In Spring of 2021, I completed a course on the history of political thought and constitutionalism with Dr. Wael Hallaq. There was a lot I didn’t understand and still return to to make sense of, for the powerhouse of knowledge he is. But one thing his course opened my eyes to, was the extents of which the modern state occupies our existence and being — extending to our very beliefs, ethics and solidarities.

I intended to edit the paper I wrote for him for its pertinency today, December 2023, but have failed in finding both time and energy. Thus below, is the by no means conclusive paper, written rapidly over the course of a few days as student experience will always requisite regardless of age, of which my messaging until now has seldom strayed from, on the modern state’s inherent lack of ethics, and our subsequent regulation of ethics and solidarities – as humans societies – under the hegemony of the state.

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There is a principle in Islam, derived from a hadith in Jami Al-Tirmidithi, which implies that our characteristics are shaped by those we surround ourselves with. The hadith, which addresses friendship, translates roughly to: “Man is influenced by the Faith of his friends. Therefore, be careful of whom you befriend.” Similar concepts arose in contemporary western thought, such as the infamous ‘you are what you eat’ and other such sayings. The pinnacle of all these sayings is the principle of surroundings and consumption – our being is dependent on our immediate context, and even more so when we are not immediately aware of what our context is. 

Approaching the concept of ethics in the modern state can be addressed from a plethora of angles, particularly when one deconstructs the very premise of the modern state. Recent conversations between activists online has made this question even more relevant to this field in particular – in understanding the separation between citizen and state, should one be able to, and applying ethics and moralities to our actions. The recent attacks on Palestinians by the Israeli colonial project and subsequent responses from various state and non-state actors, in support of the Palestinian people (and their response to that support) has caused major fractions within activist circles, particularly between those fighting against injustice and oppression in Palestine, and those fighting against oppression and injustice in Syria. There is an overlap between those who fight for their rights in Palestine, but support regimes such as that in Syria and Iran despite the regimes’ gross violations and genocide in Syria and the region at large. The normal assumption would be that if one is fighting oppression and injustice in one place, they would extend that elsewhere regardless of ideology, particularly when life and death are involved. This, however, does not appear to be an easily digestable concept – and especially in the Palestinian context where an oppressed people have found support only from oppressive regimes – such as those within the ‘axis of resistance’.

An incident on May 20th, 2021 took place where Osama Hamdan, a senior Hamas official, praised the Syrian regime publicly on Al-Mayadeen news channel and stated that he hoped “Damascus will always be the centre of resistance for Palestinians”. This comment angered many Syrians online, as they accounted for the deaths of their families at the hands of the Assad regime and were enraged that anyone claiming to fight justice could possibly find solace in an inherently unethical and violent regime. These comments were not limited to Hamas officials, but were widely shared by renowned resistance fighter, Leila Khaled, who has also been vocal in her support for the regime – and in the online world where everyone is offered a platform however immoral and unethical their views may be, many defended and followed suit. This paved the way for many to question the place of ethics in intersectional solidarity and resistance – is it ethical for one to advocate for their cause in a way that makes it at the expense of others? Do activists and advocates of causes not have a responsibility in enforcing a certain standard of morality and ethics regardless of who supports them and attempts to exploit their cause? If ethics are not inherently intersectional across causes, what is the point of them entirely? And thus – the state. What is the role of the modern state in this entire ethical discourse, and how does it fundamentally rob people of their agency with its domineering existence and control over narrative?

In my final reflection paper for the course offered by Dr. Wael Hallaq at the Alliance of Civilisations, Ibn Haldun University, titled “History of Political Thought”, I ended my paper with the question of “So what now? How do we bring about change?”. The question was not intended as a rhetorical pontification in a philosophical abyss, but a genuine question seeking an answer that will allow us to penetrate out of the colonisation of the modern state over every aspect of our lives. The penetration of the modern state reaches every realm we know of, be it civil, political – or even geographical, given that every spot on the earth is regulated or attributed in one way or another to an existing state. My primary concern, as will be exemplified overwhelmingly in this paper, is the modern state’s reach into ‘civil society’ and culture, and its imposition of discourse and narratives that we adopt unknowingly – and fight our battles against each other with the very tools created and intended by the dehumanised mechanisms of the modern state.

