One Global State: The Possibilities Today

Thursday, March 31, 2011

From the time of dropping the ‘Little Boy‘ and ‘Fat Man‘ back in 1945 in WWII, the end of British Empire has been confirmed. It also confirmed America‘s edge over every other power. Since WW2, America‘s control of the international situation has been built upon her military and economic strengths. However, after more than 50 years, the US does not enjoy the same primacy today as it did prior to its invasion of Iraq. The invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan have affected the capabilities of the USA and depleted her resources. The global economic crisis further exacerbated America‘s standing in the world, as it turned towards socialist intervention to prop up its economy. Yet it failed to stop economic collapse as America has already entered into a new recession starting from July 2010. Because of such challenges America‘s presence in the world is being considered as overstretched and untenable.

America’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are taking toll on US soldiers, as the latest statistics shows 1 out of every 9 American soldiers leaves the army on a medical discharge due to mental disorder. Paul Martin from Peace Action commented that “we have 100,000 troops and a third of them suffer some sort of mental health disease and half of those suffer multiple health disease”. The army alone saw a 64% increase in those forced out due to mental illness between 2005 and 2009, the numbers equal to 1 in 9 of all medical discharges. The soldiers who are discharged for having both a mental and physical disability increased by174% during the last 5 years until 2009, according to army statistics. This clearly indicates the declining morale and mental strength of American soldiers in fighting a ‘War on Islam‘.

Therefore, the reality of the world is that, USA is no longer a respected superpower; rather it is a hegemonic one. Despite bringing the most sophisticated, advanced technological change, USA is ethically, economically, strategically, politically a corrupt and bankrupt nation. Its own people don‘t have faith on its government, and on its system. The very ideological tenets of its society are being questioned by its own people and followers. Twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, a new BBC poll has found widespread dissatisfaction with free-market capitalism (James Robbins, BBC 9th Nov, 2009).

In the global poll for the BBC World Service, only 11% of those questioned across 27 countries said that it was working well! Moreover, the honeymoon slogan of ‗change‘ in America by Barack Obama has quickly turned into nightmare of betrayal. In 2009 election, Barack Obama who had a 76% approval, unprecedented in US history, now has only 42% approval. Fox news reports that in some cases he has less than 30% approval, while young black voters even called him a hypocrite‘.

David S Mason (2009) in his book ,The End of the American Century‘ has observed that, ―The United States is at the end of the period of global leadership and domination that we‘ve enjoyed for the last 50 years or so. The country is bankrupt economically. We‘ve lost our edge in terms of politics, economics, socially. We no longer compare well with other countries around the world, and we‘re not admired as we once were by countries around the world. And we‘re not viewed as a model for economic and political development, as we once were. So this really marks a global shift in world history, both for the United States and the rest of the world. It is a gloomy picture, and this wasn‘t an easy book to write for that reason. But I think the facts speak for themselves. If you look at the United States, both in terms of comparing us to 20 years ago or in comparing us to other developed countries in the world, the United States doesn‘t come out on top on almost any measure anymore. And this has long-term implications that are going to affect the way we live and the role we play in the world.

As a result of America‘s weakness, the challenges stemming from her competitors within the capitalist ideology have grown in size and scope and today are much stronger. However, these countries do not threaten USA‘s supremacy because they do not form their own ideological vision. Germany and Japan despite their economic might do not control the world because they have suspended their global ambitions after the WWII,whereas India duly works as a servant to its master USA to achieve regional objectives. Russia on the other hand despite some of its anti-USA strategy works only to become regional power and safeguard its backyard. Finally China, a 5000 years old regional power having so much economic development and military capabilities still cannot shape up the world, because it has no global ambition. So the USA still managed to remain as the sole global state because no other ideological nation with vast amount of population, economic and military power, size and control over strategic locations of the world, and above all an ideology to challenge the USA has emerged. Therefore, it is unlikely the US will disintegrate like the Soviet Union or cease to be the world‘s power as what happened to Britain except without the rise of another foremost leading state.

