Zawaya

The ideological meltdown of Al-Qaeda

By: Iqbal Al Gharbi

Al-Qaeda spared the Maghreb its spectacular actions until 2006, but the region has now become a new field for international terrorism. As a matter of fact, the GSPC officially joined Bin Laden’s organization on September 11, 2006, and this new alliance was proclaimed by spectacular actions.

Authoritarianism, daily violence, corruption, and social and regional inequalities are all factors that brought grist to the mill of Islamist terrorism advocating violence as a response to State terrorism; while some regimes used the terrorist threat as a pretext to mute all critics targeting them, and to evade Western accusations in terms of human rights, by claiming that they have to choose between dictatorship and Islamism.

Today, the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions have generated new dynamics that undermine the ideological arsenal of all stakeholders!

As a matter of fact, the Arab youth – from Tunis, to Cairo, to Tripoli – are claiming democracy, free Internet access, free elections and an active civil society. Al-Qaeda considers these claims to be mere heresy!

These young people who reclaimed the streets in Arab capitals have secular political views, and consider Al-Qaeda’s message to be non-operational.

Several factors lay at the heart of Al-Qaeda’s ideological meltdown:

- The regimes laid restraints on the freedom of speech, while the mosque became one of the few arenas of political expression.

The Islamists no longer monopolize the religious speech in public life. Mosques and religious preachers are replaced by social networks such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, which have emerged as the technological tools of the revolutionary protests.

- The Arab youth are fascinated by new information technologies. According to Heidegger, technology is more than a neutral tool; it’s an entire culture.

Technology is the Trojan horse of the liberalization of societies and their immunization against radical Islam.

- The solidarity and connection between the Tunisian and Egyptian protesters on the one hand, and European and American youth on the other hand, as well as the emergence of the Anonymous group that supported the Arab spring, are both factors that undermined the Islamist ideology.

In this fight against totalitarianism and amidst this struggle for freedom and human dignity, there is no distinction between the East and West, or between Muslims and non-Muslims; the line is only drawn between authoritarianism and democracy.

- Al-Qaeda has become completely disconnected from social movements and national struggles, and its watchwords merely aim to arouse the masses and ignite the crowd.

In his book “Knights under the Prophet’s Banner” (April 2001), Dr. Al-Zawahiri explains that the jihadist movement: "won’t be able to attract the Muslim Ummah toward jihad, unless its watchwords are understandable to the public (…). Therefore, the jihadist movement won’t be confined in its struggle [against the West and its Muslim allies] to the watchwords of the theocratic government, loyalty [towards the Believers] and disavowal [of the Disbelievers].

Although Al Wala’ Wal Bara’ (loyalty and disavowal) are perfectly accurate, they are unfortunately not understandable to the Ummah. The masses are not ready to sacrifice their lives for slogans they can’t even understand "(pp. 227-228).