ah, ah with mm. i don't welcome to worlds of heart just a few years ago. the threat of religious specifically islamic fundamentalism was deemed by many countries as one of the top security threats providing a pre tax for ballooning defense budgets and fueling to use last war on terror. the following, the public 1000 pandemic, and especially the clash between russia and the west in an over you print, when hardly hears about it any more. is it no longer an issue?

well, to discuss it, i'm now joined by who st. tom on senior professor in the department of political science at the university of the we stayed in south africa. professor solomon has a great to talk to you. thank you very much for finding the time. well, thanks for having me. now i heard you say in an interview last year that in a couple of years we will no longer hear about islamic fundamentalism. and it seems that your forecast has realized they had on schedule because one can barely see these issue mentioned. even in professional publications live along the mass media . how is it possible that it became such a non issue after being such a huge issue only a couple of years ago? well, i would maybe say that i'm not so categorically that it's the end. i think it comes in waves and i think that one form of the mentalism feeds another and i think that what essentially happened was when they did come to power,

for example, in egypt, if you take the one on muslim in the muslim brotherhood and you have a disastrous year in power for various reasons, but in my view, chit chat, know any of the reach him is not a template for governance. i myself am a practicing muslim and i read micron every night. but it's not a textbook in terms of how to govern the country or how to economically kickstart a country. and i think the numerous failures have resulted in ordinary people having a we look an examination, but by no means easy over, right? we've just seen, for example, where the americans have cut to deal with a 30 bond in terms of doha and bond come to power. and if they tried to motivate the stones, then you have the slum states congress on coming in and occupying those positions

that they have to decently done so. so i think it comes in and ways, but i also think that the contradictions in terms of islamism as well as the thing is in government, has basically resulted in them not being as attractive as before. i remember when this issue was due a fashionable topic, there was a lot of discussion about the separation of the state and religion and whether it's possible in, in the muslim countries, was it's really about islam as or any ontological underpinnings, as opposed to simply politics because if we look at how fluid this is you, how quickly disappeared from public awareness or public concern. it seems that it was to a large extent that discussion to large extent was driven by politics and just born . but politics of the day, the manipulations of the day. yeah. no, absolutely not. many of these individuals in my view make use of

islam the same as a political vehicle as a form of mobilization. i, myself, am all in favor of a secular state, because i think that it's something which came out of the 2009 uprisings in terms of iran. we're iranian clarity. we're actually questioning the proximity between faith and state, believing that this, that the faith itself becomes tarnished by its politicize ation. because even since all politics is dirty, okay? and i think that the ease in the muslim world and attempt by people not to do it in a western style, but to actually look at the koran and so forth. we look at it and actually us, if you can actually have the separation of powers. and what i find very interesting

is, when example, when i went to my desk right to, to your improvement of sunday school, i was just stored sharia. but would you be slumming law but not understanding that it's far more complex than that? so for example, you have see also, okay and fear cookies, personal morality, right? i'm not going to a touch alcohol would fall under death, but he also is about the public good. and the role of the state is fundamentally to promote c, r said the public good. the interesting thing about public good is that it's not defined by the koran. ok? it's not scriptures there. so for example, whether you are in a can s of you here because i think any religion comes not only with personal beliefs, but a certain view of the world. certain definitions of good and bad,

including what's good and that's the collective for the society. so is it really possible to fully separate those things? because if you are a practicing authentically practicing a muslim a christian, you have a certain notion of what your society supposed to be. i'm sure you can influence that indirect means through voting for your volunteering work, but it will still have some influence on the shape of the say that you live in or am i wrong here? look on muslims are very tiny minority in south africa. ok. at the mosque where we'll ship. um right next to my mosque, there's a bottle store and a pop. okay. no, it's up to me, right? in terms of my personal morality, in terms of my personal religious beliefs to walk into the mosque as opposed to the pump and to have an alcoholic drink. ok,

i have friends of mine who do frequent the pop i into the pop and i'll never cook. it's not the role of the state in my view to dictate personal morality because fundamentally then you getting to the relationship and how you define that relationship between your personal beliefs own. ah, and, and god. um. so i think that the state needs to stay away from, from, from there was there certain things in terms of the public good, which needs to be regulated and, and so forth. but it should be good consensus around those issues, right? so so, so for example, you did the widespread existence of pornography, but you can say that collectively we have us as we, as a society is totally opposed to trial, could not now going back to the use of religion and politics. i heard you say

