Multiple modernities and mass communications in Muslim countries

Abstract

The concept of multiple modernities is increasingly influential in mainly Western academic circles. Although the multiple modernities thesis challenges established West-centric understandings of the modern world, it also risks praising ‘the modern’ as the end of history and our preordained destiny. Multiple modernities’ global history cannot be separated from the colonialism, slavery, wars and exploitation that have formed our modern world and its inequalities. The multiple modernities thesis also illuminates a cultural and religious battlefield in which a Western concept of linear modernity, with a ‘developmental path’ that should be followed by all countries, is highly contested. The division of societies into the dichotomous categories of modern versus traditional – a legacy of the ‘grand narratives’ of classical social theory – also creates the foundation for other divisions, including the dichotomy of the modern Christian ‘Us’ versus the traditional Muslim ‘Them’. Such West-centric history-telling is part of a field of cultural authority in which the battle over the right to shape the past and present of various societies is taking place. There is no singular model of modernity; global modernization programs and processes have taken place in a variety of cultural and political environments, creating multiple models of modernity. This article critically explores the shortcomings of the West-centric theory of singular modernity. By focusing on the modern transformation of mass communication in Muslim countries, it argues that both traditional means of mass communication, such as manbars, and modern media, such as newspapers and tape recorders, have been used effectively for mobilization of masses by revolutionary Muslim groups. It also argues that Islam is not incompatible with modernity or democracy, and that Islamic groups have been an integral part of modern democratic developments in Muslim countries.