Democracy is Corrupt Because Men Make Laws
Post Senate elections, over a lunch meeting of 10 March with the heads of major political parties, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif endorsed Monday night’s nomination by opposition parties of PPP leader Raza Rabbani as the new Chairman of the Senate. However, the people were absolutely disgusted with the news about money playing a large role in the recent Senate polls in Pakistan, then a bit of perspective and history would help channel the disgust towards the right target. This is not about corrupt politicians or corrupt parties. This is about democracy. And this is evident in Lincoln’s attempt to pass the 13th Amendment. On 18th December 1865, then US Secretary of State William Seward announced the adoption of the 13th Amendment which was aimed at ending slavery in the US (which practically continued for more than a century afterwards). Initially the US House of Representatives failed to pass the amendment falling 13 votes short of the two-thirds majority required for adopting the amendment. President Abraham Lincoln instructed Secretary of State Seward to secure the required number of votes by whatever means possible. Seward was given a large fund for direct bribes. He also promised government posts and campaign funds to multiple lawmakers to “win them over” to support the amendment.
The greatest corruption in democracy is the right of men to make laws. So we must channel our disgust towards democracy which has corruption embedded in its core. Islam removes this corruption by eliminating the right of man to legislate. The Khalifah of Muslims only implements divine law. Only the naive would believe that pious men can somehow make a system programmed for corruption, clean, they should realize that it is in fact the other way around. That democracy actually makes seemingly clean people corrupt. US lawmaker Thaddeus Stevens who participated in the passage of the 13th Amendment to the US constitution said, “The greatest measure of the nineteenth century was passed by corruption, aided and abetted by the purest man in America”. Only the system of Khilafah with its divine laws would rid humanity from the corruption of democracy.
Violence and Bloodshed Between Political Parties Will Only End Under the Khilafah
Muttahida Qaumi Movement Chief Altaf Hussain has condemned the Rangers’ raid on the party’s headquarters Nine Zero and claimed that personnel of the paramilitary force brought the weapons and ammunition ‘wrapped in blankets’ with them and then claimed the recovery from there. Addressing workers gathered at the party’s headquarters by telephone, after the Rangers’ raid on 11 March, the MQM chief said the ‘establishment’ had never accepted him and for that he could step down from active politics to look after the party’s welfare wing. The raid was ‘staged’ by Rangers, he added.
Pakistan is too painfully familiar with struggle and violence between ruling and opposition parties under Democracy. This situation exists because the political parties are formed according to Democracy, a system in which men decide what is right and wrong, ignoring the commands and prohibitions mandated by Allah سبحانه وتعالى and His Messenger صلى الله عليه وسلم. This political culture ensures that both the opposition and ruling parties bend matters according to their whims and desires in competition for power.
In the Khilafah, political parties are firmly principled in their ideas and conducts because they are based on Islam. Rather than clashing with the rulers for power, they are another of source of guidance and accountability for the Khalifah. Being grounded in Islam rather than Democracy’s whims and desires, the political party members will be role models for society, rather than thugs that society fears. In the Introduction to the Constitution of the Islamic State, Article 21, it is stated “The Muslims have the right to establish political parties in order to account the rulers or to reach the rule through the Ummah on the condition that their basis is the Islamic ‘Aqeedah and that the rules they adopt are Shari’ah rules. The formation of a party does not require any permission. Any group formed on an un-Islamic basis is prohibited.”
IMF Works to Undermine Pakistan’s Economy through Privatization of Public and State Property
In a statement issued in Washington on 11 March, the IMF underlined the need for more privatization and taxation. Masood Ahmed, director of the IMF’s Middle East and Central Asia department, following a recent visit to Islamabad and Lahore, advised the government to address longstanding imbalances in the energy sector as its top priority, which underlines numerous previous demands for privatization.