before that one cannot understand the emergence of book her arm and they are without them descending canoe, reinvention, nationalism or one cannot understand the taliban without looking deeply into the past and national. and i wonder how significant the differences between those various forces and how they seek to mobilize and utilize. 9 islam do they borrow from a child, or do they use the same tactics, or they tend to be more or less grassroots. i've been studying political islam since 998. and i can tell you that there is no walking command in control and someone, even when you have a fraction of boca her on becoming part of the slum states. and so they tend to be driven by local dynamics and, and local grievances. so right. so for example, if you take nigeria,

a 27 percent of the population is living in poverty in the south. but in the most of them north, it's 72 percent. okay. and then when you add to that socio economic divined, identity, politics, we, you have a canoe, he nationalism seeking to revive the pre colonial canoe, the empire because they has a new group feel aggrieved. this same dynamic is happening with osha bob in terms of somalia. we 70 percent of the fighters for osha bob, come from one class the ron winkler. and that is because of feelings of political exclusion. in terms of northern molly, the issue of 12 megs and the search for an independent as of what homeland. which did spec at least 500 years of all of these kind of dynamics fuel it.

and instead of focusing just issues on count insurgency and bid intelligence and so on, in my view, it's about addressing those grievances and it's about good governance effect of governance and so on. and i one thing as a practicing muslim because muslims like to think about themselves as one people as the despite the fact that as you said, there is a huge diversity and dynamism, i think, within islam and how they interpret the religion in how they practice it. how do you see is what i mean, there's even such, such a unified concept as islam in this year of globalized communications is the concept of whom i feel realistic. is it something that the muslims can aspire to as opposed to you know, being a soldier about? yeah, sadly, as of muslim, while i find it appealing,

my heart is appealing. my mind tells me it's not we allies of all, i mean a go back to the fact that 3 of the 4 colleagues, you know, the 1st will call you were killed, you know, i mean, it was right the and those divisions right at the right at the outset, i mean, if you take the current situation in terms of yemen, you know where muslims are killing. ah, you know, it's she, i versus sunni, it's east this, it's that and all of these dynamics i, i mean, in all practical purposes, people might use it sadly. so, well professor sell them on. they have to take a short break right now, but they will be back to the discussion in just a few moments. ah, [000:00:00;00]

with ah, with shakes i was showing a little who has recently been diagnosed with center of chicago and then also the move the quinn company out the so please. so mr. ashley with

me or from yahoo national and let them know that we put on some with oh no, but i live on doyle. like new york, we used to look and he's the newest go shit on when you hit them. my review. my auto bought. yeah. which in the dealership? yes. go to us. no, i would. would. okay. question yeah. oh no. oh oh. oh yeah. uh huh. oh, i am. mm hm. well, come back to will department hussein solomon senior professor in the department of

political science at the university of the free state in south africa, professor solomon before they break. unfortunately discussing b, b and of the concept of oma. and i also heard you say that you believe that muslim countries are becoming more secular, increasingly more secular, even though if you look at the statistics as long as still the world class has growing religion. and you know, many of the, many of those countries have a fairly young population. there have a large, fairly large birth race. what makes you believe that, predominantly muslim countries are becoming more secularized. and what do you mean actually by to killer secularization? you know, well, you are fundamentally talking about what has been term called

a twin toleration. so right. first of all i, there was an interesting study basically pointing out that there's no country which is in the world which is fully secular. ok. so for example, if you take the queen of england, you know, she's the head of the church wide of england and so forth. and i mean, you see the same in terms of american politics, right? we do have a christian, right, playing a more political role and so forth. but, but increasingly, when you look at surveys being conducted in terms of the world value surveys. if you look at the b, b, c, r b, the arab barometer and so forth, that will show more and more people in the muslim world questioning the, the prominent role in terms of the clergy in terms of

