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22.12.2005

On the issue of co-existence of the Western democracy and Islam

   

Araks Pashayan

The US policy to shape a homogenous society and to implement the present democratic system into all over the world brought to confrontation with the Islamic world. The issue is whether the Islamic world will go to meet the Western democratic values or there is a political incompatibility between them.

Fr om this standpoint it is interesting how the Islamic social-political intellectual circles with their main directions will react to the implementation of Western values in the Islamic world.

According to the conservatives the Islamic society doesn’t need Western or other kinds of reforms as all the social-political problems are regulated by the Shariat and the new approaches are senseless.

According to the theorists of the modernist stream, acting in the context of liberal ideas, Islam is compatible with contemporaneity and particularly with democratic values, and the experience of the West is instructive. That is why they suggest interpreting the Islamic principles by free and rational methods but to abide by Islamic origins (mainly to the Koran and Sunna). Their attitude to the West is conditioned not by ideological approaches but the political ones.

The Western democratic values are strongly criticized by the fundamentalists who dehydrate Islam’s political and social conceptions. There is no other doctrine for them alternative to Islam. The unsuccessful attempt to implement the Western model of development in Muslim countries, which gained independence in 1940-1970, fostered the activities in the fundamentalist streams.

According to the fundamentalists the Islamic values are not like any other values and develop by their own way. If the modernists consider the synthesis of Islam and the Western democracy possible (which in many cases is called Islamic democracy) then the fundamentalists consider that Islam is antagonistic to the Western democracy for many reasons.

First of all Allah is the supreme power in Islam, that’s to say the authority over the people is only in the hands of the God. But people have right to take part in the country’s governing. The Islamic Umma must have its elected leader, which embodies both spiritual and temporal powers. The authorities mustn’t carry out legislative activities; instead they must strictly fallow the administration of legislation. Thus the Western democracy is inconsistent with the principles of Islam as it hinders the God’s authority in the world and passes the legislation in the hands of human beings. In the conference “The meaning of traditionalism for Islamic activities” organized by the Islamists in Khartoum in 1989 was mentioned that “democracy is a dishonest and atheistic structure, as it gives right to the human being to carry out legislative activities whereas this sacred right belongs only to Allah”.

From the standpoint of fundamentalists on of the features of the Western democracy is the multy-party system, which is not acceptable as well, as the parties may cause split in society. The leader of the organization “Muslim brotherhood” Hasan al-Banna (1906-1948) was against the existence of parties or trade unions as they join people not on the ground of religion. A radical figure, Palestinian by origin Salih Sarian, who was sentences to death in Egypt, denying the multy-party system stressed up that there are two parties “Party of Allah” and “Party of Devil”, the affiliation with any party would mean heresy.

The elections held in accordance with the Western model are rejected by the fundamentalists as it urges to follow the majority’s opinion, which, being the result of human activity, may be mistaken. Meanwhile there is the most ideal form of ruling, the Islamic kind of state which lives by its own laws of Shariat giving a chance to avoid of mistakes as these laws are predestined by the God. In this case the majority’s opinion may be taken into consideration if it coincides with Shariat. Besides the Western democracy leads to dictatorship of capitalists, who suit the electors’ votes their own ends. Wh ereas the Islamic conception provides for establishing a special deliberative body, a council of Shura, with the help of which the interests of the nation are considered (the council of Shura is considered the main representative body in Islam the representatives of which are from the different strata of society). The leader Libya Muammar al-Qadhafi in his “Green book” mentions that the parliament of Western model, relying on people’s representations, is a delusion in reality and the parliamentarism distorts democracy.

According to Muslim radicals for cheating the oppressed nations the West uses a number of fetching slogans: human rights, peace, democracy, freedom, equality, fraternity, secularity, which aim at destroying Islamic moral, cultural and religious values, forcing out Shariat and even literary Arabic substituting it for dialects. The leader of the Egyptian organization al-Jihad Ayman al-Zawahri, who is considered Usama Bin Laden’s successor, singles out the enemies with the help of which the West struggles against Islam: it is the UN, puppet regimes in Islamic countries, non-national and also international organizations, informational agencies, beneficiary funds.

According to one of the most famous fundamental theorist of Islam Said Kudbi (1906-1966) the societies deviated from Islamic values (or the truth) have turned into Jahilian (or mendacious, that is to say barbarian, pagan) societies. He suggests annihilating the leaders of these countries to restore the Umma’s traditions. It is not by chance that the target of Islamic extremists became inward enemies as well: the leaders or public figures of the Islamic countries cooperating with the West and try to introduce the Western models of development in their countries. In November 2002 in his “Letter to America” Usama Bin Laden particularly urged America not to help the corrupted leaders of the Muslim world as well as not to intervene in Islam’s principle of education.

Today different theorists and political figures in the Islamic world adhere to the opinion that one of the main reasons of backwardness of Islamic countries is the Western influence. Such opinions are heard also from the tribune of supreme political body of the Islamic world- Organization of the Islamic Conference, which means that such tendencies are actual all over the Islamic world.

Meanwhile the establishment of democracy in the Great Middle East in the nearest decades will remain one of the priority tasks of the US foreign policy, and for Islamic radical ideologists the creation of a state according to the Islamic model (particularly the reestablishment of the Caliphate) still remains the cause favorable to the God.

At the same time special attention deserves the fact that there are different approaches to ruling mechanisms in the Sunni Islam with the mind that the Prophet didn’t define the clear-cut ruling mechanisms of the Islamic community, hence taking into account the traditions and peculiarities of their own country, the Muslim inhabitants of that country may determine their state structure in accordance with Koran and Sunnism. The radical circles of the Islamic world are steadfast in the question that the Western democratic system of ruling is not only unacceptable but also harmful for the Islamic world.

As a matter of fact the problem of peaceful co-existence and the dialogue of the Islamic and Western civilizations still remain quite problematic. The parties in conflict are the carriers of different system of values and it is possible that there is “clash of civilizations” between them and the confrontation between Islam and the West will continue as long as an attempt is made to impose on Islam values alien to it.


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