Re: PPP's/Zardaris vision of Democracy

[sohaibbhatti]

There is nothing one can say but to go for the jugular on this issue. An argument presented by Jabral Tariq is based on nothing but innuendo and opinion. Such hyperbole and opinionated writings serve no one, least of all him.

Reading the post I can not help but think how his opinions owe a lot to either his perception of socialism which he understands in a wrong manner or it is firmly based upon communism lines. Either way, you are wrong.

Democracy is a revolutionary idea; it is indeed the best forms of government not because it is the best form but because it is the least worst of all other forms. It is a revolutionary idea because it transferred the power from the wallet to the ballot and from the market place to the polling station. Traditionally rich people, which were so hatefully termed as upper class by the author, held the power and were free to do anything. It was only rich who could legislate and who, when they legislated, protected their rights at the expense of the poor. But the idea of democracy is revolutionary! It took the power from the market place and placed it in the polling station and transferred the power from the wallet to the ballot. People could move collectively and choose to vote the representative they wanted! People had a choice! People, if they were not happy with the work of their representative, could vote for another representative at the next election. It was and still is a revolutionary idea. The biggest product of democracy is the NHS in the UK. It was the people who voted in a Labour government and the labour government fulfilled the wishes of the people and established the NHS which was, and still is, free.

You can not defame the idea of democracy. It is this very cynicism that proves to be the root cause of the demise of democracy. This cynicism leads to the population not participating in the process of choosing their leaders and thereby giving those in power a mandate to stay in power for however long they wish. With democracy they at the very least have the chance of having their say and getting rid of those leaders who are not up to scratch.

And blaming democracy for the inequity and the discrepancy in the distribution of wealth is a sorry excuse for your argument, sir. If democracy flourishes such a phenomenon then so does dictatorships or any other form of government. This is what happened under General Ayub, General Yahya, General Zia and Musharraf. This is what happens in China where there is no democracy, in Burma and in most parts of Africa and the Middle East.

The issue is not democracy; it is you. It is your cynicism of not being a part of democracy that is the problem. Looking at India or the States or Europe is not a solution to the problem. Taking into account Indias population and the smooth transfer of power along with a governance system (albeit one that needs considerable reform and change and overhaul) is a testimony to the fruits of democracy. We, in Pakistan, are at a loss without such things. Take into account the governance system in Europe and holding the Executive to account, the independence of judiciary and the upholding of Human Rights and you will realise why democracy is a good thing.

Do not blame others for your inabilities to realise the true potential of a revolutionary idea which gave people a say in who their leaders can be. Do not use your baseless, extreme, sensationalist and obsolete opinions to prove your points. Let me remind you that before you draw your pen, or your sword, or your gun learn to open you eyes.

Regards,

Ebu

 

[jimpack]

A very good article. Good thought process.

 

[Jabral Tariq]

EBU:

Let me negate your hypothesis that ' democracy' is a revolutionary process: in fact it is an evolutionary process that takes decades and centuries to evolve and at the end has failed to bring equality, justice and fairness to the poor masses and have nots' in a society. Let me tell you that the revolutions are bloody and barbaric and cause death and destruction on the horrendous scale and are temporary. French revolution was one of the bloodiest in France's history and replaced monarchy with the mob rule. Bolshevik revolution was possibly the bloodiest in the human history and killed and massacred over 30-40 millions people in Russia in pursuit of communist ideology but failed within fifty years. Any man-made or tailored-made ideology and revolution can not be just, fair and equal because it is made by a human brain and could not be fair and just to every section of a society because a man is born selfish. Communism was presumed to look after the poor but was an economic catastrophe in the Soviet Union and where it was imposed. Democracy is promises a poor man a piece of paper to throw in a tin-pot or the ballot box but then forgets all about his/her welfare, social needs and status. I agree that in democracy every one gets an opportunity to improve their standard of life but the 90% of the population remain under privileged and abjectly poor. Laws and rules are made by the wealthy and the privileged to look after their own class, preserve it prolong the iniquitous process allowed in a democracy. The wealthy and privileged few are law makers and breakers and take full advantage of the democracies they live in.

Islam offers the best system of governance: its socio-economic, welfare, political and jurisprudence system is given to mankind by Allah Talaha Who is the Rabul Almeen who loves his creations seventy times greater than a mother love for her child and that system could not be iniquitous. If you are a student of history; you must study the glorious and magnificent period of the rule of our beloved Prophet Mohammed (SAW) and of the Khulfai-Rashdeen and say with utmost honesty and sincerity that it was not the best the world had ever seen. Through out the Islamic empire, not a single subject whether Muslim or zami went hungry and was provided with every amenity of life by the Islamic State.

Capitalism was bound to fail as did the Communism because any man-made ism or ideology can not bring fairness, justice to the masses and is the ultimate recipe for economic, social and political catastrophe. Communism to fail because it crushed human aspirations, freedom, liberty, prohibited personal possession of assets and made the proletariat just mechanical robots - means of production for the communist state. The godless state-run ideology is anti-thesis of western capitalism, competition and prohibition of amassing wealth, which is a natural desire of a normal human being. Equality of all men in wealth and comfort, even if it is ideal, does not promise to be of unmixed good to humanity. First because natural talents are not equal amongst different men, so much so that even if one were to start a group of person with complete equality, sooner the spendthrift will fall into difficulties and will again look on the fortune of his comrades with greed and envy. Further, on philosophical and psychological grounds, it seems that in the every interest of human society, it is desirable that there should be grades in wealth and the poor having the desire and incentive to work harder.