islamic norms determined by the state. so when you talk about religiously minded people, there's your more orthodox interpretation, interpretation of nature. and your more modernist interpretation of religion. more and more young people would you see more and more women not wanting to cover their heads in g area? you find a lot more people not wishing to fussed during ramadan. we talking about people abandoning the lease the lease distance altogether, or rather perhaps the decline of the political role of those religious dogma. what you are seeing is a decline of the political role, the decline off the islamism. ok. and you see it in terms of various political parties trying to reinvent themselves. so if you take tunisia as an example, right, they came out of the muslim brotherhood, the in nato. ok. and then you have rashid galucci,

the leader of trying to reinvent themselves and, and saying, just like you have the christine democratic union in germany we, we see ourselves as that kind of political party. but there's also other move, you know, the ease the rise of civil islam where you, we don't invoke yourself in politics, but you involve yourself in terms of charity and so on. and it's pushed islamism, which basically started off the 19 ninety's in egypt with the over suck party as an alternative to the muslim brotherhood to basically the chron inclusive it really g o city. you know, a big fan of us with psychologists call young, who discovered that the collective unconscious which is sort of a phenomenon that is usually refer it in traditional religions, has got and i think this is something that is now considered to be an objective fact. i know that their department starting this phenomenon in harvard in the

columbia university. and i, you can solve. i wrote a lot about the, the interplay between religions and the collective psyche and the role of religions . the important role of religion that they served in, you know, providing the sense of newman as the sense of purpose, the sense of meaning for the people. and he actually argued that, you know, for any creature, say alive the god. what however, they define whichever names they're given, they have to stay alive. people have to relate to them authentically. and if we look at the data for islam and the spread of islam, it's clear that it's more vital, more vibrant than many of the other. let's say christian denominations, what do you think provides for this sustainability as a creed, as a sort of a school of thought or in the school of believe? you know, as personally as a young person growing up i,

i grew up in the muslim household, but at the same time i was in contact with christians and jews and hindus and buddhists, and so on. and i sort of experimented with all of these different weights and it was only in my early thirties when i sort of, we returned to salamis. i can put it to you that way. but i think that one of the reasons driving the code of the slum is the failure of secular politics. right. and people assume that if you ropes for somebody who is waving the christians or who's speaking in religious terms, that the person will be less corrupt. that the person understand that he has a responsibility, she has a responsibility to actually list off the community and so forth. so i think that what's driving the growth of the sloane in many cases it's is the failure of

secular politics in across the muslim world to actually make good their promises in some form. and at the same time, the disenchantment of islamism is when they behave in the same corrupt manner as being secular predisposes shall i also heard you make a 2 very interesting point. one is that there is a need to move away from the western centric understanding of democracy as an ideal government for everybody, including the predominantly muslim countries. and the 2nd one is the need within the muslim societies to of rolled into more authentic way into more inclusive, perhaps more democratic way of governance. so let's think that one by one starting with the western model as an ideal for all. why is it not appealing to you? look, i think that the western models, you know, when you look at it,

when you look at us elections in particular, if you look at the 1000000000 spent, if you look at the kind of catch phrases, you know, make america great again. oh, make america great. what does it mean, what does it mean in practice? and i think that often democracy like that, appeals to the lowest common denominator, dealing my own country. we have a number of political parties which are preparing for the 2024 elections. and it's about, you know, attacks and for him, the z, so you have to rise in a full be violence. and so on general terms trumps america. let's blame the mexicans for of our problems. i ministration, blaming the chinese and the russians for a problem. you know, and i think they either need to have so i understand what appealing terms of slough is to have

a virtuous nieto. i'm not sure how you choose that particularly lead to help you know beforehand that the person is committed to. let's say the social contract, you choose the people around that leader who are competent enough to deliver. you know, um, you know, when the muslim brotherhood was running egypt for that year. i mean, they chose people because they were, they were ostensibly pious. they are, they are, they are 5 prayers a day, but that doesn't necessarily make an excellent engineer. good muffin doesn't make your good administrator. absolutely. absolutely. and um, so, so, so, and them, and that's one of the reasons that i've been pushing. certainly for the secularisation of our faith and the separation between mosque and the state and so on. but i also think that the ease of me in the muslim world, that when you talk about democracy,