As such, this paper seeks to answer why the modern state has relegated an almost non-existent role to ‘ethics’, which stands in stark comparison to that of the ethics espoused in Islamic scriptures and later – manuscripts, and how we as citizens and ‘normal people’ embody the modern state’s unethical cultural hegemony when fighting our respective causes.

The paper relies heavily on the thesis of Dr. Wael Hallaq, which he analyses in his ‘The Impossible State’. It is ironic that the author of which much of this paper’s argument is based on, continuously makes the point that one must engage various authors and traditions so that they may speak to each other in the wider realm of ideas. This is best exemplified in both ‘The Impossible State’ and in ‘Reforming Modernity’, where Hallaq sets to posit Taha Abdulraham as in interlocutor in the wider studies of political science and philosophy, as opposed to being rigidly categorised and being dealt with as a subject – or object of study – himself; time, however, and perhaps a naivete on the topics at hand has narrowed this paper to the arguments of Hallaq mostly, though expansive and encompassing in his own right. As such, the paper will start with defining the politics and the modern state, before launching into the main argument that is the placement, or lack thereof, of ethics in the modern state, concluding with remarks on our embodiment of the violent features of the modern state. This paper is by no means exhaustive and extensive, requiring much more research to make any independent claim and thus is intended as a primer to the question at hand through a culmination of academic sources and personal experiences. 

Politics

“Politics is the number of coffee-cups on the table, it is the sudden presence of what you have forgotten, the memories you are afraid to look at too closely, though you look anyway. Staying away from politics is also politics. Politics is nothing and it is everything.”

Mourid Barghouti – I saw Ramallah

Mourid Barghouti’s reflection on politics has perhaps been the single reference I resonate most with in modern literature. He perfectly captures the very essence of our lives with his definition of politics. Reading this particular paragraph many years ago made me first realise the violence of the modern state, if not in recognising that it were ‘violent’, but in the general phenomena of violence. Politics has defined my entire life and no doubt many others too, the coffee cups on the table that Barghouti speaks of is precisely the same breakfast table in my parents’ home; my father’s wistful face every time he chances upon Halaweh Homsiyeh in London; my mother’s heartbreak every time she hears an athan akin to that of the Great Umayyad Mosque in Aleppo which was central to her childhood; the existential dread of wanting to carve an independent life for myself whilst knowing that I am part of a small nucleus of the only family my parents have access to – after being denied their families by the Syrian regime some four decades ago, and this politics is precisely a part of the violence of the modern state. A state which seeks to assert control by all means necessary, if not for an end of ethical justice as Malcolm X had intended that phrase for. In fact, it would be better appropriate to speak of how politics defines our lives entirely, everywhere we are and whoever we are – and that a better word for ‘politics’ here should be the ‘state’. For it is the modern state that has defined the entire mechanism and concept by which we practice ‘politics’, which did not exist in the same capacity in the pre-modern era. 

Elsewhere, in Maurizio Viroli’s ‘Revolution in the Concept of Politics’, Viroli argues that prior to the 16th century the notion of ‘politics’ carried an ethereal meaning to it. It had only positive connotations to the extent that 16th century philosophers argued whether or not it were more noble than philosophy or theology. Arguably, this was because politics had not yet undergone the separation between church and state and was thus perceived as a holy business – reserved to and by the holy. Viroli does mention however that generally speaking, politics was not perceived as a ‘prudent’ act and was never divorced from justice, much like the assertions in Islamic texts by the likes of Ghazali and Al-Mawardi, where justice is central to the governance of the state. Tracing the development of the concept, Viroli mentions that prior to Machievelli, tyranny was called by its name and was not shrouded in obscure concepts and vague words, this changed as tyranny and nefarious acts in governance were no longer called out and instead referred to as ‘politics’. As such, Machievelli’s ‘reason of state’ is fundamental in the changing approach towards politics as a concept. As Viroli mentions, after the 17th century politics became a “depraved and sordid activity: it was no longer the most powerful means of fighting oppression and corruption but the art of perpetuating them.” Machievelli’s ‘Mirror for Princes’ divorced the union between ethics and politics that previously existed, in establishing the maintenance of power as the most prominent endeavour, at the cost of morality. This is not to say that Machievelli himself did not believe or adhere to a certain set of moral standards, rather in separating them from the activity of politics – in a similar fashion to the separation between church and state. 

