a current that has its roots, say, in the '70s, '80s, but certainly we've seen it take organizational form in the '90s and in the current period in groups like in tunisia and the various muslim brotherhood organizations in the middle east. what i want to try to do is explain, what explains that moderation? given the fact that we all recognize that much of the muslim world and certainly the middle east and north africa is living under authoritarian regime of some sort, yet we've seen a greater tendency towards moderation represented by that movement. so here i want to address the factors that led to that. so those are my two general points. so let me begin with the first one. so the panelist titled "how repression breeds religious extremism and how religious freedom does the opposite ."

here i'll speak in the context of the arab spring rather than movements at large. the premise of the question is this -- that the political context shapes how religious movements, or islamist movements behave. they're strategies, tactic, perhaps ideological orientation is malleable and determined in some way or another by the political context. so the organizers or the people who drafted this title do not take an essentialist view of these groups, they do not see them as forever bound by this hostile, fanatical ideology, but really see them as being malleable shaped by the political context. i agree and commend you for framing the issue as such. groups in the middle east and islamist groups in particular are actually quite malleable. they exhibit this ductivety to twist and shape themselves in different ways to fit within the political context. if you want proof, look in

egypt. for a long time against political participation, for a long time against speaking against the government, but now they are organizing a political party and indeed have done fairly well in the last elections. so i agree with the premise of that question. where i disagree, or with the topic. where i disagree is that, that statement how repression breeds religious extremism and how religious freedom does the opposite is it i soups a causal mechanism, that freedom leads to moderation, and repression leads to extremism. and here i'm just going to point out three quick examples i think will be familiar to an intelligent audience like this. they come from turkey, tunisia and pakistan. in the case of turkey, we all know that the turkish military for a long time that been a bull wart towards the religious movements and whenever they may progress in the electoral system, political system and indeed who come to power, the

military would gently -- or not so gently -- step in and remove the islamists from power. we all know that turkey has the most secular sort of stridently secular rules in their books against the headscarf, against polygamy and, indeed, against the public declaration of islamist ideology seeking to turn turkey into another statened so on. jet the effect of that consistent repression over decades has not been for the islamists in turkey to become more radical but on the contrary. the akp, the party of justice and development that currently governs in egypt -- excuse me, in turkey, is one that is largely moderate, accepts the secular state, do not officially call for islamic law and the formula, we want a secular state with protecting the islamic identity. so this is a clear example.

a critical case study of a country that has actually restricted religious freedom when it comes to islamist movements and the reaction has been to moderate rather than to radicalize. we have a similar situation in tunisia. whether under -- both governments or presidents of the republic restricted islamist movements, indeed repressed them, exiled them, imprisoned them and have laws in the books that restrict headscarf, that restrict polygamy and restrict some of the other aspects of, or the organizational aspects of islam as in tunisia. yet again, here a party was one that is the most progressive in its moderation of the islamist ideology. rejecting political violence. accepting in the parameters of the secular state and adopting the formula that has become the standard we often see today. they say we want [ speaking in foreign language ].

meaning, we want a civic state with an islamic identity. and this is really the formula that we see increasingly adopted in places like morocco and egypt and elsewhere. now, let me turn to a third example and that is for pakistan, and here we have a country where actually one cannot claim that islamism has been repressed. islam in pakistan has always found a place since the state was created in 1947, and even in times when the state sought to crush the duties, and others, the courts came to his rescue and to the organization's regs cue and the organization persisted. and under the rule in the 1980s, while the state of pakistan became more repressive, it did not become more repressive towards islamists. indeed, gave them added leeway in the political sphere, social and judicial sphere and no one can claim that that has had a moderating effect on pakistan. indeed today pakistan has an extremism problem. so does that mean that the

statement is wrong and that the option is true? that repression breeds moderation and exclusion breeds radicalism? well, of course not. we have plenty of examples. whether it's in algeria in the 1990s or egypt during the nasr years or mubarak years as well or chechnya, look at examples in syria in the '70s and early '80s as well as today where repression has led to radicalization. all this is to say that a simple proposition that inclusion leads to moderation, and exclusion leads to radicalism, is imperrickly unfounded. it's much more complex than that, unfortunately. life is much more complicated, and as a social scientist and in my book "why muslims rebel" i argued we really need to look at various other factors. inclusion/exclusion matters but so does the matter of state repression, the capacity of these groups to resist the repressive state, the major of external support for the

dissidents as well as incumbent regimes. it's much more muddier and complex than that. but now let me turn to the second point. and that is, despite the largely authoritarian nature of much of the middle east and north africa what we've seen is that we have seen a lot of moderation among islamists, represented by a movement, the dependency, represented by individuals such as yusuf or others or hamid and others in libya, and you find there are many other individuals as well. that speak of this -- that represents this centrist send an tendency. i want to talk about what is the tendency, the core beliefs? what does this look like? and indeed there is a muslim and islam moderation. so i want to do that, but then i

want to explain how that came about. now, this tendency really tends to be a clear departure from the earlier ideological positions of the fundamentalist movements that emerged in the 20th century, and, indeed, it is one that seeks to reconnect with the original selafist who argued for islamic madernity rooted in islamic faith not in opposition to it. and i believe that this was a tendency actually holding a great deal of hope for the muslim world today, because it says that we could be modern and we could be muslim. we could be modern and we could be pious and the two are not necessarily in opposition to each other and i see it as a tendency in opposition to the kneo sell fitch represented by the various forms of selafism

predominant today. what are the core beliefs? first and foremost they believe that religion is subject to renewal, and this is not only something that is desirable but it's actually something commanded by god. and they say that religion is -- to use the arabic solution -- [ speaking in foreign language ], meaning it is, a religion is for every time and every place, and they say that that proposition means that religion and islamic in particular has to renew itself in every time, in every place to be relevant. and so they've really taken an old fundamentalist concept and turned it on its head. secondly, they believe in gradualism and reject revolutionary violence. despite the repressive nature and indeed many of these individuals have been exiled, imprisoned. is they had to fled countries, like others, these individuals, they are rejecting violence as

an option, and i'll explain why they have done so. thirdly, they believe that pluralism is the natural state of humanity. meaning that, to use an expression by [ speaking in foreign language ] he believes in the oneness of god and the multiplicity of his creation. meaning that humanity is diverse, ethnically, linguistically, racially, in terms of classes and so on. so to expect all of these people to believe in the same way, in the exact, practice in the same exact way is antithetical to islam and, therefore, one la to be tolerant of pluralism. they believe that the state -- not the steak, the state, is a civic institution not a religious one. again, this concept of [ speaking in foreign language ] meaning a civic state with an u.s. laumic identity and say islam does not impose a system. contrary to those who argue in

other systems they argue islam does not impose a system but it imposes principles that should guide a variety of political systems. those principles include justice, accountability, limits on tyranny, mercy and compassion, freedom from oppression answers commanding the good while forbidding vice. they also believe that modern nation state system is a reality. that this notion that muslims today to be truly muslims and revive their civilization they have to merge together once again and form a -- they argue that's not necessary and a lot of these guys get in trouble with other radical groups that insist on the formation of a unitary, argue this is not really the case. you can live with a modern nation state and that's fine. that's part of the [ speaking in foreign language ] the secondary issues. not part of the [ speaking in foreign language ] or the creed of islam. they believe that democratic participation and the compatibility of islam with

democracy. so these guy, democrats and indeed more democratic than the regimes that often repress them on the -- the kennard that they are anti-democracy and come in and end democracy, at hosni mubarak and end their democratic regimes. so, you know, they take the examples of the rightly guided [ speaking in foreign language ] the first person to replace the prophet muhammad was elected by the consensus of the community. that, to them, is prima facie evidence that islam is for elections. they believe in shorea, in [ speaking in foreign language ] and the concept that there's no compulsion in religion. that islam does not believe that you can impose your religion on others. and these are all, you know, well-founded principles for them, the islamic tradition textually and as well. and finally, they believe that the principle of citizenship should govern relations between majorities and minorities in muslim states. so this whole discussion about coptic christians being

[ speaking in foreign language ] or to me they reject that nation. no. in a modern nation state we accept citizenship rights. there are no first class, second class citizens. so -- indeed these are nice intellectual ideas but i argue they go beyond. impermeate movements today, whether the pjd in morocco or others in tunisia and the brotherhood in egypt and elsewhere, and so they have both rhetorical basis as well as organizational basis. now, these will certainly be tested in the arab spring and this is going to be important to see if this actually comes to fruition. but to assume that these people are going to reverse democracy, or going to lead to one man, one vote, one time as was once famously stated, i think is -- is an unfair burden to impose on them. now, let me be clear. the moderation of the tendency is not perfect.

particularly from a western u.s. perspective. you know, the islamist still holds rather maximalist view s when it comes to the arab israeli conflict. do not mask their interests in the region and would prefer an anti-u.s. alignment in the area. in that regard they are not going to be our friends or at least not immediately. we have to cajole them and we have to, you know -- well, anyway. so we have to, you know, appeal to them to make them our friends. and, also, these are groups that actually have supported, say, suicide bombings in the past under certain circumstances. so -- and this is the common refrain. well, you say these are moderate, but here's a statement talking about accepting suicide bombings against israeli civilians and so on. so this -- this has to be taken into context of the arab israeli conflict and the conflicts of the region, but nonetheless, one cannot say that they are completely moderate by our standards. so what factors, then, help

