Planting Democracy in the World – A Mantra for Freedom

Good article overall,but your ``fatwa`` on India is nothing more than a biased opinion.Communal riots do happen in India,but it does not make the whole country communal.US and UK can not be compared to India(where democracy is only 57 years old).Racial discrimination was so rampant in US not many years ago and it will be a miracle if it is totally absent now.Similarly ``Skinheads`` and ``Punks`` phenomena are not very old happenings in UK.The point I want to make is that constitutional secularism and secularism practiced by the people,do not always go side by side-it takes very long for people to embibe such values and coming stright out of feudalism doesn`t help either. Why UK and US are miles ahead in democracy is because of the level of awareness of the citizens about their rights and that is the basic difference as copared to India,which has long way to go in that respect.

Gill Sahib,

Very interesting article. I think history has shown that there are three critical things for a country to achieve greatness - a. Democracy with Checks and Balances b. Secularism and c. Free Market Economy. If you put these three things in place in any country, it will become immensely successful. If any of these things are missing, the picture is incomplete.

One thing that I would like to mention is that democracy is a work in progress. One should not implement democracy and expect amazing results the next day. It takes time for the process to take root and become part of the culture. The west has had democracy for centuries and now it is in their blood. The same has happened in India to a large extent. Earlier people could be easily manipulated and fooled into wasting their vote. Now even in small villages in India, people know their democratic rights and will not give in to manipulation. I was recenty watching a program where ordinary villagers were demanding from their MLA (Member of Legislative Assembly) how come their road to the village was not repaired, how come there was no water supply etc. The interesting thing is that the MLA could not ignore them and was actually sweating in the face of all these questions on his performance. Now it is routine to see governments being voted out of power for lack of performance.

There is a religious hurdle, which needs to be overcome, at least in the Muslim world.


Percentage of muslims living in a non-muslims country who think secularism is good: 99%
Percentage of muslims living in a muslim country who think secularism is good: 1%(which usually means manto and his family)

Democracy is a means to an end, it is not the end to the means.

The Attaturk had enforced secularism, however ruled as an autocrat. The Turkish military establishment is perhaps the most secular institution in the country, and is completely analogous to the Gaurdian council that has ultimate say in Iran.

If anything, Turkish secularism is finally reconciling itself with the religiosity of Turkish society at large. This, thanks to democracy. If Turkey were completely autocratic still, there would no doubt be a wildfire of militant Islamist activity throughout the country.

``There is a religious hurdle, which needs to be overcome, at least in the Muslim world. According to Islamic concept, the government belongs to Allah; the ruler on the earth is only nominal and Allah’s representative, khalifah, or vicegerent, if you will. For Allah’s government, Quran is the constitution and no other constitution is needed besides it. This concept is the backbone of Islamic theocracy. ``

Incorrect. This is not in the writ of any self-declared Islamic republic in the world. This is the mantra of a particular strain (admittedly, perhaps the most popular) of Islamism that emanates from Egypt. Malaysia, Turkey, Algeria, Iran, Iraq, etc. have shown that there is indeed no so-called religous hurdle to overcome when it comes to democracy, as imperfect as the democracies are in those countries. . Perhaps for secularism, however that is a problem for you Mr. Gill, not for the Muslims. For the Muslims by far and wide have no desire to live in a fundamentalist Kemalist society.

Re: Article
Nice and very pertinent article Mr. Gill. It would have been better if you had managed to go beyond your Pakistani bias.
You have commented on Indian secularism. India is a country you haven’t been to and know little about. No one can understand Indian secularism by reading about it. First of all we define our secularism as a respect for all religions, not the western concept of not recognizing religion. India is secular because most Indians are secular. Its part of the constitution because its part of the basic ethos of the people of this country. In spite of BJP’s effort over the last two decades India’s faith in secularism is no where close to being shaken.

“There is a religious hurdle, which needs to be overcome, at least in the Muslim world. According to Islamic concept, the government belongs to Allah; the ruler on the earth is only nominal and Allah’s representative, khalifah, or vicegerent, if you will. For Allah’s government, Quran is the constitution and no other constitution is needed besides it. This concept is the backbone of Islamic theocracy.”

