News:
As released by South China Morning Post 16 October after 19 days, the pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong continues. The protest movement known as “Occupy Central” is a civil disobedience movement which began in Hong Kong on September 28, 2014. It calls on thousands of protesters to block roads and paralyse Hong Kong’s financial district if the Beijing and Hong Kong governments do not agree to implement universal suffrage for the Chief Executive election in 2017 and the Legislative Council elections in 2020 according to “international standards.”
However, Al Jazeera has previously reported that; even if the tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong manage to wrest from Beijing the right to open elections – an entire class of workers i.e. 321,000 almost entirely women – will remain barred from the polls, still unable to address the widespread wage theft and physical abuse they face. Hong Kong’s foreign domestic workers who 97 percent come from Indonesia and the Philippines — unlike international workers from any other field — are not eligible for Hong Kong permanent residency and therefore can’t vote. Disenfranchised from even the city’s current limited democracy, they can’t push politicians to recognize their plight, and also excluded from the law that allows people to obtain Hong Kong permanent residency after living in the region for seven years.
Comment:
This movement clearly has anti-China spirit showing the remnants of the Western colonial influence in the region, although Hong Kong has been released by England in 1997. But apart from the contestation between China and Western influences, fundamental critique about the democracy idea – which is revered by Hong Kong protesters – is very important to do. This pro-democracy movement apparently has failed to read a more fundamental humanity problem in their area that is women enslavement – those who were forced to migrate thousands of kilometers from their homeland only for family survival from desperate poverty in their home country.
Like or dislike, ever since the West has propagated the idea of democracy throughout the world, in fact it has failed to address the humanitarian crisis including women’s economic exploitation issues. The idea ofindividual freedom in democracy has blinded them from seeing the suffering of the vulnerable around them. Justice assurance from democratic system is merely just a myth, zero encountered in the practice of life. This is because the laws that produced by a democratic system often exploited by the evil capitalist interests which only benefit the elite and impoverish millions of people.
Proven in Indonesia – which was named as the fourth largest democracy in the world and the model of Muslim democracy – this idea actually has a high cost and dehumanization consequences for women. Precisely since the democracy era, Indonesia became more productive to import its women, due to its failure to prosper and create employment within the country. Throughout 2013 alone, there were at least 398,270 cases of migrant workers in many destination countries. So, the true face of democracy is a failed system unable to look after the affairs of mankind effectively.
Democracy is obviously not the solution nor the future for the world today which has multiple crises. Democracy is also not the answer for Hong Kong, Indonesia or even the Western countries. The failure of democracy should make us aware of human limitations in the delivery of rules and laws. Human reason is weak and limited; and cannot determine the needs of other human beings. In contrast, Islam has the source of law to regulate every facet of human life issues derived from the One who created the human mind itself. He is Allah, the All-Knowing what needed by humans. Allah has made Islamic Sharia to regulate all these issues, such as His Words:
وَيَوْمَ نَبْعَثُ فِي كُلِّ أُمَّةٍ شَهِيدًا عَلَيْهِمْ مِنْ أَنْفُسِهِمْ ۖ وَجِئْنَا بِكَ شَهِيدًا عَلَىٰ هَٰؤُلَاءِ وَنَزَّلْنَا عَلَيْكَ الْكِتَابَ تِبْيَانًا لِكُلِّ شَيْءٍ وَهُدًى وَرَحْمَةً وَبُشْرَىٰ لِلْمُسْلِمِينَ
“On that Day We will raise up among every community a witness against them from amongst themselves, and bring you as a witness against them. We have sent down the Book to you making all things clear and as guidance and mercy and good news for the Muslims.”
(An-Nahl: 89)
So, do we still believe in democracy as the path to achieving the justice? No! Only a divine system that can lead us to the ultimate justice which will abolish slavery and oppression. And this can only achieved through the Khilafah – an Islamic political system, not through democracy – man-made system.
Written for the Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir by
Fika Komara
Member of Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir