Two broad tendencies pervade nowadays the Islamism debate. The first one perceives in Islamism the sign of the persistence of Muslim societies, hence, sees Islam traditional theocentric conceptions. Thes second is that which considers the return to Islam as a recuperation of cultural identity, or perhaps, of authenticity, obstructed till very recently by the political alienation caused by more than a century of colonization.

According to the author, neither of these two theories reflect reality. Islamism itself does not prove in any way the absence of secularization or the rejection of modernity in Muslim society. Nor does it mean the manifestation of a natural return to any authenticity.

The enthusiasm for modernity has been (and still is), on the one hand, the only point of importance in the order of the day of the Muslim world for at least a century and a half. On the other hand, identity - far from constituting an authenticity, or a melding of an immutable cultural heritage - is a socio-historical category determined by its relations to the other and that therefore changes contents and its frameworks and function according to the changes in the multiplication of the lines of conflict.

Islamism can't be reduced to a wishful immutable image of itself or self-representation. Islamism is rather an attempt to substitute national politics in crisis with religion as the foundation of an eventual political identity.

Published 2001-07-11