This is a serious problem for Muslim nations trying to establish democracies. They have to realize that in a democracy you have to judge your govt. on its performance only and no one has a god given right to rule.

Regards,

Faruk

re: Vertex # 4

I don’t think religion in govt. has served any society well. What you get is a bunch of people who insist they are “men of god” and answerable only to him. People are better off when their govt. is answerable to them.

Regards,

Faruk

According to the prophecies about the End of Times in Ahadith one of the characteristics of the One-Eyed Dajjal (Anti-Christ) would be that on its forehead a word would be inscribed in bold letters ``KAFFIR``. Only Muslims with Iman in their heart would be able to read and interpret this word and all other will be beguiled with his appearance. As the explanations go that this Dajjal may or may not be a person, because in Arabic lexicon the word Dajjal means ` an all encompassing evil`, it could just be a phenomenon, a group of evil people, an ideology. Similarly word Kaffir has a range of meanings. In essence the Kaffir means the ``rejector``. That who knows that God exists but due to his arrogance rejects Him.

If one looks at the constitution of the United States; from the very beggining it starts with the words ``We the people....`` meaning ``God! we reject You from our social life. You are inept and inadequate to deal with our social life. You are an interferrence. You are a problem. Your laws and Your values are meaningless and useless to us. Therefore we the people Reject You. Reject You``. This in essence is the secularism. Muslims should ask this question to the proponents of this secularism that if your God has failed you then it does not mean that our God has failed us as well. This call for democracy is just a front. The real aim of Dajjal is to spread his ideology of Rejection to all corners of the world.

According to the prophecies another sign of Dajjal would be that in action it will do exactly the opposite to what it would profess. Muslims should open up their eyes and see that in words Dajjal calls for the rule of the people but in fact it installs despots and two bit dictators on us who kill us, torture us and who incarcerate us, who are in full swing to destroy our values. These are the minions of Dajjal. For example, note this, the dajjal`s puppet Musharaf has said it more than once that ``Kia hum mussalman nahiN hain`` and yet he says that those who cannot see Muslim girls running around in knickers should close their eyes.

Faruk:

Thanks for your comments. My comments regarding India were not based on any prejudice. It`s not true that all Musilms of Pakistani ethinicity are biased towards India. It was reported in the media that there was complicity of the state government in the recent Gujrat riots. If that`s true, secularism in India has to develop more in order to obviate such incidents in the future. It`s true that I have not been to India after Independence but I want to assure you I don`t hold any illwill toward India.

I also mentioned that India might become more secular and less religious with the passage of time. India is a democratic country, which is an enviable example for the non-democratic countries in Southeast Asia, such as Pakistan.

Mohammad Gill

#7
Haha. People who believe in invisible men in the sky amuse me to no end.

``There is a religious hurdle, which needs to be overcome, at least in the Muslim world. According to Islamic concept, the government belongs to Allah;``

This does not necessarily lead to dictatorship. Allah`s word has to interpreted. This can be done democratically or in an authoritarian manner. Only when the doors of fresh interpretation are closed or the process is usurped by a class of people or an individual will the result be dictatorship. This is indeed the most common scenario today. But this happens in secular countries too where the right to interpret the ``supreme national interest`` is usurped by whoever has the guns.

Faruk,


``I don’t think religion in govt. has served any society well. What you get is a bunch of people who insist they are “men of god” and answerable only to him. People are better off when their govt. is answerable to them. ``

This is typical of religious institutions. Even the the Khalifa`s of old don`t qualify, as they were quite secular in their administration, i.e. they responded to actual needs of the people and managed society quite well.

That religion played a big part in the governments only reflected the role of religion in society as a whole. Secular concerns should be the day-to-day concern of any administration (and it typically is for successful ones). However, one needs to balance the degree one is willing to pursue the secular with the mores and values of the society at large. Secularism in the middle east and Muslim world is usually associated with `westernization` as typified by the Shah and Kemalism. Those ideologies were abysmal failures, and yet we still have those like Gill Sahib who sing their paean.