In “The Problem of Dirty Hands”, Walzer sets out to paint a scene of a losing battle before our eyes – of everyone who meddles in politics. The bottom line is that there is no winning with politics, as it is inherently dirty – a phenomena introduced by western icons such as that of Niccolo Machievelli and Max Weber as mentioned previously, if slightly differing in their applications and epistemologies. Walzer elaborates on Machievelli’s infamous “a prince who wants to keep his authority must learn how not to be good, and use that knowledge, or refrain from using it, as necessity requires.”

It is not that Machievelli himself has no moral standards, Walzer emphasises, but that Machievelli believes that one has to know how to be bad in order to retain control over matters – and by extension – the affairs of the state. Interestingly, Walzer notes that “A Machiavellian hero has no inwardness. What he thinks of himself we don’t know.” This brings us back to the concept of ethics and morality, and its seeming non-existence in Machiavellian politics – there is no sense of introspection, no accountability and certainly no concept pertaining to the technologies of the self. Whilst Walzer justifies for Machiavelli elsewhere in that he still retained a certain degree of moral standards, this pales in importance upon realising that beyond the being of ‘not good’ in order to hold onto power, there is no follow up.

This stands in stark comparison to Ghazali’s teachings in Nasihat al-Muluk, wherein the ruler cannot justify ‘not goodness’ to reach any ends. In fact, the ruler is advised to seclude himself one day a week to the worship of God, intrinsically linking the worship of God to the notion of ‘being good’, and thus ‘being moral’. Ghazali draws extensively on notions of justice: justice to God, justice to the people, and justice to one’s self. He manifests these three notions into various principles and anecdotes by invoking the Chapter 14, verse 24 in the Quran: “Have you not considered how Allah presents an example, [making] a good word like a good tree, whose root is firmly fixed and its branches [high] in the sky?” Ghazali uses this verse to inform the rest of his chapter by drawing on principles of creed as the roots of faith, and principles of faith as the branches of creed. Thus, justice and ethics are fundamental to the means and ends of a ruler – and of a subject. There is an inherent concept of accountability present, in which the ruler is expected to account for himself before he is accounted for before God. Where Machievelli justifies the bad in order to retain power and relinquish control, Ghazali implicates the bad in the very notion that it will bring about the downfall of the Sultan – in this life and the next. 

The Modern State

Hallaq establishes the premise of the modern state within five main features. He states that with regards to the modern state “it is content that is changeable or potentially changeable. For example, the state may be dominantly controlled by liberals, socialists, communists, oligarchs, or any such brand, but these, despite their varied influence on the state and its society, cannot (and, more abstractly, do not) change its forms.” As such, the modern state does not change in form but perhaps in shape and tenor regardless of whether it is a communist state or a capitalist one, it remains the same, akin to that of ice cream albeit coming in different flavours. The features upon which the modern state is realised, are the following: “(1) its constitution as a historical experience that is fairly specific and local; (2) its sovereignty and the metaphysics to which it has given rise; (3) its legislative monopoly and the related feature of monopoly over so-called legitimate violence; (4) its bureaucratic machinery; and (5) its cultural-hegemonic engagement.” Hallaq elaborates extensively on each feature, in how they serve the functions of the modern state and of the most striking takeaways of this analysis is the premeditated violence of the state in every single feature. In order to function, the state relies on the violence of its own existence, its discipline, its dehumanising rational bureaucracy and subsequent cultural influence. Furthermore, the modern state exists in such a way that it can only be overturned by violence. Here, Hallaq refers to the concept of ‘revolution’, in which he describes as violent, as the only almost viable option in which a constitution can be changed or a sovereignty challenged, and even then should it be unsuccessful and unrecognised by the entire network of colonial modern states worldwide, the ‘will of the people’ is weaponised to restore the state and vilify the revolution. 

