Post-Islamism and fields of contention after the Arab Spring: feminism, Salafism and the revolutionary youth

Abstract

In the aftermath of the Arab Spring, conflicts in Egypt and Tunisia over the authority to rule and the role of religion in society raised questions about these societies’ capacity for reconciling differences. In retrospect, the conflicts also raise questions about the theoretical tools used to analyse regional developments. In particular, the ‘post-Islamism’ thesis has significantly changed the debates on ‘Islam and democracy’ by bringing to light the changing opportunity structures, and changed goals, of Islamist movements. However, this paper argues that the theory underestimates differences within post-Islamist societies. Drawing on field theory, the paper shows how the actual content of post-Islamism is contingent on political struggle. It focuses on three fields whose political roles have been underestimated or misrepresented by post-Islamist theorists: Islamic feminism, Salafist-jihadism and the revolutionary youth. Their respective forms of capital – sources of legitimacy and social recognition – give important clues for understanding the stakes of the conflicts after the Arab Spring.

Keywords:

• Arab Spring
• Egypt
• gender and feminism
• post-Islamism
• Salafism
• Tunisia

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Nicolas Pouillard, Gökhan Duman, and three anonymous reviewers for helpful comments and suggestions.

Notes

1. Bayat “Coming of a Post-Islamist Society”; Roy, Globalised Islam; Gómez Garcìa, “Post-Islamism”; Stein “Studying Islamism”; Chamkhi, “Neo-Islamism”; Cavatorta and Merone “Post-Islamism.”

2. Lust, Soltan, and Wichmann, “After the Arab Spring”; Stepan, “Tunisia’s Transition”; Bayat, “Arab Spring”; Roy, “Transformation of the Arab World.”

3. Cavatorta and Merone “Post-Islamism.”

4. Roy, “Transformation of the Arab World,” 12.

5. Bourdieu, Language and Symbolic Power; Bourdieu, Practical Reason.

6. See Bayat, “Women’s Non-Movement,” and Roy, “Transformation of the Arab World.”

7. Gómez García, “Post-Islamism.”

8. Roy, Globalised Islam, 4.

9. Bayat, “Coming of a Post-Islamist Society,” 45; see also Bayat, Post-Islamism.

10. Roy, Failure of Political Islam.

11. Bayat, “Coming of a Post-Islamist Society,” 45–46.

12. Roy, Globalised Islam, 61.

13. Ibid., 61.

14. Bayat, Making Islam Democratic, 10–11.

15. Alfred Stepan has elaborated a similar, yet more theoretical, argument. Stepan argues that democratisation, in Tunisia in particular, is facilitated by ‘twin tolerations’; the first being that of religious citizens towards the state, in particular toleration of democratic decision-making in which legitimacy derives from the self-governing people, not religion, and the second being that of the state towards religious citizens, which requires non-intervention from laws and officials in the practices of religious citizens, their expressions of views and values, their participation in politics and civil society, on equal terms – that is, their freedom of action which is to be restricted only with reference to the equal rights of other citizens. ‘In a democracy’, he writes, ‘religion need not be “off the agenda”, and indeed, to force it off would violate the second toleration’. Stepan, “Tunisia’s Transition,” 90.

16. Bayat, “Arab Spring and its Surprises.”

17. Ibid., 592.

18. Ibid., 592–593.

19. See especially Roy, “Transformation of the Arab World.”

20. There are important differences with regard to the imagined content of the post-Islamist condition. For example, where Roy makes his case in primarily negative terms and mainly seeks to predict what will not happen after the ‘failure’ of political Islam, Bayat believes that post-Islamism means a victory for liberal rights and disqualifies actors that are not liberal enough as irrelevant to the development of the post-Islamist society. See Roy, Globalised Islam; and Bayat, “Coming of a Post-Islamist Society.”

21. Lipset, “Some Social Requisites.”

22. Bayat, “Arab Spring.”

23. Bayat, “Post-Islamist Revolutions.”

24. Gómez García, “Post-Islamism.”

25. Bayat, “Arab Spring,” 593–594.

26. Roy, “Transformation of the Arab World,” 8.

27. Bayat, “Arab Spring.”

28. Roy, “Transformation of the Arab World,” 12.

29. Ibid., 9.

30. See Roy, “What Is the Driving Force.”

31. Bayat, “Women's Non-Movement,” 165.

32. Roy, “Transformation of the Arab World,” 16.

33. Bayat, “Arab Spring,” 594–595.

34. Bourdieu, Language and Symbolic Power; Bourdieu, Practial Reason.

35. Salafist activist quoted in Merone, “Salafism in Tunisia.”

36. Ibid.

37. Bourdieu and Wacquant, Invitation to Reflexive Sociology, 98–99.

38. The sources are all in English, due to the author’s limited knowledge of Arabic. All of the material was available online at the time of writing, which hopefully makes it possible to discuss alternative interpretations.

39. Bayat, “Women's Non-Movement,” 165.

40. El-Mahdi, “Does Political Islam Impede,” 395.

41. Bayat, “Women's Non-Movement,” 165. In another analysis, Bayat dismisses Heba Raouf Ezzat’s views, along with those of other ‘Islamic feminists’, as being anti-feminist. Bayat, Making Islam Democratic, 157.

42. Fraser, ”Rethinking the Public Sphere.”

43. El-Mahdi, “Does Political Islam Impede,” 392.

44. Ibid., 391.

45. Ibid., 388.

46. Raouf Ezzat, “Rethinking Secularism ... Rethinking Feminism.”

47. Qureshi and Raouf Ezzat, “Are Sharia Laws.”

48. Raouf Ezzat, “Rethinking Secularism ... Rethinking Feminism.”

49. Heba Raouf Ezzat quoted in Mahmood, Politics of Piety, 52

50. Marks, “Youth Politics”; Merone and Cavatorta, “Salafist Mouvance,” 6; Wiktorowicz, “Anatomy of the Salafi Movement.”

51. Merone and Cavatorta, “Salafist Mouvance,” 6.

52. Sami, “Salafism and Coffee.”

53. Merone and Cavatorta, “Salafist Mouvance,” 6.

54. Ibid., 7.

55. Ibid.

56. Ibid., 7.

57. Fraser, “Rethinking the Public Sphere.”

58. Ibid., 68.

59. Merone, “Salafism in Tunisia.”

60. Merone, “Salafism in Tunisia.”

61. See Merone and Cavatorta, “Salafist Mouvance,” 8.

62. Quoted in Cole, “Egypt's New Left,” 502.

63. “Interview with Ahmed Maher.”

64. Abdel-Baky, “Something Big.”

65. “Tamarod: Army Response.”

66. “Mohamed Abdelaziz.”

67. “Egypt's Tamarod.”

68. Kirkpatrick, “Egyptian Liberals.”

69. Human rights activist Wael Abbas quoted in Van Langendonck, “In Egypt.”

70. Honwana, “Youth and Revolution in Tunisia”; Collins, “Voices of a Revolution.”

71. “In Translation: April 6’s Ahmed Maher.”