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with me. hello and welcome to worlds apart. just a few years ago, this read 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 labs war on terror. that following the combination pandemic, and especially the clash between rush and the west in an over your brain, 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 you 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. it seems that your forecast has realized ahead of schedule because one can barely see this issue. mention even the professional publications. lot along the my media. how is it possible that it became such a known 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,

chip turn out 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 the country. and i think the numerous failures have resulted in new 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 the tale barn in terms of doha and the tale bon come to power. and if they tried to motivate the stones, then you have the slavic 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 large extent that discussion to last extent was driven by politics and unresponsive, but politics of the daily manipulations of the day. no, absolutely. um look uh many of these are individuals in my view make use of islam, the faith as a political vehicle as a form of mobilization. i myself, am all in favor of a secular state. oh, because i think that, oh, and it's something which came out of the 2009 uprisings in terms of iran. we're

hearing in clerics, we're actually questioning the proximity between faith and state. believing that this, that the faith itself becomes tarnished by its validity. zation because in a sense all politics is dirty. okay. um and i think that the ease in the muslim world, ah, ah, an attempt by people not to do it in a western style, but you actually look at the koran and so forth. we look at it and she asked if you can actually have the separation of powers. and what i find very interesting is when, for example, when i went to melissa, right to, to your equivalent of sunday school. oh no, i was just or cheerier, but we're cherry of being islamic a law, but not understanding that it's far more complex than that. so for example,

you have a c aso. okay, and 5th, fifty's personal morality, right? i'm not going to own a touch. alcohol would fall under, but see us say is about the public good. and the role of the state is fundamentally to promote jasa, 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 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 through indirect means through voting through your volunteering work, but it will still have some influence on the shape of the state 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. now, 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 pop 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, of course, there are 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, i'm, you did this a widespread existence of pornography, but you can say that collectively we ever since we, as a society is totally opposed to trial can oxy. now i'm going back to you are the use of religion and politics. i heard you say before that one cannot understand the emergence of vocal her. i'm an age area without understanding marina nationalism or one cannot understand the taliban without looking deeply into the past and national

. and i wonder how significant are the differences between those various forces and how they seek to mobilize in utilize 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 1998, and i can tell you that there is no overarching command in control and so on, even where you have a fraction of boca her on becoming part of the slumming state. and so they tend to be driven by local dynamics and, and local grievances, right? so for example, if you take nigeria or 27 percent of the population is living in poverty in the south. but in the muslim north, it's 72 percent. ok. and then when you add to that socio economic divine

i, identity politics, we, you have a canoe, he nationalism seeking to revive the pre colonial annuity 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 eligible come from one class the runway class. and that is because of feelings of political exclusion. in terms of northern molly, the issue of truck eggs and the search for an independent as a what homeland, which did spec at least 500 years of all of these kinds of dynamics, fuel it. and instead of focusing just issues on count insurgency and bad intelligence and so on, in my view, it's about addressing those grievances and it's about 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 have 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 islamic 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, you know, simply as of muslim, while i find it appealing my heart for instance, appealing, my mind tells me it's not realizable. 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, is this, it's that, and all of these dynamics. i mean, in all practical purposes, the mind is did sadly so well, professor sell them on. we have to take a short break right now, but we will be back to the discussion in just a few moments station. ah, he's got to do is identify the threats that we have. it's tracy confrontation, let it be an arms race is often very dramatic. development only personally, i'm going to resist. i don't see how that strategy will be successful, very critical. i'm time to sit down and talk

ah welcome back to will department who's saying on senior professor in the department of political science at the university of the free state in south africa. professor solomon before the break. we were unfortunately discussing b a, b, and 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 worlds fastest growing religion, and you know, many of the, many of those countries have fairly young populations that have large,

fairly large birth rates. what makes you believe that? predominantly muslim countries, i'm 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 the twin tolerations, right? first of all i there was an interesting study basically pointing out that is 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 for 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 the increasingly, when you look at surveys being conducted in terms of the world value surveys,

if you look at the b, b, c, r o, b, the arab barometer and so forth, they show more and more people in the muslim world questioning the b, b, a prominent role in terms of the clergy in terms of islamic norms as determined by the state. so when you talk about religiously minded people, there's your more orthodox interpretation interpretation collegiate. and you're more, more in this interpretation of religion. more more young people would you see more and more women not wanting to cover their heads in g area, you find more and more people not wishing too fast during ramadan? are we talking about people abandoning that belief systems altogether? or rather, perhaps the decline of the political role of those religious dogma. once you are seeing is a decline of the political role. the decline off the slum ism ok,

