Muslims in the postmodernizing world

With modernity expanding from the West into the world, many Moslim societies were also affected by it. In Turkey the leader Kemal Atatürk modernized his Moslim country before the Second World War already (1923-1938).

The Shah of Persia introduced modernity during his rule in 1941-1979. Egyptians got their modernizing president in the person of Gamal Abdel Nasser (1956-1970). President Bourguiba was the modernizing leader of Tunesia for more than 30 years (1956-1987).

The kings of Jordan have had a modern outlook all along. And mind you, also the dictators Saddam Hussain of Iraq and Bashar al-Assad of Syria aren’t seen as theocrats.

However, the modernizations they introduced alienated conservative Islamic circles and mostly benefitted the higher, better educated, urban classes. The lower classes, including the rural poor, often felt negected or further exploited in the internationalizing economies.

They began to see the expanding westernization as detrimental and inimical. As a consequence, they gave sympathetic responses to leaders who attempted to overthrow the established circles, often inspired by religious conservatism.

Thus, conservative Islamic leadership gained power and agitated against modern culture. Those resentful or even fearful reactions to modernity constitute part of the wider process of postmodernization. The deep disappointment for many westerners and modern Moslims about that the reactionary Islam is also part of postmodernity.

But these reactions could have been precluded or limited if in the fast introduction of modernity the theocracies had not been too much alienated and access to financial benefits and modern school education would have been shared more equally in society.

Photos: Atatürk and Bourgiba