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![]() Waiting for the dawn
Iranian women are at the head of the struggle for reform
In every part of the world, Muslims are responding to the challenges of modernity in a variety of ways. Can they succeed in reconciling the principles of their faith with the needs of modern societies? Roger Hardy will be presenting a five-part series for the BBC World Service. The Cairo I used to know is a village compared with the Cairo of today. A forest of high-rise blocks has sprung up beside the Nile. Motorways and flyovers, mobile phones and Internet cafes are now commonplace. If modernity means technical progress then, as I travelled through the Muslim world over the past few months, I found a great thirst for modernity.
If modernity means Americanisation, then many are wary of it, especially at a time when anti-American feeling is running high because of the continuing conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. If modernity means freedom, what kind of freedom? Freedom of expression is popular with the people, unpopular with the authorities. If freedom means alcohol and promiscuity, religious conservatives are appalled. Some Muslims told me firmly they want their own modernity - an Egyptian or a Turkish or an Islamic modernity - rather than conform to a one-size-fits-all global identity. Challenge of the West The dilemma is not new. Muslims have faced a "crisis of modernity" for at least 200 years. In the early centuries of Islam, Muslims were at the cutting edge of science and progress.
When Napoleon invaded Egypt in 1798, bringing with him scientists as well as soldiers, Muslims realised how far they had fallen behind. How to respond? Then as now, some Muslims fiercely rejected modernity and all its works, insisting their own Islamic culture was both superior and self-sufficient. Others embraced Western-style modernity, even if that meant adopting a completely secular lifestyle. Others tried to create a synthesis, adopting what was useful from the West while holding on to their religion and identity. This struggle is the theme of my five-part series, Waiting for the Dawn. Whose Islam? Whose modernity? In Egypt, the state has defeated the violent Islamic groups and cracked down hard on the avowedly non-violent Muslim Brotherhood. But this has left the country in limbo, neither secular enough for the secularists nor Islamic enough for the Islamists. The underlying identity crisis is unresolved.
He pushed through in the 1920s and 1930s the most thorough-going programme of modernisation and secularisation any Muslim society had ever experienced, before or since. His heirs, the Turkish generals, are now trying to complete the crackdown they began five years ago on an Islamic revival they find deeply threatening. Women In sharp contrast, Iranians are struggling to remedy the ills of their Islamic revolution. Reformist intellectuals argue the clergy have failed in their attempt to govern a modern state, and should now take a back seat.
The young are impatient for a better life, and the Internet and satellite television are putting them in touch with a "modernity" which had previously been denied to them. Pakistan, meanwhile, is confronting a deadly mix of poverty, patriarchy and religious extremism. The crisis unleashed by the attacks of 11 September last year has transformed the country's international standing, and that of its military leader Pervez Musharraf, with bewildering speed. Bin Laden I visited one the madrasas, or religious schools, which now stand accused of providing willing young recruits for Osama Bin Laden's Al-Qaeda organisation and other militant groups.
It's hard to feel much optimism about the Muslim world right now. Yes, I met some impressive individuals who seemed clear-eyed about the challenges their societies face. But those challenges are all the more daunting because they have both an external and an internal dimension. Internally, the struggle between conservatives and reformers goes on, with the state often playing the role of an indecisive referee. Meanwhile, many Muslims feel the continuing crises in the Middle East, and in other areas of friction between Islam and the West, call into question the validity of a "modernity" which many equate with Westernisation and Western dominance. Waiting for the dawn: Muslims in the Modern World will be broadcast on BBC World Service at the following times:
Programme One: Egypt
Broadcast time: Fridays 1830GMT/1930BST Repeats: Tuesdays 0930GMT/1030BST
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16 May 02 | Middle East
30 Jan 02 | South Asia
19 Oct 01 | Americas
09 Jul 02 | Europe
08 Jun 02 | From Our Own Correspondent
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