explain the rise and tendency of the system and i assume i have a few more minutes to be able to talk about it. yes. well, what i would say is there are four factors and i'll enumerate them and it will be the basis to provoke some questions and invite discussion on these. the first of these is, many of these organizations and individuals have witnessed the failure of revolutionary strategies. you know, they've seen the algerians in the '90s and egyptians in the '90s, and the various other kashmiris and others. it not only didn't work it throwed a worse condition for many of these islamist movements and indeed it sort of framed islam as this violent blood-thirsty religion and these individuals do not necessarily want it, want to see that. so in this case, actually repression had something to do with their moderation --

although, again, i don't want to, you know, make it as the primary reason. the second factor leads to political openings in the 1990s. so while most governments in the middle east and north africa were more or less authoritarian, they did begin engaging in sort of these political liberalization projects, largely to secure and to solidify their authoritarianism, not to generally or gradually bring about democratization. nonetheless, they created opportunities. opportunities to be in parliament. opportunities to create parties. opportunities to participate in civic associations and so on, and in order to be able to do that, they had to modify they're ideology. they had to reject the language that previously saw democracy as being antithetical to god's sovereignty and so on. so here, it's a mixture of political opportunities and the general nature of the powerful repressive states they were confronting, led them to,

perhaps a strategic choice to modify their ideologies. thirdly, we have what i, could be called the rise of the pious middle class. the technocrats, engineers, doctors, who largely permeate the organizations that constitute islamism today. these people on the one hand were sick and tired of the secular repressive state that largely was a failed state. it failed to deliver on the promise of madetity and also embedded in the project of globalism. they were engineers, studied in the various faculties where they had to read english and speak english very well or various other western languages. they are the age of the internet. they are exposed to the world, but at the same time, they feel you could be both modern and islamic. the two are not in contradiction. so any islamist movement, say the more radicals that want to revert back to 1,400 years ago

is not something that would appeal to them, and here i would strongly recommend put a plug for a book called an "enchantsed modern." excellent ethnographic study of women in southern lebanon that looks at muslim women in southern lebanon and how you can be islamic, pious on the one hand and at the same time quite modern. really an excellent treatment and most don't see it as a contradiction in terms. and i think this ideology was really seeking to mobilize that constituency. finally, the fourth point i'll make, my concluding point, i think this is part of a dialecticcal, or diological process by which islam is formulated the more moderate positions largely in response to the opposition that was constantly beating him over the head saying you're anti-democratic, anti-women, anti-coptic, you're this and you're that. so the fact they had to respond to that and show that, no, islam is not necessarily anti-democratic, not necessarily

anti-minority irs, is not -- in doing so, that helped solidify the ideology as an alternative to say neosellafism or pure secularism on the other. i'll stop here. >> as the moderator i'll take the privilege of sort of teasing out some of the points of agreement and points of disagreement, and the obvious one is, mohammed, i think you raise nice examples that might run counter to some of the findings that brian and johanna presented. what i think is interesting, johanna, most are your data look at democracies yet you found some agreement with brian looking for global, 198 countries and want that stuck out for me in particular, your denominational one. parties that are the same, larger tradition, christianity, let's say, but of a different denomination if they're not included in the political process, then they're more apt to sort of take up violence, or go sort of towards the violence and similarly, brian, in your

data, you show the targets tend not to be a muz lil against a christian but a sunni against a shia within the islamic tradition. it's nice. different data, kinds of states, yet we're finding empirical evidence to support similar dynamics at play. mohammed, you raised the important point that didn't come out of the earlier conversation about secularism and secular regimes. one of the questions i want to put to the panel is, you know, in your empirical work and theorizing ar this does it matter who is repressed? does it matter if it's one group, if it's the majority or a minority ji does it matter if it's everybody who's repressed? meaning a highly secularized regime, turkey, raise it as an example, and what does this mean as religious freedom? mohammed's making a powerful story, maybe if you repress everybody, down the road you give them enough time, people will operate a little more moderately in the end? i'm not sure that's the case. could be an outlier.

looking at the different types of regimes, secularizing regimes versus those that allow a little more openness what have you found in your data as you look at it? in terms of, you know, what we're interested in, which is extremism and that extreme then sort of legitimating violence assuming that the parties feel as if they're not getting their political needs satisfied through a ballot box. in your case it's all democracies. in your case, brian, the whole gambit of regime types. johanna, you first, then brine, then mohammed. >> first, i'm not quite sure that anything that mohammed said really contradicts my findings, because in the general political science literature, the association between regime type and violence is thought to be curved to linear. in the most repressive regimes you tend to see less violence than in transitional regimes and again, violence decreases again in liberal democracies.