I am not advocating a rule-by-clergy or simplistic sloganeering such as the Quran as a constitution. But the fact is, if society is religious, then the government must be by definition has to deal with it, rather then push down a secular worldview as Gill Sahib is advocating they do.

I appreciate your fear of oligarchs taking power who would use religion as a kind of spiritual blackmail to prop up their rule. This is a very real threat. However, on the flip side, when most easterners speak of secularism (esp. in the Muslim world), they are in fact talking about elimination (by force, if necessary - consider the high praise to Kemalism) of religion from the public sphere.

An ongoing problem with Islamism is that the Islamists never answer who`s Islam is actually going to be implemented...they`re are many interpretations after all. Truth be told, the secularists too suffer from the same dilemma, however much they may allude to Western style secularism (which most Muslims wouldn`t want anyway) and democracy, they always end up being more soviet style autocrats when it comes to religion.

re : Mohammad Gill # 8

“It was reported in the media that there was complicity of the state government in the recent Gujrat riots. If that`s true, secularism in India has to develop more in order to obviate such incidents in the future.”

It was reported in the Indian Media, by Indians to make India a better place.

To understand why the Gujarat riots happed you have to dig deeper. This is a dark side of democracy. Gujarat is a prosperous state of India, it has averaged 8% GDP growth except the 90’s when rest of India was booming. BJP needed an issue to get re-elected, if they contested the election on competence they could not have won. So they took an incident and used it. This is my opinion everyone else is free to have their own.

The point I am trying to make is that if you use incidents to form an opinion you are more than likely to be wrong. There is a Pakistani actress Meera living in India because she kissed an Indian actor and the mullahs are after her in Pakistan. Would I be right in assuming that no Pakistani actress has ever kissed a actor.

Regards,

Faruk

the post by urstruly is truly an eye opener - no pun intended ............. i think it is a shame that muslims would discriminate against the visually impaired; after all, isn`t mullah omar one-eyed, and what about the blind sheikh from cairo and sheik bin baaz the grand sheikh of mecca who was as blind as a bat and went up to heaven believing that the earth was flat ............

............. maybe al-lah made all these good men blind so that they woud not be tempted by ``muslim girls running around in knickers`` !!!

re: vertex # 11

“That religion played a big part in the governments only reflected the role of religion in society as a whole. Secular concerns should be the day-to-day concern of any administration (and it typically is for successful ones). However, one needs to balance the degree one is willing to pursue the secular with the mores and values of the society at large. Secularism in the middle east and Muslim world is usually associated with `westernization` as typified by the Shah and Kemalism. Those ideologies were abysmal failures, and yet we still have those like Gill Sahib who sing their paean.”


Defining the role of religion in society is always a hard call. That is probably the reason for the popularity of Kemalist line of thought, no religion. I think each society will have to define the role of religion in society that works for it. I understand the popularity of the western model, it a successful working model and looks easy enough to import.


Regards,

Faruk

Faruk,

``Defining the role of religion in society is always a hard call. That is probably the reason for the popularity of Kemalist line of thought, no religion.``

I think it`s the autocratic nature of the particular ideology. It`s easy to force, hard to convince. Who has time to convince? When ideology is involved, things are always blown up to be an imperative.

``I think each society will have to define the role of religion in society that works for it. I understand the popularity of the western model, it a successful working model and looks easy enough to import. ``

To a degree, yeah. The bottom line is, if the *real* work isn`t done with respect to producing a functioning economy and bureaucracy, then not even the silver bullets of `secularism` and `democracy` will amount to much.

UrsTruly:
that was very funny.. keep it up dude...
by the way since my heart, ears and eyes have already been signed and sealed for the abyss.. ( i suppose)..
could you tell me if you see the word KAAFIR written there.. ?

on other note.. it does seem like the escatological ramblings of Last Prophet are not way off the mark.. as Syria was supposed to be the battleground for Dajjaal... before Jesus can make a landing on the minaret of the Damascus mosque...