it's not western style democracy and so forth. but because of the spread of islam that you quickly pointed out earlier on, it has to be authentic and has to be flicked the traditions in the cultures of the people. and the other thing is very important. the just in passing, i would say this. it in it, it is imperative not to enforce it because if you allow to develop yeah, you allowed to develop a dentistry and so on. and one of the issues which i've been working on quite a bit if you go back to the rise of liberal democracy, ah, it wouldn't have been possible without an industrial revolution. right? or because you needed a middle class with those kind of values. and the problem in terms of much of the muslim world, i mean it's, it's, it is poor in relation to the population size. so the key to real rise, these liberal values. and when i talk a little values,

i'm talking about issues of tolerance and acceptance of exclusivity, and plurality and dissidence. i think, should meet east to have this economic revolution which empowers the course of the pool so that they can also share in this vision. i think that when you have a huge gap between which and poor it drives fundamentalism, can i also ask you about the efforts on the part of predominantly muslim states to reform themselves? and i would love, for example, to focus on the, on the goals states, which i think luckily for them happened to be here at the time when they need to change social contract game. because they were allowed a certain, paste it in time to do that. and like, let's say libya or syria, which i would claim were sort of ambushed by the west and very vulnerable social

time for themselves. how do you see those efforts you're far away from both? let's say that all states and iran, which also, you would agree, needs to be attentive to the social and religious dynamics or under current that in society. how do you think i dealing with it? so i mean, some africa, but i'm not that far from the gulf states because the gulf states have been exercised, the influence, the studio charities to the mosques and the sermons, and so on coming from saudi arabia, iran, turkey, and so on across. yeah. and i, i think that 1st of all, if you take the gold states, you are talking both very few citizens and some of the state. so i think with much of the population being expatriate, i think that the, i think with the price of oil was down and, and there was much more attentions in the society. okay. but as it has gone up, no,

i think the rules make use of oil well to buy off the scent. on the one hand, the eas attempts to transfer the society. but to be honest with you, it is, i'm not sure how successful they are, and i'm not sure how far they are going to go. but so you can't, for example, have a situation where you now show yourself to be progressive by allowing women to drive. but then you take a dissident like jamal shogi and you saw him in 2 pieces in the east and will concert. right? and these are the contradictions in my view. ah, unless you have that inclusive, a te and not family run apologies and economies and so on. for there to be a chance for authentic islam, and i know what i'm going to say, it's very controversial. but i think many of the gulf states the leadership have to come a political suicide in. in other words, the families,

the ruling from the step to step back. and i mean islam doesn't allow some extent they could choose between their own religion and their own family. and this is an interesting choice. and of course it's, it's the family doesn't the, such as the family, it's about political privilege. it's about economic world and so on. and will they do? so i don't think so. and at the moment they are buying off the sins and they are running out of state. but at the same time supposedly have openness because you can watch netflix and stuff like that. and i don't think you americanizing the other politics, giving people some flesh of things to be paraded, but the root of it, leaving them still in a disempowered state, dependent on, on the powers of being. if i agree,

it's an actual massage and i don't think it's sustainable. and you would recall that when, when people were slew, focusing on alternative energy sources and so on. and when the oil price was down there, contradictions in the society, just escalated to. right. but i think that it's sort of settling down, but i don't think it's permanent. and i think they are facing particular crisis also on the environmental front. and you also have people who have been educated and so on and who are now challenging that you know, you have a middle class emerging which is not necessarily linked to the state or, or to the family dentistry. and who are finding it hard to necessarily open up the process, but not the gulf states. i mean, if you look at the power of the military,

you know, for example, in the countries likes to don and in egypt and, and the, and the possibilities of actually opening up the economy that own so that civil military relations also needs to be challenged. but now be the find the line as well, cuz it's not so easy for me as an academic. and so that's a good thing. that's because the, the other aspect of the fine line is do you want chaos to iraq? so how do you manage that change in professor? so when it's always it's always difficult. it's been difficult perennially. and what distinguishes a great liter ultimate being used to manage those difficulties and conflicting prayers and in real time, rather than relying on on money to to by that time anyway, we have to leave it there. i really appreciate your time with us today. thank you very much for that. thank you for having me. and thank you for watching coffee theory. again. it was

a part ah with mm ah, with these other places. so the blood of people who suffered from knox is in people who emerged crystallization. forced labor, medical experiments and guess people who died in the gatos death camps and