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Nederlandse versie
| About the author
Marleen
Renders studied international relations (1992-1997) at the University of
Gent, Belgium, and has a Master of Science degree in Development Studies
(1998-1999) from the School of Oriental and African Studies (University
of London). Currently, she is affiliated with the Law faculty at Ghent University.
In 2006, she presented and defended her PhD thesis on "'Traditional' leaders and institutions in the building of the Muslim republic of Somaliland".
 More on the author ...
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“In ‘The shadowside of the moon’ Marleen Renders argues that ‘islamism’ is not to be reduced to violent manifestations of what is sometimes called ‘muslim extremism’.
The complex history of the phenomenon and its predecessors are reviewed as well as the increasing influence of islamism in different segments of Arab societies in the Middle East and North Africa. Particular attention is given to the discourse of the islamists themselves and the alternatives they propose for what they consider failed secular regimes.
Using Immanual Wallerstein’s world-system analysis, Marleen Renders looks at the ‘anti-systemic’ potential of islamist movements and its capacity to confront a western liberal modernity from an edogenous frame of reference. Modernity and more specifically values associated with it such as freedom and equality are not seen to have ‘delivered’ in the Arab World, to such a degree that it is by increasing numbers considered to be a deliberate deception. Freedom and the promised development have not materialised under the aegis of this imported modernity, championed by the West. The islamist alternative, however, is rather elusive. Islamism represents different meanings and purposes for different people. Islamism can definitely have an emancipatory and socially progressive content – many former socialists and communists turned to islamism to further the cause of weaker members of society. But this is not necessarily the case, it can just as well represent the ambition to maintain a status quo or even to establish an even more unequal and repressive social system.” |
Read also: Marleen Renders, In God We trust. Islamism in the capitalist world-system.
Bibliographic information:
M. Renders, De schaduwkant
van de maan. Islamisme in politiek, economie, maatschappij, en het wereld-systeem.
Gent, Academia Press, 1999, XVIII
+ 192 p.
ISBN 90 382 0208 3
Photo cover: Tim
Dirven.
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