The IMF and the Raheel-Nawaz regime work together to continuously raise the prices of gas and electricity, in order to guarantee strong profits for the new private owners, even though it causes great hardship for the people. The constant raising of oil and gas prices ensures that the people will take on more of the burden of ensuring profits. Privatization has also led to crippling power shortages of several hours every day, because private owners are under-producing when they cannot make good profits. Moreover, when the private owners are foreign, they do not care for strengthening the local economy. Instead, they are bound by their own governments or colonialist institution to ensure that Pakistan does not compete effectively globally. As if this were not enough, having deprived Pakistan of huge sources of revenue, the colonialists through their agents greatly increase taxation on the population, further strangling the economy. This is done in order to raise revenues to pay back foreign interest based loans, even though Pakistan has paid back the principle sums of such colonialist loans many times over. It is this colonialist trap, which is designed to prevent Pakistan from ever escaping and rising as a power.
The cure to Pakistan’s economic illness does not lie in privatization, foreign investment or colonialist loans for they are the disease itself. The only cure is the implementation of Islam’s economic system, which alone would generate more than enough revenue to revolutionize the economy. Unlike Capitalism and Communism, Islam has declared that energy is neither a private nor a state property but a public property for all the Muslims. RasulAllah صلى الله عليه وسلم said,
«المسلمون شرکاء فی ثلاث الماء والکلاء والنار»
“Muslims are partners in three things: water, pastures and fire (energy)” [Abu Dawood].
Thus, although the Khilafah state takes charge of managing the public property and state property, it is not permitted for the Khalifah to grant the ownership of the public property to any private party, whether an individual or group, as it is a property for all Muslims. Revenues are for the public, looking after its affairs and securing its interests, and not for the state. This applies to all the abundant wealth of public property, whether energy, such as petroleum, gas, electricity or replenishable minerals, such as copper and steel, or water, such as seas, rivers and dams, or pastures and forests. Indeed, the entire Ummah is known to possess the lion’s share of the world’s energy and mineral resources, but without Islam’s economic system, the Muslims are drowned in poverty and the Ummah carries no weight in world affairs, even when compared to states that possess a small fraction of her material wealth.
No More Evidence Needed to Close Karachi Consulate
A Rangers spokesman told reporters in Karachi this week that they found weapons and ammunition stolen from NATO containers when they raided the MQM headquarters, Nine Zero, on 11 March 2015. “For general information: The United States and Isaf have never used the Karachi port to transport weapons/explosives,” said the first tweet. In the second tweet, the State Department rejected the suggestion that weapons or explosives found at Nine Zero could have come from NATO containers.
Regardless of US denials, the Raheel-Nawaz regime allows the spread of terror in Karachi, by opening the doors to a vast and growing American infrastructure. The regime allowed America’s CIA, FBI and private military terrorists to operate freely in Pakistan. It is this “Raymond Davis” network that funds, plans and supplies miscreants of all hues and colours in order to create an atmosphere of terror. In Karachi, the American consulate has in particular played a role in fuelling ethnic fires as far as field as Baluchistan, using ethnic groupings found in Karachi. This terror and bloodshed is part of America’s plan because the Americans are deeply wary of Pakistan’s formidable armed forces and the great threat they pose to any American presence and plan in the region. So America needs to create chaos in Karachi, as it did previously in the tribal areas, to ensnare our armed forces in wars within our cities.
Regarding the foreign hostile presence in Karachi, the Khilafah will end it decisively and permanently by closing all American consulates, embassies, bases and deporting all of its officials. It will end all contacts with officials of foreign hostile powers to cut off any influence. As Hizb ut-Tahrir has declared in its Introduction to the Constitution, Article 189, “States with whom we do not have treaties, and the actual imperialist states, such as Britain, America and France, and those states that have designs on the State, such as Russia, are legally considered to be belligerent states. All precautions must be taken towards them and it would be wrong to establish diplomatic relations with them. Their subjects may enter the Islamic State, but only with a passport and a visa specific to every individual and for every visit, unless they become practically belligerent.” However if they become practically belligerent states i.e. they have invaded our country or occupied our land, then we shall apply the rules of practically belligerent states upon them.