In the first article of this series, we discussed the problem of modernity, how it behaves, and why it is so important that we understand that it is the modern process itself that is our “other”. Those who’ve read that article might remember we specifically took a stance against framing the problem as “the West” as in the Western people and/or Europeanness itself, instead making the argument that Islam offers a way to an authentic, alternative future for all cultures––including European cultures––and that as such it could never be the case that these cultures were the direct “other”.
The reason that the modern process itself was signified as such was that it behaves in the exact opposite manner as Islam; with the latter offering the opportunity for differing cultures to authentically form around a unified essence, thus creating a unity in a patchwork of (true) diversity, where the former instead fragmentizes the world into a bland nothingness, offering a false diversity that is only diverse on the surface.
But especially because we began that first article with a discussion on the weakness of the Muslim world in light of the situation in Palestine, there remains a question of what we can do to get out of this weak state. Furthermore, while the Westerner, or Western culture, is not our enemy, the West as a political entity is the force that backs and enforces the modern process around the world. While we, by necessity, had to lay down the foundation and thus discuss the idea of Islam being the opposite of modernity, we can now move to an analysis of this political West and how Muslims should deal with the political reality of being faced with an overwhelming force in a world where we have so little power.
The Political West and the Modern Process
We described in depth how the modern process is destructive by nature. It tears apart authentic cultures and leaves behind nothing real or human. Because of this, it fragmentizes the world while simultaneously moving that world into a global drab of nothingness. This is true for all corners of the world and especially for the West itself, where modernity originated.
It would thus be easy to assume that, if the political West globally backs and enforces this process, it is thus anti-self and is actively looking for the world’s destruction. While this explanation would surely find favor among the more conspiracy-minded, this is in fact rather far from the truth. The political West believes in the ideas that kickstarted and continue to feed the modernity process, as well as believing in parts of this process, such as Capital and technological growth, but it does not like the output of the process as such.
In the first article, we discussed Deleuze & Guattari’s concepts of deterritorialization and reterritorialization, explaining that they believed that reterritorialization always accompanies deterritorialization and that reterritorialization is in fact nothing but the attempt to stabilize the process, while simultaneously normalizing the earlier breakdown of authentic structures.
It is reterritorialization that the Western political entities, and in some sense all political entities, are looking for. This means that, while the Western political entity backs the process in theory, it attempts to ward off its negative effects by reterritorializing the previously deterritorialized entity. Of course, this is quite logical, every political entity wants and aims for growth, it’s a big part of how they retain power and in the modern world, growth is identified by the modern process itself.
In practice however, this leads to a political power that behaves rather schizophrenically, on the one hand––at home––where these ideas originated, it attempts to stabilize the process, attempting to ward off any radicalism leading to further deterritorialization (and thus destabilization). On the other hand, by reterritorializing they normalize the new reality, consequently enforcing this around the world and demanding others adapt to it.
Faustian Spirit
The attempts to stabilize the process at home have not exactly led to a peaceful political situation. In fact, it wouldn’t be far-fetched to say that the tensions caused by the culture war in the West have reached unprecedented levels far beyond those of other nations. So why is it the case that despite their attempts at stabilization these tensions seem so high in the West?
Part of this we have explained, namely: that the Western political entity is increasingly attempting to play catch up while the process accelerates. There is also a role that the media and social institutions play here in spreading the desire to take part in the process among individuals (both inside and outside the West). It would be too time-consuming to go deep into the role of media and institutions here but it is important to remember that these individual desires serve as fuel for the flames.
What we can furthermore say is that this increase in desire and tensions has little to do with an actual opposition. While it is often said that people are “radicalizing” in the West, they are only doing so from the point of view of a system that throughout the 20th century has attempted to narrow down the political Overton window (as radicalism leads to opposition and to “ideas of alternatives”) as politics became more and more about stabilization.
But in fact, even most of the radicals in the West, besides a small group, are broadly in support of modernity. They might be disinfected or in disagreement about how the government is running things, but they are often in full support of the ideas that underline the modern process, at most disagreeing with how one should handle that process. The question of why this is so gets us back to the topic of Western or European culture and the Westerner or European being different from the process that we discussed in the first article.
European man has often been associated with something called “the Faustian spirit.” It is this spirit––which is said to be innate to European man––and its drive for progression and expansion, that makes the West unable to step away from the modern process as it is defined by an endless progression. That progression eventually leads to dehumanization, as with that progression comes an ever-increasing fragmentation.
Now, perhaps this seems contradictory to the first article. Didn’t we say that there is nothing about the Westerner that cannot let him have an authentic culture with an Islamic essence? How can this be when the Faustian spirit is innate to the Europeans? We maintain that this is only a contradiction on the surface. Because while that spirit exists, there is nothing wrong with the European, exploratory spirit. In fact, it has given the world much beauty and is exemplified by a praiseworthy drive for novelty and adventure, fundamental parts of the human experience.
