Jocelyne Cesari is a highly respected academic: she is professor of religion and politics at the University of Birmingham; senior research fellow at Georgetown University’s Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs; and professorial fellow at the Australian Catholic University. So you know immediately what she thinks about everything.
The only examples offered, at least in this piece, of how political Islam can make people more “democratic and pluralist” are Turkey and Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood regime in Egypt. Unfortunate choices, to say the least. Turkey has been on a trajectory away from democracy and pluralism and toward Sharia for years; Morsi’s Egypt was on the same path. But this is the sort of nonsense the foreign policy establishment in Washington peddles to prop up its failed foreign policy approaches.
“Why ‘political Islam’ can be a gateway to democracy,” by Alain Gabon, Middle East Eye, July 9, 2021:
…According to Jocelyne Cesari, one of the world’s top scholars on Islam, the false narrative that political Islam leads to violence and extremism ignores the fact that if Islamism can, under certain specific circumstances, be a gateway to radicalism, it can also “be a gateway to a more democratic and pluralist worldview”.
Ruptures and reforms
In her book Islamism in Power, Anne-Clementine Larroque has shown that once in power, Islamist parties or movements tend to moderate and even reform themselves, while establishing ruptures from more radical groups, especially jihadists, which are “the kiss of death”. This observed pattern invalidates the simplistic “political Islamism = armed jihadism” equation, or the gateway drug pseudo-theory that one leads to the other.Other top experts on Islam, including John L Esposito, arguably the world’s leading scholar on the topic, have shown that the genuine search for social, economic and political justice is at the heart of the Islamist project – and that this “yearning” is one of the main characteristics shared by most parties and movements.
Several cases of Islamists in power show that if given the chance, they are perfectly willing to live by democratic rules. Ennahda in Tunisia, whose conduct could teach lessons in civic spirit and democratic behaviour to western parties, is by no means the only one, or the “exception that confirms the rule”, as the anti-Islamism hysteria would have us believe.
Before Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s autocratic turn after the July 2016 failed coup attempt and the subsequent massive purges, the ruling AKP was also – and could become again – a model of democratic behaviour. It brought into the country’s mainstream political life millions of Turks who had largely been excluded from it, while giving historically marginalised minorities, especially the Kurds, unprecedented rights and recognition.
The AKP also pulverised the false cliche that “with Islamists, it’s one vote, one time”, since Erdogan and the AKP have regularly submitted themselves to the rule of the ballot box, even at the cost of losing major elections.
Progressive Islamism
Another important example is Egypt under former President Mohamed Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood. Brief as their tenure might have been, given the premature interruption by the 2013 military coup of General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi – incidentally, one of the world’s worst totalitarian despots and proven mass murderers, who the US and EU support unconditionally while blaming “Islamists” for not being democratic enough – the Muslim Brotherhood’s rule was characterised by a substantial and qualitative expansion of democracy.Using the Polity IV Index, one of the main political science tools to measure autocracy, democracy and their fluctuations, researchers Shadi Hamid and Meredith Wheeler demonstrated that under Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt had indeed started its democratic transition. Though far from perfect, given the impossible situation, Egypt became in a short period of time far more democratic than it had been under previous, non-Islamist (and even anti-Islamist) regimes. It was also infinitely more democratic and hopeful than under the current regime….
CogitoErgoSum says
How is fighting people until they either become Muslim or pay the Jizya being democratic and pluralist? My reading of the Koran does not lead me in that direction at all. She is a “top scholar” in Islam? What?
gravenimage says
+1
mgoldberg says
She’s an expert in … Denialism.
Lion heart says
I call her USEFUL IDIOT. Imagine how happy Islamic terrorists like ISIS, Al-Qaeda and boko haram etc.. are happy with this idiot woman and they are like “ ok woman , keep on sugacuu oh sting Islam in your own sick imagination while we continue show the world the true ugly side if Islam ( jihad and enslaving and killing nonMuslims) ??
