Book Review: “Al Qaeda and What It Means To Be Modern” by John Gray

John Gray (1948 – ) is a Professor of European Thought in the London School of Economics (LSE). Before LSE he was a lecturer in Political Theory at the University of Essex. He was also a Professor of Politics at the University of Oxford and a fellow and tutor in Politics at Jesus College, Oxford. He has also served at Harvard University (1985-1986), at Tulane University’s Murphy Institute (1991) and at Yale University (1994) as a visiting professor. He had worked with the Institute of Economic Affairs in the UK and with the Cato Institute, the Institute for Humane Studies, the Liberty Fund and the Social Philosophy and Policy Centre in the US. Gray often contributes to the New York Times Book Review, the New Statesman, the Times Literary Supplement and The Guardian. He has also written several influential books on Political Theory .

“Al Qaeda and What It Means To Be Modern”, written by John Gray, is a short book with a very deceptive title. Although “Al Qaeda” is written on it, the emphasis of this book is not on “Al Qaeda”, nor does it give a deep analysis on the terrorist group. They also make very little appearance in the text. The main emphasis and highlight of this book is literally on “What It Means To Be Modern” and “Al Qaeda” is only used here to demonstrate the main theme of the book. To answer the question “What It Means To Be Modern”, John Gray wrote that to be “Modern” according to Western terms, they believe that “modernity is a single condition [..] as societies become more modern, so they become more alike [..] become better” and that similar value of Enlightenment are shared and realized by everyone. In our world today, the current and ideal path to modernity then, according to the West, is that of globalization and the adoption of democracy. However, ever since the September 11th incident, it “the suicide warriors did more than kill thousands of civilians and demolish the World Trade Center. They destroyed the West’s ruling myth” . The last sentence itself exemplifies and stresses Gray’s main theme.

Gray is trying to point out in his text that when becoming modern, we do not become more alike or reasonable nor do we share the same ideas of modernity, and he uses Al Qaeda to demonstrate how certain societies respond to it and to the notion of globalization. His use of Al Qaeda as an example is to illustrate that although it is perceived to be pre-modern by many and that it failed to meet the world’s concept or definition of “modern”, it is not a “relic of the past” or a “throwback to medieval times” but that it is very much of a modern occurrence, a modern spin-off and a product of globalization. So the point that Gray is trying to convey and argue in here is that the “modern myth” of reaching utopia, a universal civilization (which Western societies seems to believe in and dominated by) that society is bound to one day share one set of values, to unite and become “secular, enlightened and peaceful” is flawed and not feasible. He is rejecting the idea and beliefs that we will achieve a global community as we become more modern. Instead he is telling us to just accept that people are dissimilar, “have divergent and conflicting values and ideas and learn to live with this fact” and that as “societies throughout the world become more modern, they do not thereby become more similar. Often they move further apart” .

Given the brief description above concerning Gray’s theme and knowing the primary concern of his text that modernity can take various forms dependent on the country, culture and society, most of the examples used to support his ideas and to present his point of views were taken from historical prospect (mostly 20th century historical incidents) to what modernity meant in different context then, from the Positivist school and from America’s foreign policy on spreading Pax Americana and their new world order. Gray did go as far back as the 16th century to find out what “modern” meant then and the idea behind it and how it changed later on in the 18th century.

“Al Qaeda and What It Means To Be Modern”, is a non-fiction book based on political science and philosophy. The written style is formal and can act as an educational text.

Gray uses the Positivist school to begin his argument on modernity. They emerged in the early 19th century and they are the “original prophets” of modernity and had three core system of belief: that history is driven by the power of science, that science will overcome natural scarcity and eliminate poverty and war, and that the progress in science with the development of politics and ethics go together . The founder of Positivism was Count Henri de Saint-Simon but the most influential Positivist was Comte who completed “the transformation of Positivism into a religion” . The Positivists are the ones who believed that is through scientific knowledge; humanity would be able to create a new world of universal civilization based on technology, industrial production and science and governed by a “secular, ‘terrestrial’ morality” . So this is the central modern myth generated by the Positivists where it is accepted today as a verity by everyone.