The problem is that with the onset of modernity, the increase in individualism, and the subsequent decline of religion, there was suddenly no institution to guide and define the borders for that spirit. As markets pushed technological innovation further, people’s individual desires increased, thus giving the markets more capital to innovate further. wanting to push further and further, even beyond the point of humanity. There are various moments that can be seen as decisive which would take too long to discuss here, but what is clear is that somewhere those innovations, driven by that Faustian spirit, ran out of control. The problem thus, is not the Faustian spirit itself, but the fact that it blended with its own creation – modernity itself. In modernity, the Faustian spirit is unlimited and not mitigated by humans but rather is increasingly controlled by the process itself.
In an almost comically ironic sense, with the Renaissance beginning as a humanist project and with various revolutions in the name of the freeing up of the individual, in retrospect, we see that with the fall of religion, there was suddenly no reason for humanity’s exceptionalism and as such no reason for the process of growth to stop once it wasn’t beneficial to humanity anymore. This gets us to a crucial point with regard to the political dimension. While we said in the first article that the entire world is largely modernized (and thus, westernized) an alternative modernity cannot under any circumstance arise in the contemporary West.
Islamic civilization and the weak state of Muslims
If Europeans, due to their possession of the Faustian spirit, are unable to stop modernity, our thesis that Islam is the exact opposite of modernity suggests that it alone is capable of this, exactly because it would be able to contain that spirit of a nation, using it to give shape to Islam while mitigating the Faustian spirit, rather than letting it reign free. Here we get into the practical problem that has been looming over our heads since the introduction to the first article.
While in theory, it might be good to know that Islam offers a solution to the problem of modernity, we have noted in the previous article that Muslims themselves are utterly modernized; a problem which is exacerbated by cyberspace, media, and cultural institutions. In combination with the earlier mentioned enforcement of those reterritorialized values, this creates an inability for most Muslims to tap into Islam’s true potential and, knowingly or unknowingly, makes them partial to the modern process, even if they claim to be in opposition to it.
Because of the way politics works in a modernized Western world, Muslims cannot expect to vote their way out of this. As the system is driven to stabilize, it will inherently only allow ideas that are strictly in line with it. Let it not be thought however that we should engage in something such as a violent revolution. Besides the fact that it would be ridiculous to even think one has a chance of winning such a conflict in the weak state that we are in, it also doesn’t fix anything, and we have seen that this is in fact itself a modern phenomenon.
As we discussed in the first article, this is evidenced by both extreme ends of the modern Muslim; the Jihadist and the progressive Muslim. Both groups have repeatedly made the mistake of thinking that Muslims should take up weapons and engage in mass revolution, resulting in the same mistakes of calling for (either Jihadist or decolonialist) violent action. Engaging in such acts has not only been tried and miserably failed (along with the destruction it brought along) but it also makes us unable to tap into Islam’s true essence, which is not barbaric and destructive but rather builds up towards the high.
Yuk Hui, furthermore, points out that this attempt to fight against the modern West as a way to shift to an alternative, more authentic future, has already been tried by others in “the East.” He provides the example of Japan and the Kyoto school of thought, who became ardent supporters of the Japanese regime and the idea of a World War in the years before WWII, as a way to give Japan the power to move away from global domination. As seen, Japan, after engaging in horrendous excesses, has been completely westernized and any semblance of traditional values no longer exist on a deeper level, but is a leftover residue of earlier, pre-modern times.
Hui discusses this example in his book on Cosmotechnics, in which he sets out his quest of looking for an authentic, Chinese post-modernity. This is interesting because often when we think of non-Western civilizations succeeding in breaking loose from the West we think of China. To get a better understanding of what we might do as Muslims we should perhaps take a further look at these alternate civilizations, which belong neither to the West, nor to the Islamic civilization that we have talked about up until now.
Other civilizations and the decline of the West
When we analyze alternate civilizations, we see that some have indeed managed to protect themselves against the West and have even become its direct global opponent and are even predicted to replace the West as a global superpower. China has, in some way, done exactly what we talked about previously––creating an authoritarian state in an attempt to stabilize the process, managing to keep some of modernity’s negative effects out the door through this authoritarianism, while simultaneously modernizing and keeping up with the West. Where the West has huge problems with these attempts of stabilization, as any form of authoritarianism strongly clashes with European sensibilities, the lack of the Faustian Spirit among the Chinese makes it easier for the Chinese government to implement such policies.
