK party sees that it starts with modernizing Islam.
http://pakobserver.net/200809/04/Articles04.asp
