A R C H I V E S
Madinat al-Muslimeen Islamic Message Board
| Modernization and Islam |
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| jannah |
| 01/15/03 at 02:28:26 |
| -Thought this was really interesting... don't agree with everything of course, many people hate shariarti for his "modernist" ideas but i thought it was interesting intellectual reading and good for discussion of ideas, it's apt that this is compiled from "From where do we begin"... what do y'all think? Modernization and Islam By Dr. Ali Shariati Mankind is being driven into a new stronghold of slavery. Although we are not in physical slavery, our thoughts, hearts, and will powers are enslaved. In the name of sociology, education, art, sexual freedom, financial freedom, love of exploitation, and love of individuals, faith in goals, faith in humanitarian responsibilities and belief in one's own school of thought are entirely taken away from within our hearts. The new so-called modern culture is built on the basis of "Western superiority and the superiority of it's civilization and it's people. The West made the world believe that the European was exceptionally talented mentally and technically, whereas the Easterner had strange emotional and gnostic talents. These were the persons who convinced people to lay aside their orthodoxy, discard their religion, get rid of native culture (as these had kept them behind the modern European societies) and become Westernized from the tip of the toe to the top of their head! Then this very way of thinking, which was introduced to the world to justify the need for modernizing the non-European nations, became the basis of thought for the non-European elites as well! Modernization in what? In consumption, not in mind. In the name of civilization, the campaign for modernization was carried on, and then for more than 100 years, the non-European societies themselves strove to become modernized under the leadership of their sophisticated intellectuals. Let us consider the genesis and composition of this class of intellectuals. Jean Paul Sartre in the preface to "the Wretched of the Earth" points out: "We would bring a group of African or Asian youth to Amsterdam, Paris, London......for a few months, take them around, change their clothes and adornments, teach them etiquette and social manners as well as some fragment of language. In short, we would empty them of their own cultural values and then send them back to their own countries. They would no longer be the kind of person to speak their own mind; rather they would be our mouthpieces. We would cry the slogans of humanity and equality and then they would echo our voice in Africa and Asia, "humanity", and "equality." As Fanon says: "In order for Eastern countries to be the followers of Europe and imitate her like a monkey, they should have proven to the non-Europeans that they do not posses the same quality of human values as the Europeans do. They should have belittled their history, literature, religion and art to make them alienated from all of it. We can see that the Europeans did just that." A real intellectual is one who knows his society, is aware of it's problems, can determine it's fate, is knowledgeable about it's past and who can decide for himself. These quasi-intellectuals, however, succeeded in influencing the people. WHAT IS CULTURE? What is culture? It is the spiritual, mental, moral, and historical accumulations of a nation, similar to natural resources. How were natural resources formed? Throughout centuries animals and plants were pressurizes within layers in the depth of the earth. Due to the interplay of myriads of variables they were transformed into vital economic substances. Throughout history, culture, due to the appearance and demise of successive generations, also becomes accumulated and forms the spiritual assets of a nation. No matter how we interpret originality, it belongs to history since man's character is not suddenly formed from nothing in a single period. Christianity, which throughout centuries was the cause of retardation, was transformed into a builder and energizer of Europe. Unlike what we are told it was not the negation of religion which created modern Western civilization but the transformation of a corrupt and ascetic religion into a critical, protesting and mundane Christianity. That is, Protestantism was the creator of modern Western civilization, rather than materialism or anti-religious sentiments which did not exist in the Renaissance. The transformation of Catholic to Protestant meant changing a corrupt religious spirit to a social religious spirit, one which built today's grand civilization upon centuries of Western retardation and inertia. What was Renaissance? It was a revival of the Greek cultural elements which were unknown in the Middle Ages. Therefore today's great Western civilization is the product of 15th,16th, and 17th century thinkers who decided to extract the Greek and Roman cultural resources (along with their own vast reservoir of faith and feeling) in order to consciously "know" Christianity, so that they could convert this opiate to energy and awareness-generating force. And they successfully did it. Why are we not told the truth? We are told these thinkers threw religion and past away, marched forward and suddenly embraced a new civilization! But how could they march forward empty-handed? With an empty hand you must start from zero and a primitive condition. Rather, they returned to the past consciously from the right direction, and instead of knowing Plato and Aristotle through the Arabs, they decided to do it their own way. We Easterners have been civilization builders and humanity's teachers throughout man's history, so much so that we now own a collection of vast and deep cultural, mental, and social experiences of humanity. Why can't we, by depending on ourselves, extract and refine all these spiritual resources (which have been sitting unknown and idle), rejuvenate, and convert them to consciousness raising and protesting forces? Yes, we have these vast resources which are like mines and rich sea under our feet, but they were severed to such an extent that in order to regain our personality we have to resort to others. What should we do? We must mend and fill up this gap in order to be able to think independently and know ourselves. We must find the strength to choose and turn into a creative force the past historical, religious, theosophical, and literary factors which have changed to superstition, and opiate matters and have caused inertia and corruption in our societies. The Westerners, unlike what they did to Africans, did not negate our past, they metamorphosed it. And when we look at our own new portrait