80 Islam and Modernity
families and neighbourhoods. By the mid-1990s their imprisoned leadership
declared an end to hostilities. In Algeria the militants waged a civil war, which
involved massacres of whole villages and outrages rivalled only by state security
forces. They, too, were suppressed in the end. It should be noted that the decline
or demise of the militants, while directly effected by government repression, was
also aided by the fear and loathing of most sectors of the population faced with
atrocity and disruption. In Egypt, for instance, in attacking foreign tourists they
threatened the livelihood of the many Egyptians who were dependent on that
industry. The conservative pious bourgeoisie and their clerics, while supporting
the militants when they were attacking and assassinating secular intellectuals
and artists, drew the line at the disruption of social order (Kepel 2002: 276–98).
Islamic politics in the twentieth century, then, was divided between many dif-
ferent orientations: conservative, reformist, liberal and radical. These combined
in different articulations to the secular ideologies that dominated much of twen-
tieth-century politics. Outright secularism in the Turkish Republic subordinated
religion to a nationalist state and created unique combinations of religion and
nationalism. Egypt, where religion was much more prominent in public life, saw
many tendencies and patterns of Islamic activism. The Muslim Brotherhood, a
modern Islamist political movement, emerged there in 1928, and has continued
to feature in Egyptian political fi elds. Its policies and programmes have fl uctu-
ated with the times, from the nationalist, anti-colonial struggles of the fi rst half of
the century, to strands of ‘Islamic socialism’ in the 1950s and 1960s. It spawned
radical and violent movements, which split from the mainstream during the
1970s. It has evolved into a party containing all the tendencies reviewed above,
but with a dominant leadership advocating civil Islam and democracy.^21
Iran presents a totally different picture of the articulation of religion to poli-
tics and the state. Positions on rights and citizenship have varied in relation to
these positions and the political contexts.
By the turn of the twenty-fi rst century, most Islamists had given up on the
installation of an Islamic state by force or revolution.^22 Faced with repression
and persecution by authoritarian governments, they have increasingly opted
for campaigns for democracy and political participation. The Egyptian Muslim
Brotherhood, for instance, have been calling for political liberalisation and
pluralism, apparently accepting other, non-Islamic political parties and forces
as legitimate. The Turkish Islamic parties have long participated in elections
and entered into coalition governments with other parties, based on politi-
cal realism rather than ideological affi nity. Their opponents, however, have
questioned their democratic credentials, accusing them of using democracy to
gain power, and, once gained, of subverting that democracy. The fact of the
matter is that, although many people in the region now speak the language of
democracy, including presidents, kings and shaykhs, there are few democrats in
action. I shall argue in conclusion that democracy comes not from ideological