A fire in the minds of Arabs: the Arab Spring in revolutionary history.

• Author: Perry, Mark
• Position: COMMENTARY - Report

In December of 2005, a high level official of the Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas, was invited to address a small gathering of U.S. and European senior retired government officials in a conference room at a Beirut hotel. (1) Joining the Hamas official was a prominent Salafist from Syria, who'd traveled from Damascus to provide a commentary on the Hamas official's presentation. The meeting's organizers met to explore and assess the growing strength of politically motivated Islamists.

The organizers chose their presenters well. Both the Hamas and the Salafist officials were articulate, focused, multi-lingual, well-educated and had spent years organizing their communities. More crucially, in a little less than a month, in January of 2006, the Islamic Resistance Movement's political message would be tested by the voters of the West Bank and Gaza, who would cast ballots for representatives to the Palestinian Legislative Council. (2) The vote was seen as one of the first tests of political Islam's popularity.

The Hamas official began the meeting with a simple recitation of his movement's history and structure. He condemned the 1994 Oslo Accords while paying obeisance to Fatah leader Yasser Arafat ("our great national leader"), who had died in 2004. But then his otherwise predictable address gained power. The Hamas official described in compelling detail his movement's strategy for the upcoming elections, which included polling, focus groups, "message testing," fundraising, "digital messaging," the identification of "swing voters" and "a broad-based anti-corruption program that," as he said, "we believe will appeal to voters."

The presentation came as a shock to the audience of Westerners, who'd entered the room encased by years of assumptions--that political Islamists were more Islamist than political, that their ability to organize was confined to the mosque and that they had much to learn when it came to sophisticated campaigning. And yet here was a man who sounded like a "pol" in the traditional American or European mold, with a focus on (as he said) "appealing to a broad reach of the public," "focusing on youth and women," and "getting out the vote." The presentation ended with a prediction. "When the Palestinian people cast their ballots in for the legislative council in January," he said, "they will cast them for us. We will win this election. It won't even be close."

Compelling as this was, it had no impact on the Syrian Salafist, who sat motionless beside him, listening to the presentation with barely concealed disdain. He remained unsmiling and without emotion. When he spoke now it was to recite the Bismallah, in both Arabic and then, for the benefit of his audience, in English: Bismi-llahi r-rahmani r-rahim--"in the name of God, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful." The presentation that followed contained an almost liturgical narrative of the role of politics in Islam that focused on the time of the Prophet and his followers, ladled with pointed references to the Holy Koran.

But, as soon became clear, this somewhat undistinguished address provided the prologue for the meeting's most important moment. For after his turgid recitation of the founding of Islam and "it's most important political lessons" the Salafist paused and audibly sighed, before turning to his Hamas colleague--the first time he'd actually looked at him the entire meeting. His words began with a stunning condemnation of the West, but ended with a call to action ladled with anti-Wahhabi views.

"Listen my friend, and listen carefully," he said as he turned to his Hamas colleague. "They may let you run in an election" (and with the word "they" he nodded to his Western audience) "and they may actually allow you to win an election. But they will never, ever, allow you to govern." And he paused once again, before ending, dramatically. "So come with me and together we will cleanse our society of this apostate infection. We will burn them down. And we will begin in Mecca." (3)

Fire is the symbol of revolution and its most potent weapon. In 1776, during the American revolution, a fire consumed British occupied New York City, destroying over 600 houses, nearly a quarter of the city. George Washington, leading the revolutionary army, celebrated: "Providence--or some good honest fellow, has done more for us than we were disposed to do for ourselves," he wrote. (4) Writing soon thereafter, Thomas Jefferson worried that his new nation's pledge that "all men are created equal" would start a new fire, this time among his slaves. He called it "a fire bell in the night." (5) The Great Fear began the French Revolution, with the burning of manors in the countryside, their pyres lighting the night sky...