Now, one might have the idea that this means that we should study the way in which China became a superpower. While this makes sense, it is easier said than done; not in the least because the Chinese revolution began in a vastly different world from ours, where a feudalist empire was transformed into a communist state. Aside from these differences, China is not a perfect civilization to emulate. As we have seen, Yuk Hui himself is specifically trying to create a “Chinese (post-)modernity,” as it is recognized that even though China might, for now, control the process and ward off some of its negative effects, that process itself is still utterly Western.
Furthermore, China still faces many of the problems of modernity, which is evident when looking at its declining fertility rate and the strong decline in social structures around its cities. As such, even an authoritarian regime like theirs is only partly capable of evading the effects of modernity and it has to do so by increasingly intruding upon the lives of its citizens.
Still, the Chinese do offer an alternative future to the Western one, and certain philosophers such as Hui and others are attempting to search through Confucian and Taoist texts as a way of reclaiming some authentic Chinese elements and creating a truly alternative future. While as a Muslim I believe they are incapable of this (which at this point needs no further explanation), their opposition to the West and their lack of the Faustian spirit does create chances for a world in which the military enforcement of Western values, that as of now has consistently kept Muslims from creating its own civilization, can be reduced.
This does not mean that we should “support” China (or any other civilization) only because they are “anti-Western” (a strategy or idea that in Leftist groups is sometimes aptly termed “Campism”). It does however mean that while other civilizations might harm Muslims in their direct sphere, and we should begrudge that, they seem to possess less of the inherent drive to spread their way of living across the globe. Sure, one might point to China’s endeavors in Africa and other countries around the world and there is definitely a critique to be made here, but these places still do not become Culturally Chinese. Rather, the Chinese are there mainly to gain power and seem uninterested in exporting their cultural products over the world.
I want to emphasize that Muslims should not take this as me advising to put our weight behind other civilizations. This is especially the case for Muslims living in the West themselves, who should refrain from becoming pariahs. Rather, the conclusion is that the political struggle with alternate civilizations and the internal problems with stabilization the West faces can result in a world in which the political West does not want to and/or is unable to enforce its values around the world.
Furthermore, the decline of the West means little if we don’t realize that other civilizations are unable to overcome modernity due to their lack of Islam. In fact, if we take Hui’s thesis that technology in modernity is utterly Western itself and combine it with the idea that only Islam can overcome modernity, then one might say that the Chinese becoming the global superpower will fix little in the long run. Even if such a civilization attempts to protect itself through increasingly totalitarian forms of state repression, if the process continues to run, then eventually these walls will collapse. Still, if the West is unable to act as a “global police force” due to its internal problems and the global power struggle with these other civilizations, this can offer opportunities for us as Muslims to create our own civilization.
So what should we do?
The emulation of the rise of alternate civilizations such as China might be interesting but is a long project that requires tremendous effort, not only because we want to make sure that the Islamic spirit is sufficiently present to ward off the necessity of authoritarianism, but also because, as discussed, these civilizations became “their own” in very different times. Furthermore, in a world where our community has weakened, alienated from Traditional Islam, and influenced by modernity, just attempting to “grab power” has, and will never, work.
It might come across as strange that I started off this article with the promise of discussing how the Muslim world in its current weak state might deal with that overwhelming Western political force and that the only prescriptions I have given up till now is that we should do nothing––we can’t vote, we shouldn’t commit violence, we shouldn’t act as pariahs, etc. I have discussed the opportunity arising out of the contemporary situation of the world, but how are we to practically do this when in this article it seems that I’m only prescribing a series of can-nots and do-nots?
I am not proposing that we as Muslims sit back and hope that things fall into place for us. Rather, what I have attempted to show is that, while we might not have any strength to forcefully create our independence from other civilizations, the current state of the world does offer an opportunity to move away from that weakened state. The described problems that the political West is facing and the seeming lack of interest of other civilizations to become their own “global police” offer us the possibility of building ourselves up once more.
But this is of no benefit to us if we count on the masses, many of whom have already become modernized in their understanding of Islam themselves. What we should do then is use the expectation of an increasing lack of a political stranglehold on Muslims as a group to create communities of experts, who can rise above our weakened state of being, so that they might actually come to know how to give shape to a future Islamic civilization.
These communities (one might say: an Islamic elite) can think through a true alternative. As the differing global powers will increasingly be unable to deal with the problems of modernity, leading to their own collapse, this Islamic elite can give us the chance to offer an alternative when this moment arrives. If those “experts” among us furthermore manage to be “elite” by holding onto positions of power and having the necessary knowledge, they can use this future cataclysm to reshape the trajectory of the Islamic world and the world at large.
In the third and last part of this series, I will bring together the conclusions from the first article and this one, to look at why and how this Islamic elite might utilize the Islamic essence and their expertise to uplift us from our weak state and bring forth an Islamic future that is rooted in Islam’s traditional essence and in authentic culture.
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