In January 2015, the Bibliotheca Alexandrina convened a conference, “Towards an Arab Strategy to Face Extremism.” The conference was called to discuss the phenomenon of extremism, its causes, aspects and consequences, and how to deal with it. The conference concluded with a final statement calling for coordinated efforts between cultural institutions. The statement included a review of the phenomenon of extremism, its serious effects and the work needed to face it, such as reforming religious discourse, the media, tackling issues of poverty, enhancing human rights and public freedoms and diversity. The conference entrusted the Alexandria Library to play a pioneering role by establishing an annual conference to counter extremism. Based on this, the library organised from 3-5 January 2016 its second annual conference on countering extremism, under the title, “The Nurturing of Extremism: A Reading on Measures of Intellectual Confrontation.” Renewing religious discourse was one major instrument discussed for challenging extremism. The paper I presented to the second conference focussed on what I called “the war of ideas.” The paper started by recalling the US commemoration of 11 September 2001 on its fourteenth anniversary in 2015. With the exception of Pearl Harbour, which lies far from the American heartland, the 11 September attacks were the first to target the heart of American security. Following the attacks, analysts and scholars expected that the US would not be the same after 9/11 as it had been before. The Bush administration adopted a strategy called the “war against terror”, which in turn led to the launch of two wars: on Afghanistan and Iraq. Parallel to this military approach, a wide debate developed on the sources of terrorism and the motives of radical elements. As those who committed the 9/11 attacks were believed to come from Arab and Islamic worlds, the debate focussed on environments governed by authoritarian regimes, alongside poverty, unemployment and poor education. This thinking led to the “promotion of democracy” strategy. In this context, the war on Iraq was justified according to its projected outcome: a democratic regime that would be a model for the whole region. A shift in the search for the sources of terrorism and motivations behind extremism came with the emergence of the Islamic State (IS) group, and the way it expanded and mobilised thousands of followers. Many of these followers enjoyed good standards of living and had jobs, and for many the societies they came from — particularly European societies — enjoyed democracy and political participation. Hence the emergence of a school focussed on the ideas that dominate extremist thinking, particularly the deviant and distorted interpretation of Islam and its teaching and values. According to this school, terrorism cannot be confronted through military means alone. Rather, the intellectual sources that direct terrorist behaviour must be addressed. In the United States, General Michael Negata, commander of American Special Forces in the Middle East, when speaking of IS and its mobilisation of thousands of followers, including Europeans, said: “We didn't understand this movement. Until we do, we will not be able to defeat them.” For many years, American policymakers failed to understand the nature of the threat of extremist Islam. They also completely failed to launch an effective offensive on the front of ideas. The debate in the US continued on the concept of the war of ideas, and between those who called for the US to support reformists in renewing religious discourse, while others argued that calls for religious reform weren't new in Islamic world, and that foreign support for reform would be interpreted as an imperial scheme to undermine Islam. In Egypt, President Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi launched his call for a “religious revolution.” He appealed to religious leaders and scholars to start a serious process of reforming religious discourse, focussing on the tolerant and peaceful face of Islam. However, a debate emerged on the role and even willingness of the religious establishment to engage in a serious reform effort. Those who were trained and educated on traditional texts and interpretation, some of whom were educated at Al-Azhar, said that the texts IS uses to justify its behaviour and mobilise followers are exactly the same as those taught at Al-Azhar, the only difference being that IS has given them a literal interpretation. This motivated some scholars to conclude that the needed reform of religious discourse would not be realised through the religious establishment. They recalled the European experience of religious reform achieved by philosophers and thinkers such as Spinoza, Descartes, Locke and Kant. They went further to say that religious reform in Europe, at the beginning of European Renaissance, was realised not through religious leaders but in spite of them. Meanwhile, some argued that since President Al-Sisi launched his call in 2014, nothing has been achieved. On the contrary, intellectuals and scholars who examined traditional religious thinking were put on trial and sentenced to prison. A recent court ruling indicated that there are certain articles existing in law that negate any serious contributions to reforming religious discourse. In all cases, the focus on ideas spurring extremism does not negate the fact that organisations like IS and others emerged and grew in environments where states and constitutions had collapsed, together with the disintegration of societies, creating a fertile environment for extremism to prevail. Therefore, in parallel to the war of ideas, the immediate goal must be to search for political and social solutions to restore the coherence of failed societies. The writer is a former ambassador and member of the Egyptian Council for Foreign Affairs.
