Some argue that the Islamists are the reason for the scourge and misfortune of the Arab world. They deal with the Islamists as one bloc without differentiating between the Islamists who confine their activity to preaching, others who engage in peaceful politics, those who take up arms for jihad and those who consider others infidels and cut their throats.
They want to exterminate all Islamists for the Arab world to advance into the future. Yet the problem is that they are not talking about a few groups of people, but rather about a broad stream that has deep roots and numerous followers in the Arab world.
And so, talking about the extermination of the Islamists means devastating civil wars in the region.
In dealing with the Islamists we must realize the following determinants:
1 – We cannot deal with them as a single bloc because this would mean the moderate is an extremist and the peaceful is a terrorist.
2 – Exterminating them with indiscriminate repression and persecution would expand the circle of violence, justify it and attract supporters to it.
3 – The Islamic stream is one of the main streams in the Arab region that cannot be erased as easily as some imagine. In fact, the suppression of the Islamists throughout history has always made them come back stronger.
4 – We cannot generalize and claim that all Islamists are against democracy, for there are liberals and nationalists among them just as there are supporters of tyranny. Many of them have engaged in democratic experiences with balanced political equations that were agreed upon. Perhaps we should study the Tunisian and Moroccan models in order to find out why models in other parts of the Arab world have failed.
A new strategy in dealing with the Islamists would be essential to build a new Arab order. We must understand why the Islamist stream is expanding regionally and internationally with its peaceful and violent diversity, rather than persecute it because this would contradict the concept of a nation state.
The following factors can contain Islamists and integrate them into a nation state and a new Arab order:
1 – Stopping indiscriminate repression and limiting security measures to those who are carrying arms.
2 – Developing an integrated mechanism with strict rules that prohibits the mixing of religion with politics, recognizes the civil nation state and rejects the concept of a caliphate.
3 – Stopping the media attacks that and only lead to more supporters joining the circle of violence.
4 – Releasing detainees with the only condition of them renouncing violence, while bringing those who were involved in violence before a true and fair justice that is not biased toward any particular disposition.
What happens in Egypt affects Saudi Arabia, and what happens in Yemen and Libya affects Egypt. That is why a unified and collective Arab action in dealing with the Islamists is inevitable.
Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm
