On the 24th of December 2014 the Astana Times reported that the Kazakh Government Civil Society are discussing a new bill which would introduce public funding of Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO’s). A meeting took place on the 18th of December 2014 attended by numerous government departments and over 40 NGO agents reviewed “strengthening the dialogue between the authorities and civil society organisations on human dimension issues and promoting civil society initiatives and its increased participation in the NGO legislative process, as well as continuing the discussion on fulfillment of recommendations given to Kazakhstan under the UN Universal Periodic Review (UPR).”
The very idea of Kazak’s President Nursultan Nazarbayev debating the use of public money to fund NGO’s to provide community and social services, which are in fact the responsibility of the state, is in no way in the interests of the Muslims in the region.
Traditionally NGO’s have been marketed to unsuspecting and usually desperate populations as being a benevolent body with only humanitarian objectives. The fact is NGO’s hide behind their non-profit status as cover for their true Neo-colonial function.
The proliferation of NGO’s since the 1980’s has a proven track record of achieving very little in terms of making real and permanent changes to the poverty, violence and political instability that are the most pressing dangers faced by women and children globally. One may argue that it is not the function of NGO’s to provide permanent solutions as they do not function to replace government. This only further proves the invalidity of their existence in our nations. Surely if governments have failed to undertake the duty of looking after the affairs of its citizens then it should be accounted or replaced with a suitable authority fit to perform this critical role. The very idea of a lazy leaders auctioning off their duties to unrepresentative foreign agents should not be the accepted as normal practice.
A 2003 research paper entitled the “NGO Proliferation in the Post-Cold War Era” asserts a number of critical points that should be appreciated when understanding the reality of the function of NGO’s in geopolitical evolution of countries, central to their function is the undermining of local cultures and the subversion of a nation’s autonomy.
Excerpts from the document state the following:
“Every NGO working on women’s rights in a place like Morocco is funded from abroad, (they are so well funded that) it creates a culture where no NGO that wants to work on women’s rights feels the need to go to locals for funding.”
“Many NGOs now directly taking on functions that were previously carried out by the state…… It is known that there are hundreds or thousands of international NGOs which have at their disposal greater budgets than many countries. They have been serving as the agents of transitional companies and the western interests. They have promoted ‘liberation movements’ or civil wars within the rest of the world such as in Albania, Afghanistan, Northern Iraq and Sudan.”
These quotes only reveal the tip of a giant cold hard NGO iceberg that crashes into a nation’s political structure only to wreak havoc and chaos in its wake. Shortsighted defendants of NGO’s may quote facts such as EuropeAid’s donation of 255,000 Euros to the Egyptian Women’s Center to fund a program for women in elections or it’s 16m Euros to Save the Children project in Bangladesh “to promote access and increase basic education, however, the harms that NGO’s unleash on populations are titanic compared to the meagre crumbs of aid that are parasitically offered in a manner that ensures no permanent solutions are achieved and secure only the long-term presence of NGO’s in their host country. Hundreds of NGO’s are emerging yearly in different Muslim states and their styles are forever evolving to creep into the social structures of our lands to be used as tools for foreign governments to usurp the local power in a region and assert their own agenda’s such as feminism, to destroy the traditional family unit, promoting women to work to exploit them for cheap slave labour and using the education of women and girls as a cover to indoctrinate a generation with toxic liberal ideas designed to erase the pure Islamic identity of Muslim females and their noble roles as wives and mothers.
Kazakhstan is only one of the many strategic locations in Caucuses to warrant NGO’s interest. A recent article “Neo-colonialism and the failure of NGO culture” by Seth J. Frantzman 2013, explains that; “After the fall of the Soviet Union, Westerners flocked to the “new Russia” and donors such as George Soros sought to fund the nascent civil society that was testing the new democracy. The total amount plowed into NGOs in Russia that sought to work on all manner of projects, from gay rights to government transparency, will never be known but the BBC estimated Soros alone gave $1b over 15 years.” The article goes on to expose the inherent corruption that NGO’s, like any other state entity, can be polluted by, its relays how a “local NGO elite that involves several people who have connections to foreign funding and who are able to enrich themselves at the breast of the EU or other Westerner countries” can be created “…..For instance, the CEO of Madonna’s Raising Malawi charity just happened to be the sister of Malawi’s president, Joyce Banda.” Progress under the tutelage of the very money launderers and government cronies that are milking the poor dry cannot be a reasonable expectation “…….. in many ways this constitutes part of a neocolonialism that replaces the old-style colonial administration with buying influence through local groups to encourage the spread of certain values”.
The greatest threat NGO’s pose is not so much in their capacity to influence the present, but their function to prevent real political progress in the future. The current debate over NGO’s and their role in Kazakhstan’s parliament involved many “details (that) were hotly debated, including usage of the term “non-governmental organisation,” a phrase that is commonly used but not specified in Kazakh legislation. Legal experts insisted the term should be substituted with “non-commercial organization” as stipulated in the Civil Code”. Such chameleon-like tactics of NGO’s proves that styles and means are indeed diverse and the Muslim communities affected by them must be vigilant to the many disguises they adopt. NGO’s have been a necessary western invention to cover the gaping hole left after the destruction of the Khilafah, the last fully functioning Islamic political model in 1924.
Zeynep Atalay’s 2013 research paper “Civil Society as Soft Power: Islamic NGOs and Turkish Foreign Policy”, explains that “After the establishment of the Turkish Republic and the state’s takeover of all religious affairs and institutions in 1924 (The year that marks the end of the existence of the Islamic Khilafah Political System), religious brotherhoods went through a process of dramatic change. By the 1960s they had been transformed from loosely organized communities to legally operating foundations and associations. These foundations and associations gained prominence and increased in number throughout the 1980s and 1990s, thanks to the donations of religious wealthy business leaders. During the first term of the pro-Islamic Justice and Development Party (AKP) in the early 2000s, these organizations were given the status of “public-service associations,” ….. a status which grants them tax exemption and allows them to collect money without authorization…..this status category includes Islamist foundations, social-aid organizations, business associations and human-rights associations. Running social, educational, cultural and humanitarian programs among the urban poor; … the Union of Non-Governmental Organizations of the Islamic World (UNIW) is (today) the world’s largest Muslim NGO coalition.”
The insincerity and hypocrisy of NGO’s should also be reviewed in that they, on the one hand may promote women’s rights and political progress and at the same time co-operate with the very governments that commit horrific acts of brutality against Muslim women and girls. The unholy Kazakhstan-NGO nuptial is no exception to this sickening trend. Nursultan Nazarbayev dictatorship personally supervised the arrest and torture of hundreds of Muslim men and women including that of mother of three Natalia Foitkovoi in 2013 who was arrested and detained for simply speaking out against the unjust arrest of her husband who, in by non-violent means, was working to expose the corruption of his countries leadership. A press release published by Hizb ut Tahrir entitled “Kazakhstan Government Accuses Muslim Woman of Extremism and then Punishes Her for Defending Her Husband!” discusses the evil tactics and human rights violations suffered by Muslims in the region.
The long term harms of these illegitimate entities in Muslim lands and the fact that they operate with complete impunity to control millions of people without the consent of Muslims they influence makes them one of the most dangerous and pernicious political chimeras to control. The only means this can be truly achieved is by having a sound and sincere Islamic Political system that truly serves the interests of Muslims and does not act in puppet form propping up foreign political/business interests.
NGO’s are merely a patchwork solution that poorly attempts to replace the real comprehensive political system that Allah سبحانه وتعالى has designed for humanity to have real justice, security and peace of mind in their daily affairs. It is a western construct to divert the Muslim masses from making any real political progress, it conceals neglect of leaders failing in their role and hoodwinks the poor and needy into accepting western colonialism by the back door.
Kazakstan’s new discussion into expanding the power and influence of NGO’s in the Caucus region should be accounted and disabled through greater public awareness and pressure from Muslims that foreign Non-Islamic authority in our lands will not be tolerated. Muslims knowing that NGO’s and indeed the governments that promote them, do not have the interest of people as their objectives should increase their political will to work for and support the Khilafah, the political system based on the method of the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم. In Article 1 of the Draft Constitution of the Islamic State (published by Hizb ut Tahrir) it states the following:
“The Islamic ‘Aqeedah constitutes the foundation of the State. Nothing is permitted to exist in the government’s structure, accountability, or any other aspect connected with the government, that does not take the ‘Aqeedah as its source. The ‘Aqeedah is also the source for the State’s constitution and shar’i canons. Nothing connected to the constitution or canons is permitted to exist unless it emanates from the Islamic ‘Aqeedah”
NGO’s are in blatant violation of the vital tenants in Islam that keep the laws and rules linked to Allah سبحانه وتعالى and the Islamic sources. When we understand that the United Nations is responsible for hundreds of NGO’s working in Muslim Lands and remind ourselves of treachery they committed against the Muslims of Bosnia, Kashmir, Africa, Palestine, Syria just to name but a few, it would be nonsensical to assume that any organization linked to this global criminal network has anything positive to offer Muslims.
In this regard the Kazakhstan government is negotiating with NGO’s to undermine the interests of Islam and Muslims to further western agenda’s in the region and the use of tax payers money only adds insult to political injury.
Hizb ut Tahrir, the Political Party working for the return of the correct political system for humanity under the leadership of the renowned Islamic Scholar Sheikh Ata Ibn Khalil Abu Rashtah, urges the Muslim of Kazakhstan along with their brothers and sisters internationally to study and revive the correct political visions of Islam and turn their backs on the false entities that have invaded our minds and lands only to mislead and confuse us in the submission to laws that enslave us to other men over the noble worship of Allah سبحانه وتعالى. NGO’s and any other political organization not from the clear political model of the Khilafah should be rejected as Allah سبحانه وتعالى warned regarding those that wish to deviate Muslims from the correct understanding of progress.
وَاحْذَرْهُمْ أَنْ يَفْتِنُوكَ عَنْ بَعْضِ مَا أَنْزَلَ اللَّهُ إِلَيْكَ
“beware of them lest they turn you far away from some of that which Allah has sent down to you”
(al-Maida: 49)
Written for the Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir by
Imrana Mohammed
Member of the Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir