You have raised an important but a long discussion. I don’t know if we can really discuss the issue of democracy by blog postings. That being said, I will try to give you some of my views on what you have said.
1) The most important question is what is democracy? Logically, before we condemn any system or ideology, it is really important to first come to agreement of what are we talking about. Democracy, in my opinion, is not the name of any one system, form of government, or ideology. It is neither, in my opinion, the invention of the west. I believe that democracy is a way of life; it involves some precepts that can be applied to a country, society, era, or any other group of people. These precepts are: Basic human rights like ability to say what you think is true without fear of reprisal, right to education, right to fair treatment, right to work, right of equal treatment etc.; government or decision-making by consultation, which basically means that no one person has the right to take decisions unilaterally for everybody else; ability to change the government when the government is not serving the people. It eventually comes down to the basic principle that I have the right to disagree with you but you also have the right to say what you think is right, in other words tolerance.
2) Looking at human history and the history of governments democracy in its purest form i.e. direct democracy has existed in tribal societies for many thousands of years. One of the earliest traces of this system in some forms was actually found in the sub-continent, way before the Greeks made it into a western tradition. So, again it is not an exclusive western tradition.
3) Now I agree with your examples of democratic countries with bad systems and exploitation. But you must always remember that failure of a system could also be because of wrong application of the ideology. Without going into a lot of detail, I just want to say that democratic system also has some conditions that must exist for it to be successful, like: education, some measure of economic equality or at least equality of opportunity; and most importantly a politically aware and vigilant public, vigilant for its rights. So your examples could be because of the fact that worldwide the above conditions, especially economic inequality, have created an exploitative atmosphere. But that does not mean that democracy is bad. That only means that its not being applied properly.
4) Now coming to your assertion that western democracy is “shirk”, I would beg to differ here with you. You also mentioned the case of Pakistan. If you read the Pakistani constitution you would understand that it says very clearly in the constitution that Allah is the Supreme Authority, and governance is a trust given to man by God. How could this be shirk, isn’t man God’s representative on earth, the most superior of His creations. Secondly, the features of democracy that I enumerated above how far are they really from Islam: After our Prophet (PBHM) weren’t the Caliphs chosen by “mushawarat” as much as possible in those days of lack of means of communication; doesn’t Islam say to treat all Muslims equally; education is important for all; even the Prophet (PBUH), who clearly did not need any advice from anyone, used to discuss matters of the common concern with the sahaba; didn’t Islam teach us tolerance, not just for other Muslims but also for people from other religions; didn’t Islam institute the system of Zakat for people who are not as fortunate as rich people; didn’t Islam give us the right to not to obey the caliph when he asks us to something that is against the spirit of Islam; finally, didn’t Islam gave all of the basic rights, including women rights, 14 hundred years ago the west started to talk about them.
I hope that the above brief explanation was useful. Now I would like to ask you a few questions:
1) When all of us are ordinary human beings, how do you stop a powerful person or a group of people from becoming dictators and exploiting everybody else?
2) Why are you so against difference of opinion, as you mentioned that democracy creates multiplicity of opinion and keeps people away from a common goal? Do you think that all people think alike, or do you thing that all should think alike? Difference of opinion and multiple interests are natural, all of us think differently, even two brother can have different views about the most simple things. So what is required is not make people think alike but accept them with their different interests and find a common ground through exchange of opinion.
3) What other form of government would you suggest? If it is not democracy, then essentially you are talking about one man rule. If that is that case then what you are saying is that we, humans, do not deserve to have an opinion or to be treated equally. We are drones and we need dictators to lead us by our noses. I for one completely, disagree with you. Man was not meant to be a drone, God wanted us to be educated and understand the world around us, and educated and aware people are not drones.
Last thing that I would like to add is that the most important thing is eternal vigilance. No one ordinary man or group of people can remain good when they are given absolute power. People should make sure that their leaders are serving them and not the other way round. For this we need to assert our rights, and I don’t see anything un-Islamic in standing up for my rights.
