Fundamentalism begins at home

Only just picked up on this article by Josie Appleton on the French sociologist Oliver Roy and his book In Globalised Islam: The Search for a New Ummah. Roy argues that the politicisation of Islam including extreme militant Islam emerges not out of tradition or the Koran but is a by-product of modernisation and westernisation. Neofundamentalism is linked to developments such as individualisation, notions of self-development and self-expression, lifestyle and to identity politics. Here is a taste:

Neofundamentalists act in the name of a global ummah (community), but this is entirely an invention of their imagination. Roy writes that: 'Neofundamentalism provides an alternative group identity that does not impinge upon the individual life of the believer, precisely because such a community is imagined and has no real social basis.' Islamic militants tend to see both politics and community ties as a bit grubby, a distraction from the pure religious project of developing the self. The fact that radicals have made no attempt to win adherents at Mecca, Roy argues in his book, shows that they have 'no interest in the real ummah'.

See an interview with Roy in Religioscope. See also reviews in The Guardian, RUSI-Review, ICSAA, and The Economist.