As per China, it‘s economic, military and capabilities are far better than the Russian. However, her economic development is mostly based on reliance on Middle East and African resources and on USA markets. Moreover, its territorial assimilation can easily be exploited by USA or any other country with global ambition. The failure of China in the issue of American project ‗Taiwan‘ clearly shows lack of Chinese guts to be a global state. Moreover, Hongkong enjoys full autonomy which further provides evidences in this issue. Its province of Tibet‘ like Taiwan is on the verse of annexation. Moreover, the systematic cleansing of Muslims in Xinxiang has further complicated its territorial integrity. Other than these facts for more than 5000 years China was a dominant regional power however, she never had the ambition to be the foremost leading state of the world. China is every day becoming more and more like Japan and becoming an economic power. However an economy without political aims and global ambitions will turn a nation into a trade powerhouse never a global power (Adnan Khan, 2009).

As for Russia, Steven Rosefielde from University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill in his book ‗Russia in the 21st Century: The Prodigal Superpower‘ suggested that, ‘Russia intends to re-emerge as a full-fledged superpower before 2010 by challenging America and China and potentially threatening a new arms race’ pointing to the war in Ossetia and debate about Eastern European missile defense system by NATO. Rosefielde further argues that,” Russia has an intact military-industrial complex…and the mineral wealth to reactivate its dormant structurally militarized potential.Russia indeed has managed to take advantage of America‘s weakness and strengthen itself in the former Soviet republics, but not beyond that. In reality Russia is still very far from having the necessary economy and geopolitical control needed to pose a direct challenge to the USA.”

Moreover, facts constraining Russia’s rise to foremost leading state status includes a lack of important allies, a powerful European Union and China on its border, relatively small and failing economy, and of course a relatively small, and shrinking population which is very important in today‘s eco-political set up.

Other powers like Germany, India, etc leave no room for discussion as they neither have global ambition nor the resources of all kind to remove USA from the foremost leading state position. In fact all these countries somehow help USA to maintain its domination within their respective regions. Moreover, it is very important to note that, a unique leading global state can only rise with the adoption of an alternative ideology‘ different form the current one. All these countries who are competing now do not have a different and unique ideological vision to offer to mankind. Rather these intense visible competitions are simply an exercise of power in regional and global scale for having a share of global resources‘ to aid their economic and other strategic objectives in order to become a more respectful global player rather than to become a unique global state.

Having said that, however, a number of academic journals, research papers, policy statements, western government policy papers, global public opinion, think tank and intelligence reports etc over the past 10 yearshave repeatedly concluded that, there is a silent, far reaching, deep-seated, and ground breaking change taking place in the world. This is none other than an intellectual and political revival in the Islamic world.

Moreover its territorial assimilation can easily be exploited by USA or any other country with global ambition.The failure of China in the issue of American project‘ Taiwan clearly shows lack of Chinese guts to be a superpower. Moreover, Hongkong enjoys full autonomy; further provide evidences in this issue.

Alec Rasizade (2003), M. R. Woodward (2004), Thomas R. McCabe (2007), J. O‘Loughlin (2009), Mustafa Aydin, Çınar Özen (2010), Rachel Rinaldo (2010), and Sanjida O’Connell (2010) in their studies have concluded that, “the rise of Islam and Khilafah is an inevitable reality‘ today”.

According to J. O‘Loughlin (2009),” the last 500 years have been marked by cycles of superpower rises and falls, with a lasting focus on sea power as the mechanism to allow global reach. After the fall of Utmani Khilafah state and then the decline of UK in the early twentieth century and the failed attempts by Japan and Germany to achieve superpower status, the bipolar world of US–Soviet competition marked the stereotypical superpower confrontation. After the Soviet implosion, the US achieved a lead over other large states never achieved before. But after 15 years of this hegemony, the US leadership is now challenged and superpower competition is again a real possibility”.

