Tunisia: 'Ghannouchi for president'?
Rachid Ghannouchi has the national and
international status to stand above the fray of narrow politics, writes Sadiki.
該文介紹突尼西亞復興黨(Nahda)領導者Skeikh Rachid Ghannouchi，對於台灣的讀者來說可能很陌生，或許從未聽過這個名字，但這位學者的思想、言論與在中東地區的影響能力，遠遠超過大家所認識的賓拉登。這邊額外補充ㄧ點，賓拉登不是宗教學者(Skeikh)，他只是ㄧ個會計師，是否有資格發佈教法判令，仍受到許多質疑。
Ghannouchi過去在班 阿里(Bin Ali)時代遭到驅逐出境，在英國流亡20多年，在獨裁者倒台後，Ghannouchi重新回到突尼西亞，帶領Nahda贏得多數國會席次。該作者曾多次訪問Ghannouchi，對於他的思想脈絡有ㄧ定程度的理解。
Ghannouchi主張「自由」是國家首要保障條件，自由理念則是來自伊斯蘭原則，並非外來產物。同時自由與正義兩者不可分離，假如沒有自由，則是違反伊斯蘭政治的理念：無法透過完整公正系統運作公眾事務。
Ghannouchi的核心理念其根源仍是來自伊斯蘭治理概念，以信仰造物主獨一的原則，服務人群，提倡道德政治。或許對於非穆斯林來說，政治哪有什麼道德可言，爭權奪利才是王道。儘管如此，道德政治曾經在伊斯蘭早期歷史上出現過，這是不可否認的事實，雖然伊斯蘭歷史上出現過暴君、貪腐的政客與墮落的社會，但仍是有ㄧ群人，懷有「伊斯蘭復興」(tajdid)的概念，努力將穆斯林社群回歸正軌。因此，不需要嘲笑這種看似烏托邦的理念，因為過去已經有許多例子可以證明，道德政治並非是不切實際的想法。
最後，看到ㄧ些國外網友在該文的留言，痛罵作者到底收半島電視台多少錢，來讚美Ghannouchi。有人批評Ghannouchi與極端份子站在ㄧ起，要綁架突尼西亞。這些言論我想參考就好，避面陷入在這種無意義的爭論中，也不用指責伊斯蘭主義者(Islamists)改變策略，目的是服務英美帝國主義利益，我想這是對他們最大的污辱。先前小編曾與ㄧ位朋友討論這個想法，研究者或是讀者不需要在不了解當地脈絡之下，就開始充當審判者的角色，到頭來其實和冷戰時期妖魔化對方的學棍沒什麼兩樣。
如果想了解真相，不如直接深入理解在地的文化、歷史與政治發展演變，理解伊斯蘭主義者的論述或來自其他人的批判，行有餘力，直接閱讀這些人的原文著作，我想才是ㄧ個研究者或是ㄧ個讀者負責任的表現！
Deep down, Ghannouchi is not a "political animal", in the Greek sense; "politics for him is the art of managing public affairs" by maximising conditions of freedom and justice [EPA
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Last Modified: 11 Oct 2012 09:32
Sheikh Rachid
Ghannouchi of Tunisia stands out as a leading voice of reason in his bid to
acculturate Muslims in Tunisia, primarily, into the art of making possible a
paradigm of "wasatiyyah"
(moderation) in matters concerning the shared space between
religion and politics.
His iconicity in
this field transcends narrow territorial politics, which some are seeking to
embroil him in. There exists a limited number within the Nahda Party who are
pressuring him into high office, however "Ghannouchi for
president" or "Ghannouchi for prime minister" is inimical to the
standing of a leading Muslim thinker and for Tunisian politics on the whole.
A phoenix of
Islamism
In his new book Al-Dimuqratiyyah
wa Huquq Al-Insan fi Al-Islam (Democracy
and Human rights in Islam) recently released by Al Jazeera Centre for Studies
following a two-day symposium in Doha, the Tunisian Islamist thinker shines out
amongst his peers in unequivocally holding "freedom
first" to be integral to Islam's Godly-sanctioned good. Without it,
organisation of public life would be antithetical to the key "maqsad" (Godly objective) of the
ideal Islamic polity: management of public affairs through a comprehensive
system of justice.
