Middle East and Globalization - Who Is Influencing Whom?

Who Is Influencing Whom?

There is considerable debate about Middle Eastern participation in globalization and about who is influencing whom along the way. While some critics argue that the Arab world is opposing globalization some others feel that it has strengthened Islamic fundamentalism by facilitating extensive networks of formerly dissociated Muslims. In this view the Middle East can even be considered as one of its driving forces. The increase in the flow of information, communication and mobility has served Muslim fundamentalism but in a different way from the West. Whereas the latter is more profit –driven, the Islamists ideal of a globalized society is a network-connection of all Muslims in order to promote their definition of the world.

One example showing how Muslims use globalization to strengthen and promote their community can be found in Abu Basir’s book of rulings, where he uses the Islamic principle of "the necessities allow the prohibited". Here he claims that, just as Muslims can drink wine or eat pork in order to save themselves from starving, they can also migrate to the Western ‘infidel countries’ to save themselves from the oppressive governments of their homelands. He goes even further stating that immigration is allowed also ‘in order to enforce the Muslims and weaken the infidels. One of the goals of immigration is the revival of the duty of Jihad and enforcement of their power over the infidels. Immigration and Jihad go together: one is the consequence of the other and dependent upon it. The continuance of the one is dependent upon the continuation of the other.’

From this point of view globalization and Westernization are no longer counterparts. Islamist movements are themselves the driving forces behind globalization influencing its direction and final outcome. Probably one of the most important outcomes of this process has been the creation of a standard understanding for what the words “Islam” and “Islamic” mean. Prior to the changes that accompanied globalization each community had the opportunity to determine its own interpretation of the Islamic message, whereas now the norms are increasingly imposed by conservative Islamic groups. Given the circumstances, it seems that rather than opposing globalization, the Islamic world has found its own way of leading the process in a totally different direction. Therefore globalization means ‘many things to many people.’