Analysis, Side Feature

Views on the News – 11 Aug 2018

Headlines:

  • Mushrik Communist China is an Enemy of Muslims just as other Disbelieving Nations
  • After Iran, America confronts Turkey, as Payment for Services rendered in Syria
  • Saudi Regime Spares No Effort in Obeying the US, even in its Issue with Canada
  • Erdogan Tells Turks to Buy Crumbling Lira as Trump Turns the Screws
  • Pakistan likely to Borrow more than $4b from Saudi Bank
  • China holds 1 Million Muslims in Concentration Camps

 


Mushrik Communist China is an Enemy of Muslims just as other Disbelieving Nations

According to the Washington Post:

First-of-its-kind courtroom testimony here has corroborated allegations that the Chinese government has built a network of internment camps in western China where Muslim minorities are held without charge for “reeducation.”

Sayragul Sauytbay, an ethnic Kazakh Chinese national, said she crossed from China’s Xin­jiang region to Kazakhstan without proper papers after being forced to work at a camp where around 2,500 ethnic Kazakhs were being held for indoctrination.

“In China, they call it a political camp, but really it was a prison in the mountains,” she told a court last month packed with Kazakh villagers, reporters and a few tight-lipped Chinese diplomats.

And according to Reuters:

A United Nations human rights panel said on Friday that it had received many credible reports that 1 million ethnic Uighurs in China are held in what resembles a “massive internment camp that is shrouded in secrecy.”

Gay McDougall, a member of the U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, cited estimates that 2 million Uighurs and Muslim minorities were forced into “political camps for indoctrination” in the western Xinjiang autonomous region.

 “We are deeply concerned at the many numerous and credible reports that we have received that in the name of combating religious extremism and maintaining social stability (China) has changed the Uighur autonomous region into something that resembles a massive internship camp that is shrouded in secrecy, a sort of ‘no rights zone’,” she told the start of a two-day regular review of China’s record, including Hong Kong and Macao.

China has said that Xinjiang faces a serious threat from Islamist militants and separatists who plot attacks and stir up tensions between the mostly Muslim Uighur minority who call the region home and the ethnic Han Chinese majority.

A Chinese delegation of some 50 officials made no comment on her remarks at the Geneva session that is scheduled to continue on Monday.

It has become popular amongst some Muslims today to look to Communist China as a benevolent alternative to America, just as some Muslims in an earlier generation used to look to the Communist Soviet Union as an alternative. But reports such as these should open their eyes to what is already most apparent, that the disbelievers are no friend to the believers. Allah (swt) says in Surah Aal-Imran: لاَّ يَتَّخِذِ الْمُؤْمِنُونَ الْكَافِرِينَ أَوْلِيَاء مِن دُوْنِ الْمُؤْمِنِينَ وَمَن يَفْعَلْ ذَلِكَ فَلَيْسَ مِنَ اللّهِ فِي شَيْءٍ إِلاَّ أَن تَتَّقُواْ مِنْهُمْ تُقَاةً وَيُحَذِّرُكُمُ اللّهُ نَفْسَهُ وَإِلَى اللّهِ الْمَصِيرُ Let not believers take disbelievers as allies rather than believers. And whoever [of you] does that has nothing with Allah, except when taking precaution against them in prudence. And Allah warns you of Himself, and to Allah is the [final] destination.” [Quran 3:28]

And Allah (swt) also gives us a special warning for mushrikeen, a category that includes the atheistic Communists, when He (swt) says, لَتَجِدَنَّ أَشَدَّ النَّاسِ عَدَاوَةً لِّلَّذِينَ آمَنُواْ الْيَهُودَ وَالَّذِينَ أَشْرَكُواْYou will surely find the most intense of the people in animosity toward the believers [to be] the Jews and those who associate others with Allah” [5:82]

Muslims must remember that ‘tawakal’, trust, is in Allah (swt) alone. The vast population, lands and resources in the possession of the Muslim Ummah is such that even a segment of this Ummah has the capability to become the world’s preeminent superpower. It is only the agent class of rulers and politicians imposed upon us that safeguards Western thoughts, systems and interests in our lands and prevents us from taking charge of our affairs. It is incumbent upon us to reject the foreign disbeliever and depend upon Allah (swt) alone, implementing His Shar’a under a single leadership for all Muslims that will secure the Ummah from its enemies and carry the light of Islam to the entire world.

 

After Iran, America confronts Turkey, as Payment for Services rendered in Syria

US President Donald J. Trump is further intensifying American pressure on Turkey. According to CNBC:

President Donald Trump’s move Friday to double metals tariffs on Turkey is only his latest jab against the NATO ally that stems from disagreements over defense policy and the detention of American pastor Andrew Brunson.

Trump came into office seeking better relations with Turkey. But as Trump announced his plans to hike tariffs on Turkish steel and aluminum to 50 percent and 20 percent, respectively, he acknowledged that “our relations with Turkey are not good at this time!”

In order to understand what Trump is doing, it is necessary to understand the Syrian revolution, which the US has worked to suppress by using the forces of numerous other countries in tacit aid of the regime of Bashar al-Assad. The US decided after the military disasters of Iraq and Afghanistan not to depend on its own army in war in Muslims lands again. But, as with Iran, now that the US sees the revolution coming to an end, Trump is applying pressure on Turkey to roll back its involvement in Syria. According to the Washington Post:

As Syria’s war enters what could be its last and most dangerous stretch, the Syrian government and its allies will have to contend for the first time with the presence of foreign troops in the quest to bring the rest of the country back under President Bashar al-Assad’s control.

The government’s recent defeat of rebels in the southwest of Syria has put Assad unassailably in control of a majority of the country, his hold on power now facing no discernible military or diplomatic threat.

But at least a third of Syria remains outside government control, and those areas are occupied both by Turkish and American troops. Turkey has deployed soldiers in the northwest, in parts of the rebel-held province of Aleppo and in Idlib, which Assad has identified as the next target of an offensive. About 2,000 U.S. Special Operations forces hold sway in the northeast, in support of their Kurdish allies fighting against the Islamic State.

Revolution in Syria or elsewhere can never be successful if we are to depend on the very forces that are responsible for oppressing Muslims in the first place. In the words of Sheikh Ata Bin Abu Al-Rashtah, the Ameer of Hizb ut Tahrir, which has constantly been warning the leaders of the factions of the revolution that chose to depend on our enemies for funding and weapons:

…Although the Hizb exerted effort to raise awareness of these factions, and enlighten them of what is going on, but they were justifying following these people, because they supported them with money and weapons… They say that advice does not aid when it comes to actual fighting!

The real solution for the situation in Syria is for Muslims everywhere to rise against the agent ruling class and return our affairs to sincere, indigenous, ideological leadership that will re-establish the righteous Islamic Khilafah (Caliphate) State on the method of the Prophet ﷺ.

 

Saudi regime spares no effort in obeying the US, even in its issue with Canada

According to the BBC:

Canada’s recent criticism of the treatment of women’s rights activists in Saudi Arabia has sparked a diplomatic spat with Riyadh.

Saudi Arabia has frozen all trade, expelled Canada’s ambassador and ordered its citizens studying in Canada to leave.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says he will continue to “stand up for Canadian values and human rights”.

The move jeopardises a controversial arms deal between the two countries.

However, the way to understand these events is through viewing the relationship between the US and Canada; according to Bloomberg:

U.S. officials believe Prince Mohammed thinks he has license from the U.S. to confront Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, exploiting perceived tension between Washington and Ottawa over trade that emerged at the end of a Group of Seven summit in June. At the same time, President Donald Trump and his top advisers — especially son-in-law Jared Kushner — have been cultivating closer ties to the Saudi crown prince, a key supplier of oil who Kushner also wants to play a central role in his Israel-Palestinian peace plan.

The truth is in fact more than what Bloomberg and others can care to admit: Trump is the one actively instigating Saudi Arabia against Canada. A marginal economic conflict is nothing for a Saudi regime that can mercilessly bomb Muslims in neighbouring Yemen under US instruction; this week brought another round of devastation in that country, according to the Washington Post:

Dozens of civilians, mostly children, were killed or injured in an airstrike on Thursday by U.S. allies on a bus in a crowded market in northern Yemen, according to health officials and international aid agencies.

In a tweet, the International Committee of the Red Cross said the attack struck a bus carrying children in Dahyan market in Saada province, which borders Saudi Arabia. A hospital supported by the aid group has received “dozens of dead and wounded,” it said, adding that “under international humanitarian law, civilians must be protected during conflict.”

“Body parts were scattered all over the area, and the sounds of moaning and crying were everywhere,” said Hassan Muwlef, executive director of the Red Crescent office in Saada, who arrived an hour after the attack Thursday morning. “The school bus was totally burned and destroyed.”