This has been the
core thesis, Sheikh Ghannouchi, has sought to elaborate time and time again,
using new insights and new sources, insisting on the inseparability of
freedom and justice as political and religious ends in an ideal world.
The
operative term here - and the key idea of "freedom first" (al-hurriyyah
awwalan) - is bold and difficult to drive that message home without earning
the wrath of newly rising forces that believe primacy should be to Islamic law,sharia first,
as it were and not 'freedom'.
Ghannouchi does
not shun Islamic law. Rather, he appreciates the standards of freedom and justice
required to mediate, in the long run, the much-vaunted Islamic order.
The ideal cannot
be prioritised or optimised when conditions of the Muslim nation is far from
ideal: hunger, injustice, ignorance, internecine fighting, under-development,
youth unemployment, exclusion of minorities and women, and absence of thorough
interpretative corpus of laws and ideas for the big millennial questions of
Islam to be put to bed once and for all.
This what
Ghannouchi, in essence, furnishes those emerging forces of Islamism in the Arab
Spring geography with: the interpretive vocation and an ethical tool-kit for
knowing how to order the priorities of Muslim peoples in religious, political,
social, economic and scholarly conditions that are not ideal.
Thinker vs politician
Ghannouchi is by
default the most powerful man in Tunisia today. Modestly, he
answers my question about his political ambitions during a tête à tête
discussion in Doha last month: "Had I wanted high office, I would have
grabbed power the day after Nahda won a majority of seats following the October
2011 elections."
Deep down, Ghannouchi
is not a "political animal", in the Greek sense. Politics for
him is the art, as he states in his book, of managing public affairs by
maximising conditions of freedom and justice. He can easily be out-classed (may
be "out-foxed") in politics - by Bin Ali when he first came to power
with Sheikh Ghannouchi lending him, in good will, support. However, in
intellect he is very sharp, lucid, widely-read, and eases his listeners into
complex matters of jurisprudence and syncretic thought versed in the key
medieval canonical works.
When London was
his home, during close to 20 years of exile, I had an
opportunity to ask many of the questions required to navigate the complex terrain
of Islamist politics, first as doctoral student and later on,
as a lecturer at the universities of Exeter and Westminster when we had annual
meetings involving with Sheikh Ghannouchi in many a classroom or focused
circles of learning in his local mosques, from which my students benefitted
immensely.
Sometimes, the
students who attended had preconceived ideas about the man and his politics. Very
often they left the meeting not only enlightened, but also sympathetic to his
cause, thought and political praxis, which avoided confrontation and violence
even when Nahda's members were persecuted and victimised violently by the Bin
Ali regime.
One student dared
to ask the question of whether Ghannouchi's political end was to grab of power
- it was the last meeting we had with Sheikh Ghannouchi, months before the
Tunisian revolution erupted in December 2010. His reply was that
reform in Tunisia and Muslim lands was ordained by Islam - but for the greater
sake of avoiding civil strife, injustice and misrule.
To do nothing
would be a moral failing, and not to say anything, which carried less risk in
comparison with peaceful activism, would be even a bigger failing. They are
two articles of the morality of activism preached by the Prophet of Islam. Had
there been no misrule, he summed up, there would not have been any need to
organise and mobilise to reassert the primacy of just rule in which freedom,
consultation, legality and equality would serves as organising principles.
'Ghannouchi for
president'
It is not a fragment
of Sheikh Ghannouchi's political imagination. In one sense, the Tunisian
Islamist leader surpasses territoriality. To go for president, if the
presidential system is
enshrined in the new constitution, would be costly for
Ghannouchi and for Tunisia.
For Ghannouchi, a
man whose interests are pan-Arab and pan-Islamic, the presidency would shorten
his wider horizon. Tunisia is the prime focus of his current political
interests. However, his own ethics are those of a reformer who
cares as much for Turkey's ascendency in the global arena, for Palestine's
penultimate goal of liberation, for Chechnya's integrity and social peace, for
the triumph of Syria's revolution, and for greater Muslim integration and
dialogue with non-Muslim nations and powers. He is a voice
of reason and serves a leading role in the deliberations of the world's forums
of Muslim scholars.
