| Photo by Jane Scherr |
Ira Lapidus Interview: Conversations with History; Institute of International Studies, UC Berkeley
| Photo by Jane Scherr |
Page 6 of 7
In the concluding part of your book, you talk about the Islamic revival as a way to get a handle on recent events, and you argue that it's much more complex than we normally realize. We don't want to fall into the trap of saying the terrorist, the jihadists, are the only element of the Islamic revival. There are other forms of revival. What are those other forms, and what is the diversity that they represent, that sometimes we're not seeing?
The other forms are basically religious revivals where people preach, go to mosques, listen to sermons and tapes of sermons, and so on. There are educational movements that want to uplift the condition of Muslims by providing an education. There are social welfare movements, a very important part of the revival: a community organizing to provide everything from charitable support to families, jobs for men out of work, intervention in family matters; communities [provide] social services -- everything down to picking up the garbage and monitoring the water supply, or talking to government officials to make sure that [someone's] check comes through.
It's a political party/welfare party kind of stuff. That's what the Islamic revival represents everywhere. But it's done on a religious basis. It's a faith-based revival. So people are motivated and explain it in religious terms. That is the much more common and almost universal form of Islamic revival.
Is there also a political reform movement that's not necessarily directed to combining traditional Islam with the control of the state?
There's a spectrum here, too. You find political movements where people try to translate this party-machine base into politics. They want to run for parliament, they want to get seats in parliament. They want to influence legislation. They don't have many opportunities to do that. The most visible one right now is the outcome of the elections in Turkey, where what was validly an Islamic party three years ago presents itself now in neutral reformist terms. But everyone knows this is motivated by Islamic welfare considerations. Now they've taken power, and I think they are going to try to function in the parliamentary framework of Turkey to advance their interest. I see them as, in effect, the equivalent of a Christian Democratic Party. They are a "Muslim Democratic Party."
Then you do have movements that are broad-based politically, but whose ultimate agenda is to create an Islamic state. You have that, too.
The problem in most of the Muslim world is that neither local governments nor the United States is willing to give these parties a chance in a fair, democratic electoral competition, and see what they do. Everyone's afraid that if they come to power, they'll immediately turn radical.
Sometimes it seems we, that is, the United States, in our foreign policy are our own worst enemy, in the sense that our narrow focus on terrorism leads us to [support] particular regimes that further the success of the very radical fundamentalists we oppose.
Yes.
It seems to be the case in Pakistan, for example.
Yes. That's a dilemma that we've never been able to resolve. The classic case is the Shah of Iran, whom we backed entirely, thinking that he would be "our man" in the Middle East. And that didn't work. In other regimes, the struggle is reduced to a struggle of force, when you have a repressive regime and you get a violent opposition. There's no middle ground for political competition. That's very dangerous.
Are you, as a historian, frustrated by the limited extent to which a historian's understanding of Islam is not reflected in the policies of your own government?
Oh, yes, sure. I'm sure I could advise how to do a better job. I'm not sure I could get it done. Yes, and you can see what my frustration is, that the problem is not seen in a large enough context and that the solutions people try to get are not sufficiently various and multiple-leveled solutions. We go too much to the same devices of military power and economic bribery.
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