On the other hand if it is asked of men to work harder than their capacity without a reward, then everyone will become lazy and careless would be tremendous waste of peoples talent and loss to humanity. Everyone knows that livelihood is in constant progress, though the domination and exploitation one after the other of all things that God has created, whereas one sees that the rest of animals have changed nothing in their livelihood ever since God has created their spices. The cause of this difference as discovered by the biologist is simultaneous existence of a society, a cooperation, and a liberty of competition inside the members of the society, i.e., human beings, whereas other animals suffer from the lack of some or all these requisite conditions.

Perhaps the most developed social cooperation is found among bees, ants and termites: they live in a collective way with the complete equality in livelihood, yet without any competition among its members and consequently it is not possible for the more intelligent or more industrious bee to live more comfortably than others. For this reason, there is neither evolution nor change, much less progress in any of these species as against the human race. The past history of man shows that every advance and every discovery of the means of comfort came into existence through competition and desire for amelioration, and also through the existence of grades of wealth or poverty among men, one above the other. So, it was necessary for every progressive civilization and every healthy culture to impose certain duties on its members (such as to pay the taxes), outlawing embezzling, cheating etc, and recommend certain supererogatory acts like charity and expenditure for the sake of God, yet nevertheless to have a great deal of liberty of thought and action to its members, so that each one benefits himself, his exigency, his friends and the society at large.

This is exigency of Islam and its also conforms to nature. It tolerates the minority of the rich and accumulation of wealth but imposes upon them heavier obligations: prevents immoral means of exploitation, hoarding and accumulation of wealth. Further, it makes injunctions and also some recommendations for charity and sacrifice with promise of spiritual and eschatological rewards.The economic policy of Islam has been explained in most unequivocal terms: so that this (wealth) may not circulate solely among the rich from among you, (59/7). Islamic view is that unless equality(masawat) in all spheres of life is not practiced, a society will remain unjust and it is the duty of the state to provide and look after the needs and comforts of its subjects. The Sermon of Last Hajj, All mankind is from Adam and Eve, an Arab has no superiority over a non-Arab nor a non-Arab has any superiority over an Arab; also a white has no superiority over a black nor a black has any superiority over a white - except by piety and good action. He explicitly mentioned the rights of men, women, and all groups of the society.

 

[Alsadeeqalameen]

Well and beautifully said Jabral Tariq.

Islam offers the best constitutional, political, diplomatic, economics, social welfare, penal, legal, judicial, equal, and fair and just Nizam in the world. For those who do not know: the concept of social welfare state as practiced in the West is borrowed and copied from the period of Hazrat Ummar-bin-Khitab's rule of the Islamic Empire.

 

[sohaibbhatti]

Jabral,

It has been a pleasure reading your reply and I expect nothing less from my fellow countrymen.

After the dark ages and the feudal systems of Europe democracy indeed was a revolutionary idea but you are right when you say that democracy is an evolutionary process. I do not disagree with that; I fully concur with you on this point. However, what you must dwell on is as follows:

What causes this evolution to come to an end? What causes a mass movement to loose momentum and eventually die a slow death? Why is it that people who fought for their right e.g. the French are now so easily exploited?

The answer, as I explained in the earlier post, is the disenfranchisement of the people from the process of democracy. Now whether that alienation of the people is engineered by the bourgeoisie or just a failure of the proletariats is another issue. But what is interesting is that in every society, in each system and at all times the rich do not want to give up their lifestyle; the rich trappings of luxury wherefrom they enjoy their lives. No one gives you your rights in a silver platter only for you to happily oblige and help yourself to them. Each generation has to fight all over again for their rights and they should; the rich will not surrender their positions and the only change that can come will come from the grassroots. And the biggest failure of the early revolutions that you mentioned was the cynicism of the people and their alienation from the system of choosing their leaders.

And the system given to us by Islam is perfect, without flaw and one that completes us as Muslims. But let us not be fooled by the leaders of today. The Islamic system is brilliant and was implemented by those who were the best of their times and the companions of the Holy Prophet (SAW). The Sahaba did not want power and indeed nominated one another for the post of Ameer-ul-Momeneen (episode of Hazrat Abu Ubaidah bin Jarrah comes to mind where Hazrat Umer nominated him as the first khalifah and he in turn nominated Hazrat Abu Bakar). Today, however, our leaders are corrupt and debauched. Cronyism and nepotism have seeped deep into our society also and in this situation giving the people a voice and an avenue to vent their anger is the right way and the best way right now is allowing them to vote. People do not accept what is imposed upon them by force i.e. what Zia did and people will now happily surrender themselves to the enlightened moderation of Musharraf either.

Give people their say and within time, peacefully and in a calm manner good leadership will surface and the people will be part of the process called democracy. Allow people to be part of the system. The more people become wary of the system then those in power will erode away any rights of the people and indulge in the trappings of power and luxury.

The issues you talked about e.g. capitalism and communism are redundant. They are non-issues. If poor people always voted then there would be a communist state in the true sense because the poor people would always vote for those who represented their views but because of cynicism and alienation people dont vote. It is imperative the people be part of the system. Read into the Islamic practice of mashwara or consultation; consultations take place with the population and the population must have a say. It is not only important but vital to the stability of a State. And if the people vote for the leaders who wish to implement Sharia then so be it. I will be the first to welcome such an act just so long as the process of democracy is adhered to.

Wasalam

Ebu