The permanence of the nation state is highlighted in the rational bureaucracy of the state, which Hallaq has previously cited in stark comparison to the ethical bureaucracy of the pre-modern Islamic model of the state. The bureaucratic machinery of the state is a permanent feature which wholly dehumanises the state (itself) and acts in tandem with every feature to ensure that the modern state is catapulted to the position of a transcendent God. The irony of course, is that even within religious traditions, and particularly that of the Islamic tradition, God’s transcendence is often sought to be protected without alienating Him from his subjects and maintaining his closeness and similarity to mankind. This can be done in separating Him from our relationship with Him. As such, my imagination of this is akin to that of an umbilical cord – by which we are connected to God, there is similarity, not in attributes but in understanding His attributes and relationship to us. There is comfort in knowing God is close and near, and there is an internalisation that God has made Himself relatable to us, for us to grow, learn and pass in this life. This umbilical cord by which God makes himself relatable to us, in attributing terms we understand, and actions we do and make is the anthropomorphism necessary for us to be able to worship Him. Beyond the umbilical cord, there is the placenta – in which we operate solely, unbeknown to us the shape of the world outside of it, and hence – God. The modern state, in stark comparison, appears to distance itself from ‘the people’ in as inhumane ways as possible so as to remain utterly machine-based and thus rid of the anthropomorphism element entirely. 

The cultural hegemony of the state, and which will lead us to the penultimate section in this paper on the ethical benchmark, or lack thereof, of the modern state, is perhaps the most concerning feature to me, as exemplified in my introduction and examples throughout. Hallaq states that “the internal coherence and strength of any state significantly depends on its ability not only to organise society, which it does by its very constitution, but also to penetrate it.” It is precisely this that keeps the modern state going when – and if – all else goes, due to the deep colonisation of the modern state to our very cores. It is the modern state which has forced upon us the nation state and the subsequent ideologies of nationalism, facism, and the various leanings between what is known to be the ‘right’ and ‘left’ on cultural and political spectrums. This modern state is precisely what has dictated to us the forms of ‘civil society’ that we partake in and the forms of resistance in which we engage in, within its apparatus. How does one penetrate out of a colonisation so deep, that even resistance is a fundamental feature of the apparatus within? And should such apparatus not be enough, it is the modern state which has forced upon us the dehumanising concepts that we no longer see each other as humans. For example, one can disagree or agree with Karl Marx and yet acknowledge that his dealing with the human subject for instance remains as dehumanising as that of the capitalist structures he critiques, as he relegates the human to a secondary role in the face of all that concerns us. Common concepts today of ‘self care’ and ‘speak your truth’, whilst posing under the veneer of a reformed humane thinking centring the human above all else does precisely the opposite of that as it panders to the machinery of ‘rational bureaucracy’, in which it promotes God-like concepts that are beyond the human and collective human experience. 

Ethics and the Modern State

In differentiating between the ethical in an Islamic state as per Islamic scriptures and that of the modern state, Hallaq points to a fundamental distinction in that the terms ‘moral’ and ‘legal’ were not separated, nor were they necessarily understood as separate entities in pre-modern Islam. If to invoke Reinhart Koselleck in this argument, he states that by understanding the history of concepts, we are able to better decipher and recognise how our perceptions are shaped by them and their uses, thus “enabling us to conceive of how to act on alternative and less constraining definitions of our situation.”