These agent rulers will face their sins on the Day of Judgement, with ledgers that count every incident of harm brought to Muslims, every child injured or killed, for which they deserve the most painful of punishments in a fire that is everlasting. But for the sincere amongst Muslims, such events are a call to action, to extract ourselves from our personal affairs in the dunya and turn our attention to higher goals. Allah (swt) says: يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُواْ اسْتَجِيبُواْ لِلّهِ وَلِلرَّسُولِ إِذَا دَعَاكُم لِمَا يُحْيِيكُمْ وَاعْلَمُواْ أَنَّ اللّهَ يَحُولُ بَيْنَ الْمَرْءِ وَقَلْبِهِ وَأَنَّهُ إِلَيْهِ تُحْشَرُونَ O you who have believed, respond to Allah and to the Messenger when he calls you to that which gives you life. And know that Allah intervenes between a man and his heart and that to Him you will be gathered.” [Quran 8:24]

 

Erdogan Tells Turks to Buy Crumbling Lira as Trump Turns the Screws

President Tayyip Erdogan told Turks on Friday to sell their gold and U.S. dollars to support the country’s currency which plunged after U.S. President Donald Trump escalated a feud with NATO ally Turkey by doubling tariffs on metals imports. The Turkish lira has long been falling on worries about Erdogan’s influence over monetary policy and worsening relations with the United States. On Friday the currency dropped as much as 18 percent at one point, the biggest one-day fall since a 2001 financial crisis in Turkey. Reverberations spread through global financial markets, with European stock markets especially hit as investors took fright over banks’ exposure to Turkey. U.S. stocks were also rattled. The lira has lost more than 40 percent this year. It hit a record low after Trump announced he had authorized higher tariffs on imports from Turkey, imposing duties of 20 percent on aluminium and 50 percent on steel. The lira, Trump noted on Twitter, “slides rapidly downward against our very strong Dollar!” “Our relations with Turkey are not good at this time!” he wrote. An important emerging market, Turkey borders Iran, Iraq and Syria and has been mostly pro-Western for decades. Financial upheaval there risks further destabilizing an already volatile region. Without naming countries, Erdogan said supporters of a failed military coup two years ago, which Ankara says was organised by a U.S.-based Muslim cleric, were attacking Turkey in new ways since his re-election two months ago. The new duties on Turkey are double the level that Trump imposed in March on steel and aluminium imports from a range of countries. The White House said he had authorized them under a section of U.S. trade law that allows for tariffs on national security grounds. The Turkish financial crisis set off a wave of selling across emerging markets, reviving the spectre of contagion that has been the sector’s Achilles heel for decades.  The lira sell-off deepened concern over whether over-indebted Turkish companies will be able to pay back loans taken out in euros and dollars after years of overseas borrowing to fund a construction boom under Erdogan. The president, who says a shadowy “interest rate lobby” and Western credit ratings agencies are attempting to bring down Turkey’s economy, appealed to his countrymen’s patriotism. “If there is anyone who has dollars or gold under their pillows, they should go exchange it for liras at our banks. This is a national, domestic battle,” he told a crowd in the northeastern city of Bayburt. “Some countries have engaged in behaviour that protects coup plotters and knows no laws or justice,” he said. “Relations with countries who behave like this have reached a point beyond salvaging,” said Erdogan, who warned of “economic war.”  In an opinion piece in the New York Times on Friday, Erdogan said Turkey’s partnership with the United States could be in jeopardy unless Washington “starts respecting Turkey’s sovereignty.” “Before it is too late, Washington must give up the misguided notion that our relationship can be asymmetrical and come to terms with the fact that Turkey has alternatives. Failure to reverse this trend of unilateralism and disrespect will require us to start looking for new friends and allies,” Erdogan said. [Source: Reuters]

Erdogan should know better that the U.S. is the enemy of Islam and Muslims; however, he still wants to continue relations with America. As for the “interest lobby”, this is a permanent feature of today’s banking system and monetary policies. Erdogan knows that the only way to combat devaluation of the lira is to return towards the gold standard. One only has to look at history to see the stability offered by this standard, and it is well within Erdogan reach but he chooses to ignore it.

