Can Islam meet the challenges of modernity?(Foreign Affairs)

MANY COMMENTS nowadays about the challenge of modernity to Islam are reminiscent of what was said in the late nineteenth century about the inability of the Catholic societies to embrace the industrialisation of the Protestant north--though the current Islam debate has the sharper edge of terrorism to it. Many of those comments sound rather outlandish today, as we shop in Milan, deal with the modern industries of Spain, discuss the Irish "economic miracle", or zoom down six-lane highways in Mexico. We know now that Weber's thesis of the "Protestant work ethic" did not describe a lasting condition, nor did his assertion that members of the Confucian civilisation would always be severely handicapped in developing economic prowess.

Reforms were not imposed on the Catholic or Confucian countries from the outside, indeed such interventions sometimes led to hostile reaction. Rather, the evolution of backward societies mired in poverty, ignorance, piety and banditry was triggered by changes and economic success at the fringe. Attitudes and beliefs in Milan and Turin adapted to the challenge of modernity and then radiated southwards. People in Catalonia and the rapidly industrialising northern fringe of Mexico gained new insights about what one had to do to prosper, which subsequently percolated southward because, in the final analysis, everyone wanted higher living standards.

A more recent case is the economic advance of Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea and Singapore presenting a powerful mind-changing example to the people of Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, China and India, who are in the midst of mighty cultural and economic changes. Typically, it is the desire for economic advance that drives growth-promoting cultural and institutional changes, eventually also democratic reforms. This does not make traditional societies lose their identity. Spain is still Spain, Japan is Japan, and Chinese society will in essence remain Chinese. Globalisation and cultural change are not producing a faceless mishmash, but enrich what civilisations always have been: evolving, living organisms. But globalisation inflicts insecurities on many whose cultures are put on the defensive and whose civilisations, after ages of little change, are compelled to adapt to outside influences.

It is my contention that the Islamic world, too, will be changed by material aspirations and ideas. These will not be imposed directly from the outside, let alone by force, but will percolate from the fringes of Muslim civilisation as new generations notice the advantages of adapted values to material well-being.

To make this point plausible, I will first have to discuss the crucial role of values and institutions in hindering or helping economic progress, and then highlight the considerable obstacles to openness and change in Middle Eastern Islam. A rich literature on long-term economic history and cultural evolution offers relevant and empirically founded insights. It can shed much light on whether there is a reasonable prospect that the 6.5 per cent of mankind who live in the Middle East and North Africa will soon claim no more than their share of the world's headlines. I will also argue that the vast Islamic world is far from homogeneous and that many now resent the "Arabisation" of Islam and the renewed spread of fundamentalism.

Since the oil price hikes of the 1970s, living standards in the Middle East and North Africa have, on average, almost stagnated. In the "Arab world", and the "Aryan belt" from Iran to Pakistan, woeful economic performance and explosive population growth have combined to create mass unemployment and widespread hopelessness. Exceptions in some gleaming "petropolises" in the Gulf only highlight these failures.

The contrast with the development successes elsewhere in the world is now driven home by televised images, as well as, for example, the appearance in the Middle East of competent Korean engineers and excellent industrial products made by the Chinese--people who were much poorer a generation ago and, besides, are infidels, not "people of the book". For many Muslims, the onslaught of outside influences has led to a sense of moral insecurity and a feeling that the uncomprehending outside world has nothing but contempt for Islam.