and you see it in terms of various political parties trying to reinvent themselves . so you should asia as an example, right? they came out of the muslim brotherhood in nato. ok. and then you have, she galucci the leader of trying to reinvent themselves and, and saying, just like you have the christian democratic union in germany we, we see ourselves with that kind of political party. but there's also other people, you know, the east, 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 this post islamism, which basically started off the 19 ninety's in egypt with the suck party, as an alternative to the muslim brotherhood to basically the chron inclusive,

the really g o city. you know, a big fan of us, we're psychologists call young, who discovered that the collective unconscious reach is sort of a phenomenon that is usually referred in traditional religions as god. and i think this is something that is now considered to be an objective fact. i know that their department starting this phenomenon and harvard in the columbia university and that 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 create to say, live the god, what, however they define whichever names that 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 of islam 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 the hindus and buddhists and so on. and i sort of experimented with all of these different weights and it was only in my early fifties when i sort of, we returned to salami, i can put it to you that way. but i seen that one of the reasons driving the quote of the swan is the failure, secular politics. right? and people assume that if you ropes for somebody who is waving the christians

or who's speaking in religious term, 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 salon 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 2 very interesting points. one is that there is a need to move away from the western centric understanding of democracy as an ideal governance 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 in to 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 billions, spend the field 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, doing 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 this is so you have to rise in a full big violence. and so on general terms of trump's america,

let's blame the mexicans for of our problems ministration, blaming the chinese and the russians for that problem. you know, and i think they either need to have so i understand what appealing terms of slot is to have a virtues nieto. i'm not sure how you choose that particularly lead to hope you know beforehand that the person he's 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 did their 5 prayers a day, but that doesn't necessarily make an excellent engineer. good muffin doesn't make

your administrator absolutely. absolutely. and um so, so, so and then, 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. oh, 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 flat that editions 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 authentic lee 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. oh,

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 about little values, i'm talking about she's of tolerance and acceptance of inclusivity and plurality and dissidence. i think, should meet east to have this economic revolution which empowers the poorest 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 that? the efforts on the part of predominantly muslim states to reform themselves and i would love for example, to focus on the, on the gulf states,

which i think luckily for them happened to be here at the time when they need to change social contract came because they were allowed a certain pasted in time to do that. i'm like, let's say libya or syria, which i would claim for 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 the gulf states and iran, which also, you would agree, needs to be attentive to the social and religious dynamics or under currents within society. how do you think are dealing with it? so i'm in south africa, but i'm not that far from the gulf states because the gulf states have been exercise the influence to study 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 gulf 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 on and there was a much more tension in the society. okay. but as it had gone up, no, i think the who is make use of oil well to buy off descent on the one handy ease attempts to transform 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 know, show yourself to be progressive by allowing women to drive. but then you take a dissident like jamaica shogi and you saw him in 2 pieces in the east, on concert. right? and these are the contradictions in my view. ah, unless you have that inclusive

a t and not family run apologies and economies and so on. for there to be a chance for not into islam, and i know what i'm going to say. it's very controversial. but i think many of the gulf states leadership has the common political suicide in, in other words, the families, the ruling families have to step back and own. i mean, islam doesn't allow some extent. they can choose between their own religion and their own family. and this is an interesting choice, and of course it's that it's the family doesn't the, such as the family to both 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 impressive states. but at the same time supposedly have openness because you can watch netflix and stuff like that.

and what i don't see americanizing their politics, giving people some flash of things to be paraded, but at the root of it, leaving them still in a disempowered state, dependent on, on the powers of being. if i agree, it's an absolute mirage, 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 what you, family, dentistry use and, 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 like to don and in egypt and, and the, and the possibilities of actually opening up that economy that on. so that civil military relations also needs to be challenged. but now be a fine line as well. because it's not so easy for me as an academic in south africa saying this because the, the other aspect of the fine line is do you want chaos to iraq? so how do you manage that change professor? so when it's always it's always difficult. it's been difficult for any really. and what distinguishes a great leader ultimate be that ability to manage those difficulties and

conflicting priorities in real time, rather than relying on the 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 me for a

ah, the death toll light. it says heavy shelling by ukrainian forces continues on done yet. city warning, disturbing images followed. several people are killed in the attacks including a 10 year old girl in almost 10 years. as a war correspondent, i have never seen how crazy. these are t reports from a chemical warehouse destroyed by the ukranian army in the loop guns republican region now under the full control of russian lead forces, beijing, slums, washington for accusing china of spreading dis information. that's after the u. s.