Islamist radicalisation the challenge for euro-mediterranean relations

6 | R
OBERT 
S
PRINGBORG
 
younger members lured by the appeals of a Facebook, interactive politics 
away from the fundamentalist and hierarchical principles of the MB and its 
fellow travellers.  
The contemporary political scene therefore appears to be one that is 
characterised on the surface by an authoritarian status quo, beneath which 
there are signs of organisational decay both within the ranks of moderate 
Islamists and in government. Secular, liberal political organisations are 
conspicuous in their absence. At the same time, Arab streets are becoming 
more restless not only as a result of this political stagnation, but also 
because of perceived consequences of bad governance for their daily lives. 
Inflation, especially of food prices, is the most evident and politically 
dangerous of these shortcomings. Given these signs of surface decay and 
sub-surface volatility, the latter of which is further enhanced by the 
availability of virtual political space through the Internet and mobile 
phones, the potential for volcanic political eruptions is increasing. As that 
pressure has mounted, however, there are relatively few signs of a renewal 
of Islamist violence spearheaded by radical, underground organisations, 
causing one to wonder why. 
The most obvious answer is that the deterrent capacities of regimes 
have been reinforced. Indeed, incumbent rulers matched surface 
liberalisations with sub-structural reinforcements of security and 
intelligence forces, presumably in order to be able to draw firm bottom 
lines that would set the limits of those liberalisations. The tightening-up of 
constitutional, legal and administrative constraints on political freedoms 
has accompanied the muscling-up of those forces charged with monitoring 
and clearing political streets. In Egypt, that has taken the particularly 
sinister form of plainclothes goon squads being infiltrated into 
demonstrations to intimidate, beat and even sexually molest 
demonstrators. Lest those whose nominal rights have been violated seek 
redress in the courts, the regime moved in May 2008 to extend the 
Emergency Law, which has been in effect throughout the entirety of the 
Mubarak era and which the president promised to rescind during his 2005 
presidential election campaign. The approximately 1.4 million-strong 
internal security forces include vast numbers of police spies within the 
Orwellian State Security Investigations, so only the brave or the foolish 
consider plotting against the regime. And since even nominally legal 
political activity, including active participation in an opposition political 
party or human rights organisation, can result in retaliation by the state,  
 

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 CONTRIBUTING TO RE
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RADICALISATION
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7 
complete withdrawal from political life is the only truly safe, hence most 
common strategy, whether in the form of voter apathy or the rise of a 
quietist Salafism. 
Another impediment to the resurgence of violent Islamism is the 
recent historical record of the failure of this approach. Algeria and Egypt 
witnessed significant Islamist insurrections that ended in costly failures. 
The reverberations of counter-insurgency warfare for even non-combatants 
were sufficiently unpleasant for them to have a lasting deterrent effect on 
potential host populations. The clear lesson for those contemplating the 
overthrow of entrenched, authoritarian regimes was that a head-on assault 
would not work. In Egypt, that lesson should have been learned in 1981 
when Islamic Jihad thought that the combination of the assassination of 
President Anwar Sadat and an uprising in Asyut would spark rebellion 
everywhere. That they truly learned that lesson in the wake of the failed 
1992–97 insurrection is suggested by the apparently heartfelt recantations 
of members of the Jamaah al-Islamiyya and Jamaat al-Jihad after they had 
languished in prison for years. The Saudi authorities’ similar success in 
inducing former Islamist guerrillas to repent suggests that they too have 
come to appreciate the durability of the regimes and possibly also the 
theological and political deficiencies of radical Islamism.
6
  
Olivier Roy’s reference to the “failure of political Islam” is certainly 
correct when applied to its violent variant, a fact recognised by most Arab 
publics.
7
 Egypt and Algeria were signal lessons, but so too has been Iraq, 
where the nihilistic excesses of al-Qaeda-affiliated insurrectionists 
combined with the rejection of them by Sunni nationalists and even other 
Islamists have discredited not only al-Qaeda in most of the Arab world, but 
also violent Islamism more generally. The Iraqi-related al-Qaeda hotel 
bombings in Amman in November 2005 brought that message home 
directly to Jordanians. Meanwhile, the Lebanese have approached the brink 
of widespread violence in recent years, but on each occasion, including that 
in May 2008 with the so-called ‘coup’ by Hizbullah, they have backed away 
                                                      
6
 On the Saudi strategy and its results, see C. Boucek, Saudi Arabia’s Soft 
Counterterrorism Strategy: Prevention, Rehabilitation, and Aftercare, Carnegie Paper 
No. 97, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Washington, D.C., 
September 2008. 
7
 O. Roy, The Failure of Political Islam, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 
1994.  

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