 

Pakistan likely to Borrow more than $4b from Saudi Bank

Two officials have told the Financial Times that the Islamic Development Bank based in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia has agreed to make a formal offer to lend Islamabad the money when Imran Khan takes over as prime minister. They also added that they expect Asad Umar, the finance minister to be, to accept the offer. “The paperwork is all in place,” said one senior adviser in Islamabad. “The IDB is waiting for the elected government to take charge before giving their approval.” The person added that the loan would not cover Pakistan’s expected financing gap of at least $25bn during this financial year but was “an important contribution”. Imran Khan, Pakistan’s former cricket captain, is expected to take over as prime minister in the coming days after his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party won the most seats in last month’s election — though it fell short of an outright majority. One of his first jobs will be to repair the country’s balance of payments problem, with high imports and stagnant exports having bled the country of much of its foreign exchange reserves. Speaking to reporters in Islamabad this week, Asad Umar, who served as the PTI’s shadow finance minister while in opposition, warned: “The situation is dire. We’ve got $10bn dollars of central bank reserves, we’ve got somewhere between $8bn and $9bn in short-term liabilities, and therefore your net reserves are close to nothing.” Officials have already drawn up plans to borrow up to $12bn from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) — through such a bailout is likely to come with strings attached, such as a demand to see the details behind billions of dollars’ worth of Chinese loans. Umar is, therefore, exploring what other options remain open to him, of which the IDB loan is one. Officials said the loan would be used mainly to pay for oil imports, with higher crude prices have contributed to Pakistan’s problems. One official at the Pakistani central bank who has been involved in negotiations with the IDB said the loan had the backing of the Saudi government, “which wants to play a part in rescuing Pakistan from its present crisis”. Islamabad and Riyadh have moved closer in recent months after Pakistan agreed to send an undeclared number of troops to “train and advise” security forces there. The Pakistan government insists that the soldiers will not be used to fight in Yemen however, something the Saudis had previously requested. Despite the promise of money from the IDB, economists warn that Mr Khan’s new government will still have to enact potentially unpopular spending cuts and tax rises to help repair the government’s balance sheet. “The budget deficit shot up to about 7 per cent of a gross domestic product during the last financial year,” said Waqar Masood Khan, a former finance ministry official. “Bringing that down to the target of 4 per cent is not going to be easy.” [Source Financial Times]

Riyadh is hoping that a loan of $4b will allow Khan to send more Pakistani troops to Yemen and elsewhere in the Middle East. The Saudis are also counting on the formation of Islamic forces modelled on NATO to provide stability to any peace agreement reached over Syria in the near future. Pakistan’s troops will form the backbone of such a force, hence the gesture of $4 billion to Khan’s ailing economic situation.

 

China holds 1 Million Muslims in Concentration Camps

A UN human rights committee has heard there are credible reports that China is holding a million Uighurs in “counter-extremism centres”. Gay McDougall, a member of the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, raised the claims at a two-day UN meeting on China. She said she was concerned by reports that Beijing had “turned the Uighur autonomous region into something that resembles a massive internment camp”. China did not immediately respond, Its 50-strong delegation said it would address questions on Monday, when the session in Geneva continues. Beijing has previously denied the existence of such camps. The Uighurs are a Muslim ethnic minority mostly based in China’s Xinjiang province. They make up around 45% of the population there. Xinjiang is officially designated as an autonomous region within China, like Tibet to its south. Human rights groups including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have submitted reports to the UN committee documenting claims of mass imprisonment, in camps where inmates are forced to swear loyalty to China’s President Xi Jinping.  The World Uyghur Congress said in its report that detainees are held indefinitely without charge, and forced to shout Communist Party slogans. It said they are poorly fed, and reports of torture are widespread. Most inmates have never been charged with a crime, it is claimed, and do not receive legal representation. China is said to carry out the detentions under the guise of combating religious extremism. The Chinese government denies the existence of these camps. In April, Laura Stone, a senior diplomat in the US State Department, said tens of thousands of people had been detained in “re-education centres” amid a government crackdown. In response, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying stated that, “everyone can see that people of all ethnicities in Xinjiang live and work in peace and contentment and enjoy peaceful and progressing lives”. [BBC]

It is despicable that despite the crimes of Beijing towards Muslims, rulers across the Muslim world continue to have cordial relations with China. Allah says: يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا لَا تَتَّخِذُوا عَدُوِّي وَعَدُوَّكُمْ أَوْلِيَاء تُلْقُونَ إِلَيْهِم بِالْمَوَدَّةِ وَقَدْ كَفَرُوا بِمَا جَاءكُم مِّنَ الْحَقِّ يُخْرِجُونَ الرَّسُولَ وَإِيَّاكُمْ أَن تُؤْمِنُوا بِاللَّهِ رَبِّكُمْ “O you who have believed, do not take My enemies and your enemies as allies, extending to them affection while they have disbelieved in what came to you of the truth, having driven out the Prophet and yourselves [only] because you believe in Allah, your Lord.” [60:1]