As such, in the pre-modern Islamic understanding of morality, ethics and law – they were all intertwined as the entire purpose of laws in the Qur’an are based on what is and is not moral. Where Islam does not differentiate between fact and value, and the infamous ‘ought and is’ argument as founded by Hume, the modern state does. Hallaq argues that the Qur’an is not only ‘profoundly moral’ but is itself ‘constructed, both in form and content, out of a moral fiber.’ This context is necessary to be understood against the modern state, in which the construction of laws are for the sake of itself and self-preservation over all else, and thus should morality not serve the purpose of the modern state – it quite simply will not be used. He writes, “In the world as it is, the final arbiter of things political is power and not morality”, and which within itself gives an answer to the role of ethics in the modern state.

The modern state, built and preserved by violence, exists simply for its own sake and does not care for the wider implications of ethics and moralities, and thus has sought a profound separation between what is legal and what is moral and ethical. The very premise of the laws which exist to serve and protect the modern state as an entity, as opposed to guide mankind to a better quality of life, is within itself indicative of the non-existent space moralities and ethics occupy in state and society today. 

Taking this argument forward, Hallaq invokes Paul Kahn in his reference to the daunting ideology of Carl Schmitt which carries immense weight today in the very construct of the nation state and the nationalism many espouse, wherein Kahn states: “The political begins when I can imagine myself sacrificing myself and killing others to maintain the state. The modern state has fully arrived not when it defends me against violence, but when it conscripts me into its armed forces.” The moralities of the state are adjunct when it requires its citizens to partake in apparent violence, not as a defense mechanism but as an obligation to keep the machine going and ensure its preservation. The modern state acts as God, if also without the ethics and moralities of God. It is more important than human life, and its preservation is often contingent on the sacrifice of the lives of its citizens; this then is in no way ethical or moral, but inherently violent and evil. Hallaq argues strongly that the modern state does not even ‘seek to enter the moral realm’, nor does it see its duty as ‘to make us good’, and thus cannot be constructed on any moral or ethical grounds as it stands in stark comparison to them. 

The state is thus inherently unethical, separating between fact and value and relegating itself to the position of God. The state does not believe in a God, and perceives itself as a mean and an end. The five features of the modern state discussed previously are all constructed on an inherently immoral and unethical basis, in the dehumanisation of itself and the citizen and the preservation of itself simply because. The modern state exists to control and conserve power, and it only manages to do so when it forces upon us the distinction between what is legal and what is moral, for had there been no distinction – the modern state’s very premise would not be to exist and control but rather to exist and guide. This distinction has seeped into our every understanding and spheres in life, sometimes diluting both terms and sometimes forcing a perverse understanding of morality where it does not exist, such as that in the various ideologies of the modern state. 

Embodiment of Cultural Hegemony 

Recent exchanges in activist circles online and offline on the contingencies and dependencies of solidarities, has demonstrated to me more than anything the violence of state narratives which forces us into chauvinistic positions at the expense of the other. Even civil society, or what is perceived to be ‘outside the state’ and collectives or organisations which are incepted on the very premise of ‘resisting the state’ remain fundamentally intertwined within the modern state, and do not necessarily question the impositions the modern state has over us. Where we resist a particular state apparatus and dynamic we uphold it elsewhere, and the elsewhere is not necessarily in the support of oppression in other geographies but precisely in the identifications and cultural implications we attribute to ourselves in the name of resistance, but which are more often than not inherently state-sanctioned.

Hallaq speaks of the relationship between citizen and state bleakly when he refers to the citizen as a multi-layered concept, saying: “We take it for granted that no one can live outside of citizenship, for no one can find an independent space outside of the state. There is no neutral site between one state and another and nothing that allows a human being to be just a human being, one without political, state-based affiliation. The citizen therefore is as much of the state as the state is of the citizen; they are as conceptually linked with each other as the implications residing in the concepts of “parent” and “child,” since one demonstratively entails the other.” This exemplifies precisely the dilemma we find ourselves in today, where our resistance is characterised by the same state we find ourselves fighting against – and in hue of that state-imposed identity, do we see others, other causes and other fights. It is a strangely convoluted phenomena that we seek to humanise others only after we have analysed the geo-politcial implications of their struggle against ours, and vice versa; an inherently violent narrative imposed upon us within the cultural hegemony of the modern state, which we readily walk into.

If one were to characterise the last century and a half in a single word, that word would be ‘violence’. A civilisations expert would probably argue that the concept of war is an inherent factor within civilisations – and humanity. A brief look at any period within history, war has defined major events – in beginnings, resurgences and ends; in the ‘discovering’ of a people and place and the subsequent extermination of others. Yet, violence precedes acts of war, and has taken various elaborate and subtle forms in the last few centuries with the emergence of the modern state.  The violence of the state that seeps into society shapes it into an unethical immoral hegemonic entity. The very existence of genocide deniers today, for instance, despite the plethora of evidence and verified stories – which within themselves are often subjected to violent interrogations precipitated by modernity’s obsession with ‘scientific facts’ over genuine justice – is a product of the separation between ethics and politics by the state. Ethics are set aside in any discussion on politics and war, weaponised only when attempting to score points against the opposite side. In a strange convoluted manner, we – the people, the citizens, the societies, however one would like to identify a people who do not dwell within governments and official state positions, have embodied the state and its lack of ethics to the extent that the fragmentation of causes related to justice and humanity are perceived as a normal case of ‘rationality’. 

Conclusion 

This paper has attempted to answer the relegation of ethics in the modern state to a secondary, if non-existent, status and explore the effects this has had on wider society. The Hallaq school of thought, if one may call it that, seeks to contextualise all matters in order to understand trends and the origins of modern thought. As such, Hallaq repeatedly makes a case for understanding modernity in order to be able to better place and understand ourselves as subjects of certain identities and thereafter our histories – independent of modernity’s clutches. Similarly, one must do so with the modern state, not least because the modern state is a product of modernity itself but because through it we are able to interrogate our movements, biases, limitations and resistance; and thus my interest in the cultural hegemony of the state.

The modern state’s overpowering identity and agenda, which is entirely defunct of moralities and ethics, shapes our entire understanding of the world around us and our subsequent perceptions of causes and one another, the example of the senior Hamas official is but one of them, and used simply because it is an example close to me. Just last week an article was published on Al-Jumhuriyah, a Syrian website which raises the Syrian revolutionary discourse if through an entirely secular lens, critiquing Hamas’ existence as an obstacle to Palestinian liberation whilst advocating for political channels as established by the Oslo Accords; a convoluted if perfect representation of the cognitive dissonance we live in, in which the state remains always at the centre of our own solidarities or lack thereof towards each other.

This, however, can be seen across all spectrums, and not only in war zones but in all types of resistance to perverse ideologies – but also in fights against racism, islamophobia, xenophobia and any other types of discrimination often imposed or experienced through the systemic mechanisms of the state. The tools used are predominantly those of the state itself, and the lens in which we approach solutions aids and abets but the preservation of the state, often without one realising. The state thus anticipates our modes of resistance as they are contrived from within, and we weaponise the narratives of the state as intended to fragment us against each other. A quote I chanced upon by Jennifer Makumbi summarises this phenomena as: “Oppressed people turn on each other or themselves and bite. It is a form of relief. If you cannot bite your oppressor, you bite yourself.”

The modern state’s entire erection has been, and remains, on the basis of self-preservation. It exists precisely and entirely for itself, and perceives itself to have substituted the place of God in its commands of life and death. The features of the modern state, in its constitution, sovereignty, legislative monopoly, bureaucratic machinery and cultural hegemony are divorced from ethics and moralities by nature, as they seek to assert power and control wherever possible, dehumanising and deploying inhumane standards in order to ensure its preservation. Both such means and ends are entirely contingent on the redundancies of moralities and ethics, which otherwise pose an inherent threat to the existence of the modern state, and hence the necessity of the state’s cultural hegemony and the need to characterise society as it pleases, as a moral society has the potential to defeat the final feature of the state’s dependency, and with it kick start its potential demise.