The Positivists were very influential when it came to shaping the views of people like Friedman, Marx, Keynes, Mill, etc, hence having a very strong impact on economics. So this impact on economics led to the construction of the human development model and the global free market. Aside from being influential, their ideas also inspired societies like the Soviet’s failed economic planning in trying to bring a new socialist humanity, Hitler’s and Nazism ghastly genocide in trying to modernize society and recreate a superior species of humanity, the Chinese in their Cultural Revolution which led to “an enormous loss of human life and liberty, with massive environmental degradation” , and Radical Islam in their acts of revolutionary terrorism and holy war in which they believe will lead to a remake of the world and a resistance to America’s imperialism. So what this demonstrates is to restate Gray’s statement that even if societies came into using scientific methods, there are various and conflicting ways to becoming modern and to also define what is modern. However these various beliefs do have elements of Western Ideologies embedded into them because each believe that there is only “one way” and their’s is the right way to achieving the new world.

Besides the Positivist school, Gray also used America to illustrate his theme. He said that “Americans see their country as embodying universal values” but this doesn’t mean that every country agrees to its values and may even perceive it to be domineering instead of a solution for peace. So just because America is a superpower, it doesn’t mean that their American myth of universal economic system and democracy is applicable and shared by all humanity. Also their values and beliefs may clash with the principles and culture of other countries hence the mention of Al Qaeda.

Al Qaeda may not agree with the Western values or America’s universalism but it is essentially a modern organization. This is only because the writings of Sayyid Qutb, who laid the intellectual foundation for Al Qaeda’s ideology, were incorporated with “ideas from western sources” . Also Al Qaeda is global in its activities where not only is the organization modern, it is “the first multinational terrorist organization” and it uses modern technology like the internet, satellite phones and television to mobilize support so it is global multinational .

The notes and references which Gray used to criticized and support his text are mostly from published works, magazines, and journals relating to politics and political thought, Comte’s and Saint- Simon’s work on Positivism and bibliography, Enlightenment and Al Qaeda and Islamic attacks. Most of these sources contributed well to his argument so the sources he used and consulted are appropriate for his purpose.

To say that there is no disagreement with Gray’s work is not true because there are people like Martin Bright from The Guardian who disagree with Gray’s statement that Al Qaeda is a product of the modern world by saying:
“His analysis of al-Qaeda as modernist is quite simply wrong. Bin Laden is a millionaire businessman who runs his organisation as the chairman of the board. It is self-evident that al-Qaeda is a phenomenon of the twenty-first century, but it is essentially anti-modernist. It is a psychotic fantasy parading as a philosophy. Al-Qaeda is devoted to the halting of time, the reversal of history and the recreation of an Islamic caliphate based on the seventh-century Arab empire” .
Bright maybe right only if Al Qaeda was truly an Islamic Fundamentalist but according to Gray, they have accepted Western values in their thoughts and teaching hence they can’t be categorise as Fundamentalist. Al Qaeda may be pre-modern in their features but this doesn’t make them any less of modern especially since the terrorist group managed to use the modern complexity and sophistication of globalization to extend their network and to spread their message across the continent.

“Al Qaeda and What It Means To Be Modern” is a brilliant work no doubt and the comprehensiveness of it makes it entirely well informed and stimulating to read. The structure and organization of Gray’s work was well premeditated, for it managed to convey his main point well. The flow of the content and information in each chapter successfully demonstrated his ability and his aim of defining his theme and carrying across his message. The mechanisms he used vary from the neo-liberal, to positivist, followed by America’s imperialist notion of liberating the world, etc, showing his clear intentions to illustrate how all of it contributes to the idea of being modern, for being enlightened. Gray’s conclusion to his work: instead of accepting modernity’s view as what the world should be, perhaps we should accept that society has conflicting values and amalgamating them into this ideal preference of modernity is not a possibility for all. And as Gray said, each country should be left to choose its own version of modernity so that the world would be left in peace .

Of course “Al Qaeda and What It Means To Be Modern” is only one of the many major writings written by John Gray. One of his work can be read as a compliment to this book which is, ‘Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals”(2002). His other works are, “Heresies: Against Progress and Other Illusions” (2004), “False Dawn: The Delusions of Global Capitalism” (2002), “Enlightenment’s Wake: Politics and Culture at the Close of the Modern Age” (1995) and others.

“Al Qaeda and What It Means To Be Modern” is a thought provocative book. It is suitable and highly recommended for university students or for those who are interested in the alternative view that globalization isn’t the only path to enlightenment and that the American empire should stop subjugating everyone into accepting its’ “American Universalism” idea thinking that it is the only way to modernity. This book, overall, is an excellent piece of work and the simplicity and breadth of it makes it easy for anyone to read and understand the purpose behind it.