The Challenge of Fundamentalism

                                       By: Bassam Tibi (1998)



                                       Student: Mitja Sabadin

                                          Brno, 17.5.2006

                                      Religious fundamentalism

*      Meaning the politicization of religion

*      The term applied for the first time during the Iranian revolution of the Ayatollahs in 1979

*      Nowadays fundamentalism is related with the "clash of civilization" being both an expression
and a response to it.

*      Mostly quoted is Islamic fundamentalism





                                    Why Islamic fundamentalism?

*      Because after the fall of the Berlin wall the West had lost its arch-enemy

*      Because after the Cold war the West needed to identify a new enemy to ensure the continuity
of its hegemony

*      Islam is a world religion and a major civilization, embodying one fifth of the world pop.

*      The secular nation states are perceived to be a Western invention, not an universal
achievement

*      Because Islam is a universal religion in its claims and its outlook







                            Islamic fundamentalism as a global threat??

*      Islamic movements are weak and divided

*      They are not able to impose a new world order, they lack economic, political and military
forces

*      But they can create disorder in their own countries, in order to lead to a regional and
global disorder

*      *Caricatures of Mohammed*









                                                 .

   Fundamentalism is the term for any religion being a political ideology.

  

   Islam as a religion is definitely not a threat, but Islamic fundamentalism is.



  

                                           Islam Vs West

*      The question of the leadership

*      Crusades Vs Jihad???

*      The "Jihad doctrine" only as a response to a powerful external threat

*      The Gulf war and war in Bosnia are perceived in the Muslim world as "crusades" of the West

*      Secularized nation state -- Western invention

*      Mixing religion and politics: Orthodox Greater Serbia, Hindustan as a Hindu state in India







                                     Culture in World Politics





*      Cultural and sociological background of modernity

*      Science and technology were transmitted to other civilizations without Western values and
norms

*      The notion of "The Islamic dream of semi-modernity": embracing technological modernity and
rejecting cultural modernity

*      The more structurally globalized our world has become, the more culturally fragmented it has
come to be

*      De-Westernalization is occurring now (Raymond Aaron)









                                             Questions:



*     Are Islam and terrorism connected?



*     Is secularization of the nation-state (western in origin) a "good" and fundamentalism a "bad"
solution?



*     Why?

                                    Thank you for your attention