Francis says
I’ve taken several course at Birmingham Uni over the years & was at a Political Science Society Seminar in which she gave a presentation-her standard view expressed above. In the Q & A she responded to some of the to & fro with the comment ‘we are all part of the same ummah,’ which from the context I took to be a reference to the ‘Constitution of Medina’ (better called the Ummah Treaty-seminal work on it by Michael Lecker) in which Medinans, Believers & Jews form one community to wage war. But she was extrapolating that to mean Medina was a tolerant community and so the Islamic Ummah is today. Unfortunately I had already used up my question but a little later on a Muslim student said, “Islam is a complete way of life” in reply to more relatavist talk.
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gravenimage says
Thanks for that background. Francis. And Cesari is lying–the Ummah is considered to the body of Muslims–it *does not* include Infidels.
As for the “Constitution of Medina”, this is a later fraud. The reality is that according to Islamic texts Muhammed soon exiled, slaughtered, or enslaved the Jews and other Infidels of Medina.
mortimer says
Thanks for the important testimony of Francis. The conclusion, then, is that Jocelyne Cesari is speaking as a supporter and perhaps even a member of the Muslim Brotherhood.
When you look at the fluffy think-tanks to which Frenchwoman Jocelyne Cesari belongs, you are immediately struck by the fact that they all support the narrative of ‘benign Islam’.
Someone is obviously paying huge amounts of money for people like Cesari to manipulate opinion in Western countries in order to whitewash political Islam.
Cesari wants us to think that ‘watered-down Islam’ of ‘moderate Muslims’ is the real Islam. That is obviously a bald-faced lie.
Real political Islam is the Taliban, Salafism and ISIS. All other versions are merely ‘water-downed’ Islam. ‘Watered-down Islam’ is Islam without any jihadism, Dhimmitude and much of Sharia law is simply ignored.
mortimer says
Jocelyne Cesari should be FORENSICALLY AUDITED to find out which Arabian nations are paying her to whitewash Islam.
When the Muslim Brotherhood took power in Egypt, they immediately began to repress Egyptians, lease parts of Egypt to neighboring countries and to plan a terrorism region in the Sinai Desert.
Islamist parties in power are highly discriminatory against kafirs.
There is NO PLURALISM with POLITICAL Islam.
gravenimage says
‘One of world’s top scholars on Islam’ says political Islam can be ‘gateway to democratic and pluralist worldview’
…………………….
Only if one does exactly the opposite of what this foul creed demands.
It used to be that even those who spouted apologia for Islam agreed that “poltical Islam” was a bad thing. But we have more creeping whitewash now, if I may mix my metaphors.
More:
In her book Islamism in Power, Anne-Clementine Larroque has shown that once in power, Islamist parties or movements tend to moderate and even reform themselves, while establishing ruptures from more radical groups, especially jihadists, which are “the kiss of death”. This observed pattern invalidates the simplistic “political Islamism = armed jihadism” equation, or the gateway drug pseudo-theory that one leads to the other.
…………………….
There was a lot of this sort of nattering about Hamas, and later with the Islamic State–the idea that once they got into power that they’d be so busy “fixing potholes”–a frequent reference–that they would have no time for the more obvious savagery of Jihad and Shari’ah.
But Hamas is still launching missiles at Israeli civilians, and the Islamic State was still crucifying children, beheading dissentors, and using Yezidi girls as sex slaves until their “Caliphate” was destroyed as a territorial entity.
Somehow they never got the message that they were supposed to become “moderate”.
Jocelyne Cesari has ranted about “Islamophobia” under Trump, and condemned efforts to stop the Ground Zero Mosque (the fight against which Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller were instrumental in).
She has claimed that Islam is not a “terror ideology”, but that the issue is that:
“We seem to need to exist in opposition to an Other, and in today’s national folklore, Islam plays that role.”
She completely ignores Jihad terror, and demands that we do so as well.
JCA Reid says
What drugs is this woman on??? Look at Muslim Majority countries! They’re simply, monolithic, Fascistic, perverse Dystopias. Nothing else is allowed to exist. Supposed to be a highly intelligent academic! Here she certainly does NOT show any clear, concise evidence of being a serious academic or any intelligence!
gravenimage says
Too true. That does not stop her from being influential, though.
mortimer says
Reply to JCAReid: she is paid to whitewash Islamism and pretend it is benign to kafirs. It is repressive and discriminatory and supremacist.
