Views of Islam, politics and Iran from America

At the meeting of American Muslims in New Jersey, one can see how much Muslims' political positions can differ in general according to context, and thus what kinds of possible manifestations Islamic political life can be open to. Muslim citizens within the US, which is the object of Muslims' anger in particular because it is seen as responsible for instability, blood and cruelty in the Middle East and for occupations, imperialism and injustice in many parts of the world, criticize their country for the same reasons, yet love it and try to be decisive in its politics. If there is anything strange in this, it is a situation brought about entirely by democratic functioning.

Meanwhile, since the Muslim community consists mostly of people from different Muslim countries, or maintains ties with its countries of origin, it forms a medium in which an extremely broad fusion of horizons takes place through the meeting of very different political experiences. For a contemporary Islamic philosophy of politics, this medium provides an open horizon in which both the problems and their solutions can be evaluated. Events are viewed from within a broad accumulation of experience, between the politics followed against a dictator in Syria who is willing to massacre his people en masse in order to remain in power, and the politics followed in each of the countries in the spring of their revolutions, and again the politics followed as a minority in democratic countries such as the EU countries and the US.

The speech of Abdelfattah Mourou, who came from Tunisia and founded the Nahda movement together with Ghannouchi, telling the history of the Nahda movement, had the air of a chat, an intimate conversation, rather than a conference speech. But in Mourou's person one feels at once how the Islamist movement found authentic channels of expression in Tunisia. Mourou, who tells his most bitter memories from the years of dictatorship with a comedian's cheer, can, at a moment when people are laughing uproariously, lead the whole crowd into the most devout feelings in a way that brings tears to their eyes. He gives an interesting impression of what a rich, ironic and devout intellect and rhetoric stands behind the Nahda movement.

The great majority of those attending the conference from Islamic countries are from the Brotherhood movement. From the participants as a whole, one can in fact see how influential the Brotherhood movement is in the present shaping of the Arab world. Frankly, the Libyan, Egyptian, Tunisian, Moroccan, Lebanese and Syrian participants are all members of the Brotherhood in their own countries. It is clearly seen that the Arab revolutions have ultimately revealed an extremely strong international presence and effectiveness of the Brotherhood. Today it clearly appears that the Brotherhood will govern the future Arab-Islamic world.

The coordinator of the conference, MAS President Oussame Jammal, and his friends offered, after the conference, to go to New York to take part in the demonstration in front of the UN in support of the resistance in Syria and in favor of Egyptian President Muhammad Morsi. Thus I had the opportunity to observe closely the demonstrations that have now become an indispensable element of the UN General Assembly meetings.

Frankly, these demonstrations take place in an American-style festival atmosphere. This square is a field where each country carries its own country's issue and aims to bring it, one way or another, onto the world agenda. It is futile to look for a Tahrir atmosphere in this square. The square generally stages the criticisms or feelings of people resident in America toward their own countries. And once resident in America, people have become terribly accustomed to the American way of life, and they approach the conditions in their own countries as they see them from here.

The protests directed especially at Iran are notable for the age proportions of those who take part in them. For most, the point of departure and references are American values and lifestyle. But this year there is also heavy participation in the protests directed at Iran, particularly from Arab countries, because of its stance on Syria. The demonstration in which protesters mocked the Ayatollah and Ahmadinejad with a puppet show created discomfort even among Arab Muslims who had come intending to protest Iran's stance on Syria. In the demonstration that depicted Ahmadinejad and Bashar Assad dancing together, the fact that Ahmadinejad held a nuclear warhead in his hand reflected a contradiction not easy to swallow given the place where the demonstration was held.

In a country that itself represents a nuclear superpower, and moreover from within a country that has never raised its voice over Israel's nuclear armament, it is not possible to be happy about such a criticism directed at Iran, even if Iran is in an utterly wrong stance on Syria.

However, we cannot help also looking at the matter from the angle of what kind of world opposition bloc Iran has managed to form against itself. Even sections that normally would in no way view Iran with antipathy are joining, because of Iran's wrong approaches in Syria, an opposition against Iran that is gradually reaching the level of a consensus.

From here the most important lesson in fact goes to Iran. While it has more sympathizers than it supposes, it is squandering a very important ground it had, terribly, for the love of Assad.