A Fundamental Fear: Eurocentrism and the Emergence of Islamism (Postcolonial Encounters Series)

This is a provocative account of the ways in which Muslim identities have come to play an increasingly political role in recent years. Theoretically innovative, it shows how Islamic movements -- despite the wide variety of their manifestations -- are best understood as a continuation of political and cultural decolonization. The fear and anxiety aroused by the so-called Islamic threat is not a myth nor is it simply a consequence of terrorism or fundamentalism. The emergence of Islamism signals the end of the uncontested notion that ‘West is best’. As the author demonstrates, Islamism means having to rethink Western identity and its place in the world, having to come to terms with the idea that the West is just another civilization among many. This study draws upon the full breadth of poststructuralist thought as a means of better understanding Islamism. As such, it is necessary reading for all those who are interested in the Muslim world -- in both its state and diasporic forms -- as well as academics concerned with questions of ‘race’ and place in a poststructuralist context. This is a brilliant and provocative re-evaluation of political Islam. Theoretically innovative, the book shows how Islamism can only be understood in the context of its relation with Eurocentrism. Using a neopragmatist approach inspired by Richard Rorty, and drawing on political and cultural theorists such as Stuart Hall, Agnes Heller and J.F. Lyotard, the book disrupts the conventional accounts of modernity and postmodernity and presents a radical new reading of Islamism as a response to the de-centring of the West. Breaking with the Arab-centrism of Islamic studies, Bobby Sayyid provides a critical analysis of Kemalism as dominant postcolonial ideology in the Muslim world, an ideology based on a Weberian understanding of the relationship between modernization and the West. Using the metaphor of Kemalism to narrate the political order in the postcolonial world, the author examines the rise of Islamism in the context of the postmodern critique of modernity. The book provides a much-needed conceptual narrative for an understanding of ?political? Islam and its relationship to decolonization and the passing of the Age of Europe. It is also an accessible introductory guide to the resurgence of Islamism, and poststructuralist political theory. The fear and anxiety aroused by Islamism is not a myth, nor is it simply a consequence of terrorism or fundamentalism. Writing in 1997, before 9/11 and before the austerity that has bred a new generation of far right groups across Europe and the US, Bobby S. Sayyid warned of a spectre haunting western civilization. This ground breaking book, banned by the Malaysian government, is both an analysis of the conditions that have made 'Islamic fundamentalism' possible and a provocative account of the ways in which Muslim identities have, in the west, come to play an increasingly political role over the last two decades. It shows that the spectre of Islamism is more than just a continuation of political and cultural decolonization; it is the returned repressed proof that the western world order is just another civilization among many. In the wake of multiple crises, this is an essential, intricate and challenging story about why individuals chose to kill and be killed in the name of a faith that history had seemingly forgotten. A Fundamental Fear is a provocative re-evaluation of political Islam. Breaking with the Arab-centrism of Islamic studies it shows how the rise of Islamism, or Islamic fundamentalism, can only be understood in the context of Eurocentrism A re-evaluation of political Islam which takes a neo-pragmatist approach. The book breaks with the Arab-centrism of Islamic studies and shows how Islamism can only be understood in the context of its relation with Eurocentrism. 'Islamic fundamentalism' has emerged as a way of representing and analysing a series of events involving Muslim communities.