Political Modernity 81pronouncements, but from political institutions and processes that force parties
into it.
The politics of global Islam
Recent decades have been marked by the emergence of the ‘transnational’ and
‘global’ phenomena. In relation to Islam and politics these have two distinct
manifestations: global jihadism or the Afghan phenomenon, and transnational
networks of migration. What they both have in common is an abstract notion of
a global Islamic umma, superimposed on actual politics and social relations.
Global jihadism emerged from protracted confl icts in Afghanistan during
the 1980s. With American and Saudi organisation and fi nance, a large number
of Arab, Pakistani and other Muslim jihadis were recruited and trained to fi ght
the Soviets in Afghanistan. The departure of the Soviets in 1989 and the subse-
quent collapse of the communist regime set the different jihadist groups fi ghting
among themselves and destroying Kabul and other Afghan cities in the process.
In the mid-1990s, the Taliban, this time with Pakistani and covert American
support, emerged as the rulers of the country. The Arab jihadist camps contin-
ued to recruit and train, and after the Soviet defeat a traffi c developed between
these camps and the countries of the region, with the jihadis organising violent
attacks in various countries. The most notable and protracted of this backwash
from Afghanistan was the civil war in Algeria, but there were also important
manifestations in Egypt and elsewhere. The Kuwait war of 1990–1 provided
another focus for jihadism. American and other international forces (includ-
ing those from Arab states) invaded the Gulf region to expel Iraqi forces from
Kuwait. American bases were established on the Arabian Peninsula, notably
in Saudi Arabia: infi dels in the home of the holy cities of Islam. The jihadists
then focused their ire on the Americans and the Saudis who were fi rst respon-
sible for their creation. This was particularly important in Saudi Arabia, which
espoused as its offi cial ideology Wahhabi Islam, the same inspiration shared by
the jihadists. These latter pointed to the laxity and corruption of the Saudi rulers
and their subservience to the American infi dels, now cast as the global enemy
of Islam, and the allies and backers of the Israelis. A global battle was then
postulated, between the theoretical Islamic umma and the Christian (Crusader)
and Jewish enemies, but also Hindus and Sikhs in relation to Kashmir. The
Al-Qaida phenomenon, not a coherent organisation but a loose association of
jihadists, many trained in Afghanistan, but then freelancing in various cells all
over the world, emerged from these events. The battle culminated in the 9/11
attacks in the US and the subsequent ‘war on terror’, including the invasions of
Afghanistan and then Iraq by the Americans and their allies. The postulated
global battle between Islam and the rest seemed to the jihadists and many other
Muslims to be fully engaged. These events and the politics and ideologies they