and we are only looking at democracies so far and it's possible that one, once we start looking at authoritarian regimes as well we will find more of a curved linear relationship. i also agree that the real world is messy, but we can still, if we have particular ideas about how it is messy, we can account for that in cross-national and longitudinal analysis. in our studies we count for things like concentration and country-specific effects and electoral institutions, and the economy, et cetera, et cetera. doesn't mean we necessarily captured everything but we certainly can capture a lot of variation associated with that messiness. also, the predictions that we make are probablistic, not deterministic. so the results i spoke of were all in probablistic terms.

so if you subject an ethnic minority or a religious minority to particular conditions it makes that minority more likely to engage in violence. it doesn't necessarily marine that in every single case it will. so it's not clear to me that there is any disagreement between the empirical, the aggregate empirical analysis and the case study analysis. i just think that there's a lot more analysis to be done, and i think that these sorts of detailed case studies go hand in hand w analysis is improving our understanding of these relationships. >> brian? >> yes, in our approach, we don't look at a restriction on religion particularly as a negative or a positive thing. there's many situations in countries where the government and the society are very supportive of a certain restriction on religion. so even in the united states where we restrict the ability of

groups to proselytize if they receive government funds to carry out a social program. that's a restriction on proselytism or sharing your faith that doesn't really cause much -- much concern to most people. so it's a restriction, yet it's well accepted. so i think in the data looking at middle east and north africa and then some of the other countries that mohammed was speaking about including turkey, which is out by our measures, outside the middle east and north africa and pakistan, we see wide -- >> you'd like to think so, anyway. >> we do it by geographic -- >> sure. >> designation. so, yeah. nothing implied in the designations. so in those three countries, there was wide variation in government restrictions, and ironically in tunisia it wasict were lower than in the

neighboring countries. n libya and in egypt, and higher and increasing and tunisia, that's why it came as somewhat of a surprise to many people that these revolutions started there. there wasn't as much of a strong government clampdown, and then turkey falls somewhere in the middle in terms of government restrictions on religion, keeping sort of a -- at least by our measures, somewhat of a high but not very high level of restrictions on religion, but in pakistan, contrary to the previous two, have very high restrictions coming from the government and also very high social hostilities involving religion. so within these countries there's really a wide variety of types of restrictions put on religion and types of social hostilities, and so i think that the picture of just one -- one model, it being able to explain all the situations can't be -- can't be put forward, but i

think there are at least in the data that i was reviewing, certain connections between a type of government restriction and then certain types of social hostilities. and the one i mentioned at the end was using conversion as an example. so when governments put, restrict conversion in the population, populations are more likely to have violence over that topic. so it's -- you know, it's not necessarily a causal relationship, but you can see the relationship if the government says that's off limits, you can't convert from one religion to another. someone does. then that -- if someone in society takes action against that, they have some justification from the laws of the country to come out against that. so i think there's some connections between certain incidents of violence, but across the board, you know, the picture is more complex. >> mohammed? >> i want to address your

general point. >> yes. >> i think to express the disagreement without being disagreeable, it's the -- to argue that tunisia was not repressive or at least not restrictive of religion is a bit puzzling to me, because during the 1990s, they not only banned an islamist movement, an expression of religion, but also imprisoned many of these individuals, those, many of them remained in jail for a very long time, indeed had to go into exile whether forced or self-imposed exile and restriction on the headscarf in the public institutions, though not always enforced, nonetheless, it was in the books. i'm puzzled how you code tunisia as being open? >> if i can correct myself. >> okay. >> in the spectrum -- in relationship to the governments around it, it was a bit lower in government restrictions, compared with egypt and libya, but it wasn't low. government restrictions. so -- >> fair enough. >> i agree with what you're

saying. >> right. i think the question here -- i struggle with the notion of how do we define radicalization? so the argument is that exclusionary governments will lead to radicalization. someone like myself would say look at turkey, look at tunisia. it were manifest in many ways. the behavioral form, you pick up a gun, go into the mountains, volunteer to about suicide bomber or something like that. most often that's not the kind of radicalization that manifests itself. most of the time it's going to be a kind of, a repressed internal radicalization that stems from viewing your own government as being largely illegitimate, and i think, you know, if you have any conversation with a person in the middle east outside the context of their own country and outside of the -- [ speaking in foreign language ] they would tell you, our governments are illegitimate. they do not represent us. these governments are puppets in the hands of whatever western or foreign power that's there, and

so the legitimatization of governments in the middle east, there's a legitimacy deficit in the middle east and north africa, and that's a form of radicalization that is connected directly to the fact these are exclusionary regimes. but the dependent variable or the thing we're trying to explain, how many suicide bombers or how many attacks, how many people joined a guerrilla organization, this cannot help us in and out of itself. >> actually turkey was -- during the time that turkey has been the most repressive, turkey has always experienced a great deal of violence. >> uh-huh. >> and it is really only when there is a political opening that you are seeing this -- this more moderate expression of religion. so i would disagree with you on the -- on the interpretation of the turkish case. i think that in turkey you can make the case. more in, for ethnicity, maybe, th r