MIDDLE EAST EYE
Political Islam will go the same way as nationalism and communism
by Moncef Marzouki
June 15, 2016

Over the past half century, throughout which time I have been politically active, I have witnessed the rise and decline of three waves of political thought: nationalism, pan-Arabism and communism. Today, I am about to see the decline of a fourth wave, Islamism, after witnessing its launch in the early 1970s and reaching its peak in the late 1990s. Some might argue the contrary, pointing to the increasing numbers of bearded men and veiled women visible in streets all over the world. They’d point to news reporting the actions of armed religious groups. Or direct my attention to the Islamic resistance Hamas, charities helping the poor, the uncorrupt ruling party in Turkey, or the Muslim Brotherhood’s standing up to the Egyptian dictatorship. I am not disputing any of that. But many will remember that when we were young in the 1970s, the Soviet Union was seen as a power that will stay for the next thousand years….All of this collapsed like cardboard, albeit gradually, but not many people foresaw it. READ MORE