we hated it. Consequently we began to run towards our "metamorphosed" past and religion, as well as towards European schools and culture. We have had no choice but to shatter such images of ourselves and inculcate the portrait of reality in the minds of our masses in the East, and extract and refine our cultural resources, not the way the West has done it for us, but with a method and conscious responsibility, relative to our people and society. Further, as in economics, where we convert raw materials to energy and consequently start a great industry and production, we have to use the same spirit in building up our personality and cultural independence in thinking, spirituallity, and human movement. AN ENLIGHTENED MUSLIM Third World countries, and particularly Islamic societies, have witnessed mistakes and deviations committed by the so-called enlightened thinkers. An unfortunate development, which I call the history of "confusing the issues" (awadi gereftanha) constitutes the story of the fundamental errors committed by the educated Muslims as well as those of other Eastern societies, Like a scientist who imports medicine to his country, these people believed that enlightenment could be imported to their home while they themselves played the role of enlightened persons. The tragic result was that the Eastern and Islamic societies were deprived of their best minds, individuals who could help their countries to recover from their backwardness. For years the feelings. consciences, and thoughts of our people were directed by the so called "enlightened," who delivered the wrong messages while thinking they were showing the path to salvation. Following their incorrect diagnoses, struggles and strivings, opportunities were lost, and people's potentials were wasted. The end result was hopelessness, desperation, hatred, evasion of responsibility, isolation, mysticism, and various games of existentialism. This continued until it was gradually replaced by another wrong direction, inappropriate objective, or mistaken diagnosis. The cycle repeated itself with the result that the people wasted their talents gathering around these social prophets. Our greatest and most pressing responsibility is to see, historically speaking, where the Muslim society is. Do Muslims live under the same conditions as those of twentieth century Europe, and is it thus possible for European solutions, ideologies and writers to be useful? Do Muslims live in an industrial age, and so experience the same problems as those of industrial societies? Have Muslim societies reached the modern bourgeois era? Have they passed the era of the rule of religion? Are they experiencing some kind of religious reform! Are Muslims living under the same conditions as were the Europeans during the Renaissance or during the French Revolution? How does one characterize Muslim culture? Once the historical condition and the culture of the society are understood, both the enlightened and the general public will know what their responsibilities and duties are. Historically speaking, the present condition of Muslims, as compared to that of the West, is where the latter was at the end of the Middle Ages and the beginning of the Renaissance. Similar to that time, Muslims are in a period of social and intellectual transformation. Economically, the dominant system in the Islamic societies is an "agricultural market" or the intermediate bourgeoisie. In other words, the largest and the basic foundation of the economy is agricultural production and not urban-market economy and bourgeois capitalism, as commonly understood. The reason is that European bourgeoisie, which contributed greatly to the French Revolution, was completely different from that of the present Iranian or other Islamic societies. The bourgeoisie in the Islamic Societies includes the bazaar merchants and not the modern industrial and banking capitalists. To be more exact, the bazaar merchants lack the vigor and dynamism of the modern bourgeoisie. They only act as a mediator between the agricultural sector and the consumer. There is, no doubt, a newly evolving bourgeoisie resembling that of eighteenth century Europe, but it has not had the same influence that the latter had. An enlightened Muslim must know that the Islamic spirit dominates his culture and that the historical processes of his society, as well as its moral codes, have all been shaped by Islam. To fail to understand this, as the majority of our "intellectuals" have, limits and restricts a person to his own irrelevant atmosphere. One cannot extend this experience to the Islamic world, because the culture of an Islamic society and the tradition which has shaped that society is utterly different from the spirit which under the name of religion ruled Europe in the Middle Ages. logically, therefore, one cannot judge and condemn both religions on the same ground. A comparison between the role of Islam in Africa and that of Christianity in Latin America illustrates my point. Thus, to fight Islam the same way that the enlightened individuals of sixteenth and seventeenth century Europe fought Christianity would be the gravest error, because religious feelings and the religious culture of Iran are completely different from what existed in the Middle Ages under the name of religion. To draw the same conclusion after comparing Christianity with Islam is a mistake. For a historian or a philosopher to see all religions in the same light is tolerable, but not for an enlightened person. He has to identify the kind of society in which he lives, understand its people, and at the same time, appreciate the historical condition they are in. An enlightened person in the Islamic world can commit a great error by mistaking the religious feeling that exists among the Muslim masses today as their true historical and cultural religion, thus fighting it as a source of calamities. He may then invite his society to accept an ideology compatible with nineteenth century German industrial society, thereby playing a deviant role in his society. Such an "intellectual" will frighten the masses by alienating them from the educated class, which in turn will force them to take refuge with the reactionary, deviant and colonial element in order to escape the anti-religious educated group. This may, in fact, be the central cause of the estrangement of the intellectuals from the masses in Islamic societies. A strictly formal and proper intellectual has no place among the masses and cannot communicate with them. It is as though they share no common language or culture. Moreover, the anti-religious experience of Christianity in the Middle Ages cannot be extended to the Islamic world, whether its past or its present. An