Hence, pointing to this bizarre circumstances, US national intelligence estimates have continued to reiterate the demand for Islam by the Islamic ummah around the world as one of the topmost threat to American security and national interest. The political and ideological struggle (not the material one) carried by the Islamic ummah has reached to a level that, the demand for Khilafah and Shari‘ah, under the Islamic State is the biggest ideological challenge USA is facing. The former US Vice-President, Dick Cheney on 23rd Feb, 2007clearly stating that ―“they have ultimate aim to establish a Caliphate covering a region from Spain, across North Africa, through the Middle East and South Asia, all the way to Indonesia -and it wouldn’t stop there”. Moreover, former British Home secretary, Charles Clarke, said in a speech to the US think tank the Heritage Foundation “there can be no negotiation about the recreation of the Caliphate; there can be no negotiation about the imposition of Shari‘ah law”.

The threat posed by the potential Khilafah was continually reiterated by the Bush administration and it was one of the reasons for both the Iraq and Afghan wars. General Richard Dannatt, advisor to the UK prime minister David Cameron and retired UK armed forces chief, confessed in an interview to the BBC Radio 4 that the objective behind the war in Afghanistan is “there is an Islamist agenda which if we don’t oppose it and face it off in Southern Afghanistan, or Afghanistan, or in South Asia, then frankly that influence will grow. It could well grow, and this is an important point, we could see it moving from South Asia to the Middle East to North Africa, and to the high water mark of the Islamic caliphate in the 14th, 15th century”.

Finally, with these realities in the ground and political statements made around the capitals in the West, the ground is set to explore the conditions of Islamic world in terms of the catalysts like population, adherents, strength and diversity in culture, size and control over continents, economic and military power, political will and ideological strength in order to assess if the Islamic ummah unified under Islamic Khilafah State presents a realistic possibility to emerge as the foremost and unique global state of 21st century‘.

Adapted from the book “Emerging World Order – The Islamic Khilafah State“

The Khilafah is not a Police State

Tuesday, March 29th, 2011 | Posted by Noor

The situation that has prevailed in Egypt for past half century, if not more, has seen suffocating security measures, considerable police powers and limited accountability of the country’s enforcement agencies. The 30 year long ‘emergency’ laws that became the norm under Mubarak allowed the already considerable powers to expand, emboldened the police and security to take the law into their own hands and created an environment which eroded the populations’ basic rights to account, speak and practice Islam.

This drove frustration, people found little recourse in the law to check the brutality of the police and security services. People disappeared, sat in prisons for years awaiting trial, convicted on arbitrary evidence, particularly political prisoners, and tortured brutally, many dying in the process. This hidden, unspoken world came to the fore as the world witnessed undercover police personnel and their paid henchmen attack protesters in Tahrir square at the height of the anti-Mubarak demonstrations.

The Islamic state will undertake, amongst other activities, the following to address this:

• The scope, remit and jurisdiction of the enforcement agencies in the Khilafah will be enshrined in the constitution. This will prevent the introduction of arbitrary laws, acts as the reference document against which enforcement agencies are accounted and ensure due process is required to any material changes in their scope and jurisdiction.

• Citizens of the Khilafah, Muslims and non-Muslims, will have the right to take any member of the enforcement agencies, regardless of rank, to court and/or register a complaint to an independent judiciary without any implications for his/her wellbeing. The judicial process, including submitted evidence, will be open and transparent. Court hearings will be open to the public. Any member of the law enforcement agencies found guilty of abusing their position, violating the rights of any citizen and acting against the law will be punished according to the nature of the violation committed and expelled from their agency as appropriate.

• The enforcement agencies do not have the power or right to spy or seek out peoples private beliefs. This will have an impact on collecting evidence through covert means, surveillance and violating the privacy of citizens. The privacy of the home and citizen is considered sacrosanct. Their jurisdiction is restricted to enforcing the jurisdiction of the state, this being temporal and public matters

• Enforcement agencies will be paid a wage commensurate with their work, benchmarked appropriately to ensure it comfortably affords employees essential living costs with an appropriate level of disposal income. This is, in part, to disincentivise employees undertaking additional jobs to compensate that may give rise to a conflict of interests and also corruption.

• In addition to ensuring law is not violated, the purpose of the enforcement agencies is to ensure citizens’ protection and safety. Neighbourhood watch schemes not should compensate for police shortcomings, the Khilafah will fund appropriate police employees to undertake day and night watches to provide an acceptable level of safety in each neighbourhood.

