Understanding Islamist fundamentalism

Martyrs. Innocence, Vengeance and Despair in the Middle East. Joyce M. Davis. Palgrave. [pounds sterling]18.99 ($24.95). 214 pages. ISBN 0-3122-9616-9. The Challenge of Fundamentalism: Political Islam and the New World Disorder. Bassam Tibi. University of California. [pounds sterling]13.95 p.b. 262 pages. ISBN 0-520-23690-4.

Joyce M. Davis is 'deputy foreign editor at Knight Ridder newspapers and her articles appear in the company's 32 newspapers throughout the United States'. If those papers are more regional than metropolitan in circulation, they will above all be serving 'Middle America'. That fact may have influenced the author's concern to assuage American prejudice about Islam, particularly post-2001. But this is no mere end in itself. The author's more ambitious, though somewhat camouflaged, agenda is to map an exit route from the impasse of U.S. foreign policy, committed as it is to the survival of Israel yet now challenged by a resourceful terrorist movement pursuing a total war against American values, security, and international interests.

In successive tours of the Middle East the author collected much moving testimony. Alongside some acute observation, her journalistic technique rather favours the 'human interest' dimension: the lives of innocent Muslim child victims of street warfare; of slaughtered Jewish innocents (only two pages for these); of a Christian woman suicide-bombers; of several Palestinian suicide-bombers; of the alleged ringleader of the September 11th attackers too, all reconstructed from the recollections of their families and, where possible, from the bereaved mothers. Two Muslim mothers are given a chapter to themselves. But so also are two of the strong-willed and strategically long-sighted Palestinian trainers of the human 'delivery vehicles'.

This is not Joyce Davis's terminology. It would probably detract from the dignity of the cause for which the bombers sacrifice themselves. The cover illustration glamorises 'the young martyr', and the author emphasises the motivating force of Palestinian suffering, while rejecting the notion of 'manipulation' by the controllers. Yet at the same time she shows that it is they who teach the bombers that they will become martyrs as defined by the Quran. Importantly, since civilians are fair game for the new Jihad, this is an 'evil distortion', developed by radical, self-styled 'authorities' in a line of descent from Sayyid Qutb.

To confirm this interpretation, Joyce Davis can only quote her own preferred authorities from the moderate wing of Islam. She offers no argument for the scholarly credibility of the moderates, yet advocates that they be cultivated, especially within the U.S., as the primary defence against al Qaeda. This tactic should be backed by a withdrawal of U.S. support from Israel and the 'Muslim despots'. Surprisingly, though, writing in mid-2002, she warns George Bush to keep his hands off (surely despotic?) Saddam.

It might be facile for a reviewer to pronounce this author as 'living in another world'. But she is no Arabist and the world she inhabits is not that of the Israeli, Egyptian or U.S. governments who must assess their painful options as defenders of national security and public safety. It would not be so bad if she had spoken to any Israelis before coming to her conclusions, but one sees no evidence of it. Only political leaders and the intelligentsia in the Arab countries were interviewed. A couple of acute Israeli intelligence experts are quoted, but only from their websites. She diverts towards her own pacifist purpose the manifestly security-focused message of Reuven Paz about the debilitating void in the U.S. Administration's knowledge of Arab culture.

Not that Joyce Davis lacks an understanding of philosophical issues and some of the roots of Muslim militancy apart from the territorial issue, as one has indicated; she gives good accounts of Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Yet there is never a whisper about their role in propelling Sharon to power in place of Barak. Meanwhile, unwilling to contemplate the prospect of 'a long haul', she falls back on her Christian, or politically correct, disposition to turn the other cheek or examine her national conscience, thus seeking the cure for Middle Eastern woes closer to home.

Perhaps it is because the philosophical issues of the age are taxing for the average Westerner that publishers give priority to 'accessibility'. But this does not necessarily favour ideological transparency. The public needs to be enlightened about the existence of up-to-date works which are not only philosophical and founded in history, but lucid in their analyses and honest about their political objectives. It is gratifying that Bassam Tibi, a leading scholar of Damascene origin, has republished his seminal work on fundamentalism in the wake of September 2001. Savour the clarity of these lines: 'I maintain that democracy and human rights are the primary guarantors of human dignity, and that Islamic fundamentalism is the most recent variety of totalitarianism'.