In any Muslim country, her words would be strictly under government control.
tim gallagher says
This fool certainly inhabits a fantasy land, which many academics do seem to inhabit. I think that Islam is the complete opposite of the values of democratic societies. The values of a democratic society are those of that quote, which is ascribed to Voltaire, where he is supposed to have said that he disagreed with another person’s point of view but would defend with his life the other person’s right to say it. Islam and all Islamic societies are the complete opposite of that outlook. In islamic societies, it is the Islamic way or the highway. Islam is totally intolerant of any but the Islamic view of life. As someone who lives in Australia, I was wondering what does being a “professorial fellow” at Australian Catholic University mean? If she teaches at a university in the UK, what does she have to do with an Australian university. I have noticed that the Australian Catholic University does have a good conservative educator, Kevin Donnelly, who I often see on Sky News TV and hear on the radio. He has written books such as “How Political Correctness is Destroying Australia” and “Cancel Culture and the Left’s Long March” and many others. So at least that University doesn’t seem to only employ left wing clowns. However, the woman in this report is surely a left wing clown who lives in that fantasy land where islam is warm and cuddly and peaceful and a force for good. As if.!! Islam never has been like that and never will be.
Wellington says
Amazing how those with a totalitarian view just lie and lie and lie. Islam’s been doing this for 1400 years (e.g., Islam is against the killing of innocent people but it depends on how Islam defines “innocence”).
Nazism under Hitler and Goebbels were simply superb at mendacity (e.g., Hitler at Munich in September of 1938 claiming that the Sudetenland was his last territorial demand in Europe).
Communists regularly told lies about the West and especially the United States (Gorbachev himself was amazed when he visited an American supermarket and concluded it was a Potemkin supermarket until a plethora of examples convinced him otherwise—so, liars can actually many times fall prey to lies by their fellow liars).
And modern Western Leftists lie with great regularity (e.g., The Biden Administration maintaining just this Summer that it was the Republicans last year who wanted to defund the police).
And now this example from this pseudo-intellectual who is lying through her teeth. Liars lie. That’s what they do and EVERY totalitarian ideology produces liars aplenty who tell monumental lies about themselves and the “other.”
The truth will set you free. As a great bonus, it will completely put you on your guard against liars—like Jocelyne Cesari.
Raja says
Wellington,
So many liars around. Devil’s agents galore.What a world!
Great post!!!
gravenimage says
+1
Kepha says
Let me guess: Jocelyne Cesari either has or aspires to ties with the US State Department.
Optimism is to the diplomat what courage is to the soldier. While it’s true you often need to deal with people whom you don’t like and who don’t like you, there comes a point where the talking and hoping inevitably breaks down.
The American establishment sees in Jihadism the “wave of the future” for the lands of Islam. It recalls how badly it missed catching the similar Communist “wave of the future” in the Asia of the post-WWII era, and hopes it won’t be caught up short again (although, it is now clear that in the 1940’s and 1950’s, thel ikes of Mao Zedong, Kim Ilsung, and Ho Chi Minh would never view the USA as anything but the ultimate enemy). Hence, the Obama [mal-]administration sought to make nice with the Muslim Brotherhood and Da’esh (when it fought Assad). The proffered hand of friendship got bit, but now it is offered again.
David M says
How about we drop this “top scholar of Islam” off in Afghanistan tomorrow. She can keep a diary of what she is allowed to do now, & then when the Taliban take over in a few months. She will be kept indoors & only allowed to go out with a male guardian, & she will be forced to wear the human garbage bag called a burqa. The Taliban are pious Muslims who enforce Islam to the letter. See what she thinks about pure Islam after a year of that.
Raja says
When the real Mohamed himself is questioned about existence, you can expect many more “scholars” churning out theories, lies and so on.