As for Tunisia,
Ghannouchi is embroiled in politics more than needed. The "Ghannouchi for
president" idea (not by any means a campaign) is a line of action
advocated by some actors within the Nahda Party for obvious reasons: they may
have no staying power beyond Sheikh Ghannouchi's tenure as president of the
Islamist party.
Ghannouchi made a
compromise to stand for the party's presidency a role to which he was elected
for two years in the Party's historic ninth congress held during this summer
for the first time in post-Bin Ali's Tunisia. The man wants to serve nation and
party but outside the straightjacket of partisan politics and narrow
officialdom.
Right now, with
all of its flaws as illustrated by the case of Lebanon where power is
pilloried, the troika pro forma suit progression along the path of transition
given its "consociational" value at a time when party politics is
still fragile and monopolistic tendencies are bound to fragment polity and
yield political sclerosis.
Slicing the
political cake more widely is a requisite of smooth transition and
institution-building. The troika will be worth it if in 20 years Tunisians look
back at this "division of labour" as part of the midwifery of their
democracy. In raw political terms, additionally, without slices to hand out,
Nahda will not be able to do bidding, bribing and placating of partners who are
ideologically diametrically opposed to its Islamist dogma. This applies to the
Republican Rally (current stakeholder through the presidency given to Moncef
Marzouki) and Ettakatol Party (the other partner whose leader Mustafa bin Jafar
is House Speaker).
Already the hint
of Ghannouchi standing for high office unsettles Nahda's partners, namely,
Marzouki (although he is not the only presidential hopeful, other contenders
may include Bin Jafar and Nejib Chebbi of the PDP), an advocate of a
semi-presidential system that would give him a share of power should he win it
in general elections after the constitution is framed and put to either popular
referendum or voting by the Constituent Assembly. Sheikh Ghannouchi
is an admirer of parliamentarian systems, especially Westminster government,
and if he had his way, it would be his preferred political identity for
Tunisia's new republic.
A national
moderator for Tunisia
The role left for
Sheikh Ghannouchi to play after decades of struggle and sacrifice is serve as a
national moderator, facilitating reconciliation, and trusting-building. These
values are today crying for desperate attention as Tunisia's polity is being
torn apart by sharp polarisation.
Ghannouchi has
the national and international status to stand above the fray of narrow
politics. This past September's Al Jazeera Centre for Studies' symposium on the
Arab Spring and Islamist movements was a rare occasion in which a number of
giants of Islamism were gathered in one place. Sheikh Hassan
al-Turabi, whose intervention I was assigned the onerous task
of commenting on, was amongst the guest speakers invited to reflect on his
experience in power.
How ironic.
Ghannouchi and Turabi go back a long way. In the 1990s, Turabi was the star of
a buoyant, bold and innovative brand of political Islam that was first to run the
state. Ghannouchi admired Turabi: which Turabi? Turabi, the intellectual.
Turabi, by any measure, was a genius: polyglot, constitutionalist legal cadre
of the highest order, an intellect combining traditional Islamic schooling with
modern Western juridical thought and a nack for original thinking.
"Turabi"
I told Ghannouchi "was the reason why the great minds of Islamism
should not become politicians." He concurred: Sheikh Ghannouchi was
amongst the very few far-sighted Islamist leaders who tried to persuade Turabi
from state politics. The rest is history. Today the world
remembers Turabi's stint as a partner to the1989 coup leaders before he was
made to pay a huge price for that mistake with personal freedom and disrepute
to a brilliant mind. That brilliance was forgotten and all is
remembered is Turabi the politician.
That is an
injustice Ghannouchi will not allow historians to inflict on a character of
high intellectual and ethical standing. He shares not the
Machiavellian worldview of politics. His is cast in a
framework of reform and innovation projected to implement the rules and laws
based on a normative paradigm, primarily serving Godly justice and public
utility that valourises morality and the sanctity of human rights and dignity.
Dr Larbi Sadiki
is a Senior Lecturer in Middle East Politics at the University of Exeter, and
author of Arab
Democratization: Elections without Democracy (Oxford
University Press, 2009) and The
Search for Arab Democracy: Discourses and Counter-Discourses (Columbia
University Press, 2004).
The views expressed in this article are
the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial policy.
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