ABSTRACT
Fundamentalist movements tend to emphasize cultural issues—religion, language, and ethnicity, but also gender, the family, and the position of women. This chapter discusses a set of propositions regarding the rise of Islamist movements in the Middle East, considered as a specific type of identity politics. Cultural revivalism, national liberation, religious "fundamentalism" and sexual affirmation all constituted some of the most vocal and visible political and social movements of history. In an interesting conceptual convergence, Western and Islamic theorists emphasize the role of culture in shaping politics, power, and economic systems. Silva Meznaric provides insights into the use to which "Woman" can be put in political battles between different cultural groups. Questions of cultural, religious, national, linguistic, and sexual identity commanded center stage, relegating questions of economic justice, at least temporarily, to the background. The persons who embodied the notions were the gharbzadeh women: decadent, bourgeois, cultural traitors.