Her heart and mind lies with the devil. It is commonly believed that man tends to seeks god and is grateful to Him. In the case of Islam, I didn’t know that the mentally screwed can have so much unflinching loyalty to the lying, murdering, abomination-filled god.
OTTER says
And yet another white woman digging the grave of the West by whitewashing Islam.
gravenimage says
Everyone here has criticized the moronic Jocelyne Cesari.
But note that OTTER has a special agenda here–he has said that white men have to control white women–and that this entails preventing them from getting an education, voting, and working outside the home. Even more disturbingly, he has said that white women have to be forced to breed.
Note that OTTER completely ignores arguably much more influential apologists for Islam like Craig Considine–who is actually a white man himself. In other words, OTTER would happily enslave Anti-Jihadists like Pamela Geller and French girl Mila to those like this creep–all while pretending that this is about opposing Jihad. *Ugh*.
Ewanda says
It’s obvious that Cesari has never learned what “Democracy” is.
gravenimage says
+1
Jesper says
Fantasy Islam…
She should state that in a public square in an islamic country, and see what happens next.
Giacomo Latta says
‘it can also “be a gateway to a more democratic and pluralist worldview”.’
And suicide can cure your bad back, sister. Which of us is closer to being on the right track? It is not you.
gravenimage says
Yes–where has this *ever* been the case? Her two supposed examples are absurd.
libertyORdeath says
Is this seriously what so-called “academics” do with their time???
A defense of Islamism as a purported “path to democracy” is laughable at best.
I guess you could also argue that communism leads to respect for religion. What a farce.
Giacomo Latta says
”under Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt had indeed started its democratic transition”
And this thread is being filed under ”willful ignorance?” Excellent choice.
OLD GUY says
Amazing how these scholars can be so stupid. I guess if you read and study enough of the written islamic writings by Islamic scholars who paint a wonderful picture, it sounds like love and peace. They need to put as much study into what life under Islamic rule is really like. It’s like studying the ideology of Communism from the books of those who propose the idea, and then actually seeing the results of communism or socialism first hand. NOT the same thing. Cesari is blinded by her fantasy of utopia.
Harris Kange says
She may either want to help them in the transformation or wait till the ‘about to be formed’ Taliban regime eventually transitions into a truly free, democratic and pluralist society, before resolving to live in Afghanistan??
gravenimage says
Jocelyne Cesari has been flogging this crap about “Muslim democracy” for at least the past six years:
https://pomeps.org/the-awakening-of-muslim-democracy-a-conversation-with-jocelyne-cesari
Of course, 2015 was noted not for “Muslim democracy” but for the rise of the Islamic State.
And this goes back even further with her–in 2004 she published “When Islam and Democracy Meet: Muslims in Europe and in the United States”. Never mind the predictable mushrooming of Jihad terror in the west with the invasion of Muslims here, or the fact that the reaction of most Muslims to democracy is to violently condemn it as “un-Islamic”.
https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9780312294014
Bikinis not Burkas says
Wonder what her views on the Lindt Cafe ISLAMIC MURDER are?
https://www.9news.com.au/national/lindt-cafe-siege-2010s-how-it-changed-australia-decade-in-review/51e7062c-e128-4a65-b1a6-991b487e29be
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-02-01/man-monis-girlfriend-gets-44-years-in-jail-for-murder/8228516
This happened not far from where I live, 5 minutes drive.
If she was having coffee in the cafe, would she think any differently?
Wonder what she thinks of the ISLAMIC MURDER on the steps of the Sydney Police Center?
https://www.transparency.gov.au/annual-reports/office-director-public-prosecutions/reporting-year/2019-20-21
What if it had been her husband? Does she have one, or any friends for that matter?
Wonder what she thinks of the ISLAMIC MURDER in Melbourne of a Coffee shop owner outside his business?
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/nov/10/bourke-street-attack-popular-restaurant-owner-sisto-malaspina-identified-as-victim
Why does the Australian Federal Government continue to import the MURDEROUS IDEOLOGY of ISLAM?
Ronen says
Of course she is correct. And nazism can become a gateway for ratial harmony.