An interesting if flawed essay in the Forward marks the 100th anniversary of Hannah Arendt’s birth by discussing whether she would have seen Islamism (presumably the Al Qaeda variety) as a form of totalitarianism. Reading it confirms, for me, the fundamental flaw in seeing Al Qaeda as in any way similar to Soviet or Chinese Communism or German or Italian fascism. It is, in my opinion, much more similar to European nihilistic terrorist groups of the 1970s. Except that Al Qaeda enjoyed serious backing by Pakistan’s and Saudi Arabia’s intelligence agencies, and previously the CIA.
There is certainly little evidence that non-violent Islamist groups are totalitarian in any way — even if some of their practices are dubious and those governments run by Islamists have a generally poor human right record. Backwards and repressive, yes. Totalitarian? It would be a compliment.
Hey Issandr. Just getting up-to-date on the Arabist and read your post. As an interesting note, I heard Phil Zelikow, the counsellor at the State Department and one of Rice’s senior advisors, speak about radical Islamists the other week and make the comparison between the radical Islamists of today and the fin de siecle anarchists of yesteryear. This anlogy struck me because it didn’t compare radical Islamists to 20th C. totalitarians as is vogue in DC these days and seemed to me a smart analogy. You can read the text of Zelikow’s speech at http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/html/pdf/Zelikow091506.pdf