• Torture is absolutely forbidden and any employee found guilty of carrying out physical abuse or torture against any citizen, Muslim or non-Muslim, will be punished severely.

The Khilafah will make all offices of state accountable and weed out corruption

The myth often peddled by the west is that the authoritarian status quo in the Middle East is a consequence of Islam’s history in the region, that Muslims prefer strong leaders and have a preference for authoritarian figures. Worst still, that this is attitude is entrenched in Islamic law and theology.

This absurd suggestion fails to acknowledge that leaderships currently plaguing the Muslim world are not a consequence of Islam, but arose following its demise; they replaced a system with a long history of stability, with checks and balances to prevent the authoritarianism. This orientalist depiction of the Muslim psyche and of Islamic law and theology fails to recognise that the Mubaraks, Saddams and Gaddafis of the world are all a product of secular thinking, who acted to marginalise Islam from the conduct of the state. They lacked an independent will and entrenched western interests in the region. Islam would liberate people of the region from this entrenched and thoroughly authoritarian political landscape.

The Khilafah will do so in the following way:

• Accountability of the state is based on the following provisions: an independent judiciary with extensive powers including the ability to remove of the head of state, individual rights to speech and hold to account any office or agency of the state, the requirement for multiple political parties and an Ummah council that has the power to scrutinise and overturn state policy, budgets and decision making

• The head of the judiciary is appointed by but independent to the head of state. The Mahkamut al Madhalim is a dedicated office of the judiciary charged with checking the state’s compliance with the law. The Madhalim does not rely on a plaintiff raising a specific complaint against the state and is charged with on-going monitoring of all organs of state. The Madhalim has the power to remove the head of state if he is found guilty of violating the law or is personally unable to continue with his role, e.g. is incapacitated. The office is charged with following due process in each situation, which comprises the collection and analysis of evidence, and may include a sitting head of state providing evidence during the course of a trial. The Madhalim will have access to information from the state relating to any specific case, and can request information on behalf of any citizen

• Individuals have the right to account any organ or employee of the state, regardless of rank or seniority, this includes the head of state. Complaints will be submitted to the above mentioned Madhalim office who will initiate a process of validating and following due process in establishing facts; the office has the subsequent power to stipulate punishments. Individuals, Muslims and non-Muslims, are allowed the right to peaceful congregation and protest. They are also allowed to seek out support to make representations to the state on the behalf.

• Multiple political parties premised on Islam are allowed to exist and operate openly with the Khilafah. Political parties are allowed to congregate, stage protests and utilise the media for the purposes of accounting the state. They are also allowed to actively canvass for candidates during elections for the head of state.

• The Ummah Council comprises representatives from across the Khilafah and will include Muslims and non-Muslims. The council is designed not only to make representations to the state, but also has the power to scrutinise and overturn state policy, analyse the budget. Elections for the seats on the council are held periodically.

• For the purposes of ensuring transparent and openness, the state will be required to make available documentation related to decision making, where national security is not compromised. It is also required to make available details of its budget, tax revenues, expenditure from funds in the state treasury, wages and benefits provided to state employees and all information related to the collection, use and distribution of public money. State employees will be required to declare any conflict of interests and will be preventing from undertaken additional work or extra curricula engagements where these conflicts with acting as a state employee. Employment decisions will be scrutinised and will be based on an open criteria – based on merit alone – to prevent the onset of nepotism. Any employee found guilty of corruption, taking bribes or advances the interests of friends or family will be put on trial and punished severely if found guilty, regardless of rank or time served.

source : http://www.khilafah.com/index.php/the-khilafah/khilafah/11548-the-khilafah-is-not-a-police-state

‘Our’ Revolution

Monday, March 28th, 2011 | Posted by Noor

The Muslim world is dominated by the West, overtly via military and economic means, but also covertly through the manipulation of language. Control a person’s language and you limit his thinking and control his ability to articulate what he desires.

Take a simple word such as ‘Democracy’. By associating it in the minds of the Muslims with freedom from tyranny and oppression, they have made it a common call across the Muslim world. You hear it chanted on the streets from Cairo to Tripoli, and these chants carried by the global media to every corner of the planet, clear undeniable evidence of the desire for democratic reform in the Muslim world?

But where is the danger in this? Surely a word can mean many things to many people, and what is important is what the intended meaning by the one who uses it? If Muslims choose to label their liberation as ‘Democracy’, what harm could it bring?

Most words are indeed harmless; they just convey a simple meaning or description. But some words carry a depth that cannot be conveyed by a few lines in a dictionary. They carry the weight of history behind them, and they carry a meaning which is intertwined with a belief about life itself.

‘Democracy’ is such a word.

Far from being a simple collection of letters, it is a word that was forged through centuries of bloodshed across Europe. It is a word which is associated with freedom from the oppression by tyrannical Monarchies, who through a twisted collaboration between themselves and the Christian clergy had maintained dominance over the people by claiming themselves and their bloodlines ‘chosen’ by God. So the eventual backlash against this situation was not just about removing dictatorships, but removing religious dictatorships. This struggle is an intrinsic part of the collective psyche of the western world; when they talk about the right of people to govern themselves, they also mean the prevention of religious interference in ruling – whether this is explicitly stated or not.

So in essence the word is actually a part of a culture. It comes with not just a linguistic meaning but also a history and a set of values, all of which are inextricably linked to this single word ‘Democracy’. When understood in its true context, it becomes clear why using such a word is dangerous. Muslims marching on the streets in the middle-east understand the linguistic meaning, which they see as something which fits with their own demands; the right to elect your own ruler, the right to have an independent judiciary, the right to hold you rulers to account etc. But they do not appreciate the history behind the word or the values that are part and parcel of it, and as such are unaware that they are sending out message to the world which they did not intend.

Imagine a human-rights charity who decided that a swastika would be a suitable logo for their organisation, being ignorant of the symbol’s association with the Nazis. So, being ignorant of the history and values that come with the symbol they proudly display it on their leaflets and posters. Would this convey the message they wanted?

Similarly while the Muslims believe they are simply calling for their rights by adopting the term ‘Democracy’, the world views such a call for the removal of Islam from governing and for the implementation of secular liberal values.

It is through this confusion over the use of language that particular words such as ‘Democracy’ can be used as weapons against the Muslims. The word is pumped endlessly through the media and via secular political groups, until it becomes a slogan for the struggle and adopted by the masses, unaware of what it means.

What an unforgivable crime it would be if the sincere efforts and sacrifices of the Ummah to rid themselves of the chains of colonialism and dictatorship merely resulted in them replacing one set of chains with another, ones which they hang around their own necks?

But the crime would not be theirs. They would have done their part in this global struggle, the failure would be ours. For every part of this Ummah has a role to play; for some this is a physical struggle, putting their lives on the line. For others this is an intellectual struggle, to see through the words spoken by politicians and to expose the real agenda.

So let us take a stand against the imposition of a foreign culture in the minds of our people through these words. Let us draw a clear line between Islam and Kufr, as clear as the difference between praying in a church or praying in a mosque. Democracy is part of a culture that is foreign to Islam. Democracy is a Western construct and therefore foreign to the Muslim world and Democracy is much more than elections. We have our own unique history and culture, and our own system which is distinct from that of the west: the Khilafah. It encompasses the right to elect the ruler, to hold him to account and remove him if he contradicts Islam. We have a judiciary to uphold the rule of law and the many other state institutions that the Muslim world demands, but it does not do so at the expense of the Islamic values that are demanded just as strongly.

أَفَتَتَّخِذُونَهُ وَذُرِّيَّتَهُ أَوْلِيَاءَ مِنْ دُونِي وَهُمْ لَكُمْ عَدُوٌّ ۚ بِئْسَ لِلظَّالِمِينَ بَدَلًا

“Do you take him and his offspring as protectors apart from Me when they are your enemy? How evil is the exchange the wrongdoers make!” (Kahf, 18:50)

source : http://www.khilafah.com/index.php/comment/11394-our-revolution