The Failure of Political Islam

Abstract

Olivier Roy, a researcher at the National Center for Scientific Research in Paris, wrote Islam and Resistance in Afghanistan ( 1985) and coauthored, with Andre Brigot, War in Afghanistan (1985). Roy seems to have earned the respect of Western policy makers by making successful predictions about the war in Afghanistan. Publication of his present work within two years of its original publication by a leading American university is a reflection of this. In the present work, translated by Carol Bolk, he has undertaken a general work on Islam and politics in contemporary times and has made another courageous prediction: "Any Islamist politi• cal victory in a Muslim country would produce only superficial changes and law" (p. ix). Roy writes in the context of a historical situation that "many consider an era of an Islamic threat" (p. 1) but does not identify the nature of this threat. What is this threat and to whom is it directed? From some of his remarks, it seems that the threat is directed toward Westem civilization, in general, and our contemporary nation-state system, in particular. His assurance to those who take the “Islamic threat” seriously is that the nation-state framework continues (and perhaps will continue) to be the determining factor because “the UN has globalized Muslim states.” Despite its rhetoric, even revolutionary Iran has become just another nation-state and “the FIS’s Algeria will do nothing more than place a chador over the FLN’s Algeria” (p. 60), counsels Roy ...