The NUS Middle East Institute and the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (NTU) were pleased to present a panel discussion on Islamism and its impact in the Middle East and in Southeast Asia. Experts drew upon case studies in Malaysia, Indonesia, Iraq as well as other countries in the contemporary Muslim world. A brief description of each panel presentation can be found below:

Hizb-ut-Tahrir and the  Human Rights Agenda

By Mohamed Nawab Mohamed Osman

Dr Nawab explored how Hizb-ut-Tahrir (HT), a transnational Islamist movement seeking the establishment of the historical Caliphate use the human rights agenda to propound its position countries that the group exist in. In his seminal book, The New Political Islam: Human Rights, Democracy, and Justice, Emmanuel Karagiannis noted that the HT has embraced the master frame of human rights to propound its position globally. While agreeing with key tenet of Karagiannis’ assertion, this presentation offers a more nuanced analysis. By drawing on the political opportunity structure (POS) and framing strands of social movement theory, this presentation argued that the human rights frame is strategically  employed in democratic and authoritarian political contexts but in fact an anti-human rights frame is used in hybrid political context such as in Malaysia and Indonesia.

Dominant Narratives around the 2018 Iraqi Presidential Elections: Sectarianism and Western Foreign Policy

By Enrica Fei

The 2018 Iraqi presidential elections offer very interesting material on the boundaries of Muslim sectarianism. Some alliances and candidates’ political moves have contradicted crucial assumptions that have dominated the academic literature on Iraq since 2003. The Shi’a cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, for instance – whose militia, the Mahdi Army, was active in the 2004-2008 Iraqi civil war following the invasion and allegedly committed atrocious sectarian crimes, frequently visited Riyadh in recent times and met with Saudi’s crown prince Mohammad Bin Salman to discuss security issues. Also, his Islamist party has joined forces with secularist groups linked to the Iraqi communist party. Such cross-sectarian electoral alliances arguably suggest that there has been a move from identity to issue-based politics. Yet, in the lead-up to the upcoming elections, many analysts have interpreted the current Iraqi political scene within a sectarian framework, and insisted that Western countries should interfere in the government-formation process to ensure a moderate coalition of Shi’a, Sunni and Kurdish elites. Moreover, they warned against the risk of an ‘Iranian-dominated’ Iraq following the elections. The current Iraqi political landscape, however, is quite diverse and the Iraqi parties’ regional allies are not confined to Iran – which enjoys good relations with some of them, but cannot be considered behind Iraqi politics as a whole. Ms Fei will analyse the production on the current Iraqi political unfolding coming from well established American and British think tanks, such as the Chatham House, the Royal United Services Institute, the Brookings Institution and the Atlantic Council. From this analysis she is able to identify certain dominant discourses – namely, sectarianism and the ‘Iranian-threat’, and the way academic production has ‘backed’ Western foreign policy making (by offering evidence, for instance, for the threat posed by Iran), and/or advised Western foreign-policy makers.

The Glocalisation of Islamism in the Middle East

By Emmanuel Karagiannis

Islamist political parties and groups are on the rise throughout the Muslim world and in Muslim communities in the West. Owing largely to the threat of terrorism, political Islam is often portrayed as a monolithic movement embodying fundamentalism and theocracy, an image magnified by the rise of populism and xenophobia in the United States and Europe. Reality, however, is far more complicated. Political Islam has evolved considerably since its spectacular rise decades ago, and today it features divergent viewpoints and contributes to discrete but simultaneous developments worldwide. This is a new political Islam, more global in scope but increasingly local in action. Many Islamists turn to activism, still more participate formally in the democratic process, and some, in far fewer numbers, advocate violence. Consequently, Islamist activists, politicians, and militants have utilized the language of human rights, democracy, and justice to gain influence and popular support and to contend for power.