enlightened person in an Islamic society, regardless of his own ideological convictions, must, of necessity, be an Islamologist. Having understood Islam, he will in astonishment realize the grave and disastrous waste of the intellects and the efforts of the people due to "wrong start," misunderstanding, irrelevant appreciation and irrational connections. The tragedy [in the Islamic world] is that, on the one hand, those who have controlled our religion over the past two centuries have transformed it into its present static form and, on the other hand, our enlightened people who understand the present age and the needs of our generation and time, do not understand religion. As a result, our Islamic society, despite Islam with its rich culture and history which would have otherwise enabled it to emancipate itself, could not acquire the religious awareness necessary for its salvation. The intellectuals erroneously fought Islam and the reactionaries used it to narcotize the masses and to maximize their own gains. Meanwhile, true Islam remains unknown and incarcerated in the depths of history. the masses buried in their own static and restricted traditions. and the intellectuals isolated from the masses and disliked by them. An enlightened Muslim, thus, should not be easily deceived. He should be fully aware of the fact that he has a unique culture which is neither totally spiritual, as is the Indian culture nor totally mystical, as is the Chinese, nor completely philosophical, as is the Greek, and nor entirely materialistic and technological, as is the Western culture His is a mixture of faith, idealism and spirituality and yet full of life and energy with a dominant spirit of equality and justice, the ideology that Islamic societies and other traditional societies of the East are in desperate need of. Therefore, instead of being a translator of the works of foreign authors-which are useless to the masses anyway- a Muslim enlightened person should engage himself in discovering, extracting, and refining the life giving and powerful spirit of his society. He exists in the context of a dynamic culture and society as well as in the conscience of his people. One characteristic of this spirit is that, unlike other religions which justify poverty, Islam condemns it. A great student of Islam, Abudhar, says, "When poverty enters a home, religion exits from the window." The prophet of Islam and the founder of that religion declared: "Whoever is not able to provide for himself will not have a good life in the hereafter." These are contrary to the contemporary understanding of Islam which claims that "one who is caught in poverty and misery has a cleaner and humbler heart and is, thus, more amenable to receive unseen inspirations." An empty stomach lacks everything. A society which has economic problems also lacks spiritual wealth. Whatever is called ethics in a poor country is nothing but deviant customs and habits, not spirituality. Islam pays attention to bread, its eschatology is based on active life in the world, its God respects human dignity and its messenger is armed. An enlightened person should obtain the raw materials from his contemporary society and social life. There exists no universal type of enlightened person, with common values and characteristics everywhere. Our own history and experience have demonstrated that whenever an enlightened person turns his back on religion, which is the dominant spirit of the society, the society turns its back on him. Opposition to religion by the enlightened person deprives society of the possibility of becoming aware of the benefits and the fruit of its young and enlightened generation. An enlightened person should start with "religion." By that I mean our peculiar religious culture and not the one predominant today. He should begin by an Islamic Protestantism similar to that of Christianity in the Middle Ages, destroying all the degenerating factors which, in the name of Islam, have stymied and stupefied the process of thinking and the fate of the society, and giving birth to new thoughts and new movements. Unlike Christian Protestantism, which was empty-handed and had to justify its liberationist presentation of Jesus, Islamic Protestantism has various sources and elements to draw from. Such a movement will unleash great energies and enable the enlightened Muslim to: 1- Extract and refine the enormous resources of our society and convert the degenerating and jamming agents into energy and movement; 2- Transform the existing social and class conflicts into conscious awareness of social responsibility, by using artistic, literary and speaking abilities and power as well as other possibilities at hand; 3- Bridge the ever-widening gap between the "island of the enlightened person" and the "shore of the masses" by establishing kinship links and understanding between them, thus putting the religion, which came about to revive and generate movement, at the service of the people; 4- Make the weapon of religion inaccessible to those who have undeservedly armed themselves with it and whose purpose is to use religion for personal reasons, thereby acquiring the necessary energy to motivate people; 5- Launch a religious renaissance through which, by returning to the religion of life and motion, power and justice, will on the one hand incapacitate the reactionary agents of the society and, on the other hand, save the people from those elements which are used to narcotize them. By launching such a renaissance, these hitherto narcotizing elements will be used to revitalize, give awareness and fight superstition. Furthermore, returning to and relying on the authentic culture of the society will allow the revival and rebirth of cultural independence in the face of Western cultural onslaught; 6- And finally, eliminate the spirit of imitation and obedience which is the hallmark of the popular religion, and replace it with a critical revolutionary, aggressive spirit of independent reasoning (ijtihad). All of these may be accomplished through a religious reformist movement which will extract and refine the enormous accumulation of energy in the society, and will enlighten the era and will awaken the present generation. It is for the above reasons that I, as a conscientious teacher who has risen from the depth of pains and experience of his people and history, hope that the enlightened person will reach a progressive self-awareness. For whereas our masses need self-awareness, our enlightened intellectuals are in need of "faith." [This article is based on Dr. Shariati's articles on Modernization and Islam, Refinement of Cultural Resources and From where should we begin?] |
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