Analysis, Side Feature

Views on the News – 9 Sept 2017

Headlines:

  • United States Refuses to Address the Climate Change Issue even as it faces record Hurricanes
  • West ignores Muslim Rohingya Catastrophe as Suu Kyi increases Popularity in Burma
  • China moves quickly to Reassure Pakistan after Hosting Anti-Pakistan BRICS Declaration


United States Refuses to Address the Climate Change issue even as it faces record Hurricanes

The United States is facing record-sized hurricanes that have intensified because of climate change. According to the NPR:

Hurricane Irma is hovering somewhere between being the most- and second-most powerful hurricane recorded in the Atlantic. It follows Harvey, which dumped trillions of gallons of water on South Texas. And now, Hurricane Jose is falling into step behind Irma, and gathering strength.

Scientists are quick to point out that Harvey and Irma would have been big storms before the atmosphere and oceans started warming dramatically about 75 years ago. But now storms are apt to grow bigger. That’s because the oceans and atmosphere are, on average, warmer now than they used to be. And heat is the fuel that takes garden-variety storms and supercharges them.

The vast economic power of Western countries is not simply because of domestic economic production but because of their control and exploitation of the world’s natural resources. Although Britain has control over a range of mineral wealth, America has focussed primarily on the world’s oil resources. Discussion of climate change is seen as a direct attack on oil, and thus undermining American economic power.

Capitalist politics revolves around benefit, primarily benefit for the elite. After years of paralysis on climate change, Obama was able to craft a new American approach that succeeded in weakening climate accords and placing the burden for addressing climate change on other countries, as can be seen in the Paris climate agreement. But Trump stepped back even from this position.

The irony is that it is Capitalism that is responsible for climate change, though the vast privatised exploitation of energy resources without concern for human wellbeing and the natural environment. The benefits of this reach a few, while the masses labour long hours and live off debt. Under Islam, despite great technology breakthroughs, life remained simpler and in close harmony with the natural environment, while prosperity and wellbeing were widespread.

 

West ignores Muslim Rohingya Catastrophe as Suu Kyi increases Popularity in Burma

The Muslim Rohingya catastrophe in Burma has reached new proportions. According to the Washington Post:

On Friday, the United Nations’ refugee agency significantly revised upward its estimate of how many Rohingya people had fled Burma to neighboring Bangladesh over the past two weeks, to 270,000 from just 125,000 earlier this week.

Renewed violence has engulfed Burma’s Rakhine state, where tension between the mostly Muslim Rohingya ethnic minority and the country’s Burmese and largely Buddhist majority have simmered and flared for decades. Some 300,000 and 500,000 Rohingya already lived in refugee camps in Bangladesh before this summer. An estimated 1.1 million remained in Burma. Since Aug. 25, nearly a quarter of that remaining population has reportedly fled.

Human rights groups and journalists have been reporting a statewide scorched-earth campaign by Burmese security forces to kill or otherwise expel Rohingya from the country. A BBC reporter who was on a government-chaperoned trip around Rakhine state said he spoke with Burmese men who admitted to burning a Rohingya village with the help of local police. The U.N.’s special rapporteur on Burma — also known as Myanmar — said Friday that more than 1,000 mostly Rohingya people may have been killed over the past two weeks.

The Burmese leader and Nobel ‘peace prize’ winner Aung San Suu Kyi has chosen to benefit by totally denying the suffering of Burmese Muslims. This has strengthened her otherwise weak position politically in her country. The West is keen to see Suu Kyi succeed; previously Burma, ruled by its military, was considered a client state of China. Therefore, the West has instructed Bangladesh to change its policy and open its borders to fleeing Muslims. Previously, the regime of Sheikh Hasina Wajed was fully partnering with the Burmese government to repress the Rohingya Muslims. But the West, seeking to protect Suu Kyi, now see greater utility in the mass migration of Muslims, forcing them to abandon homes and neighbourhoods that they have lived in for generations.

 

China moves quickly to reassure Pakistan after Hosting Anti-Pakistan BRICS Declaration

China has moved quickly to reassure Pakistan of its support after the declaration issued at the BRICS summit that China hosted earlier in the week targeted key Pakistani groups. According to the Dawn:

China on Friday defended Pakistan’s counterterrorism efforts, following US President Donald Trump’s accusation that militants carry out attacks inside Afghanistan from Pakistani soil.

“The government and people of Pakistan have made huge sacrifices in the fight against terrorism and such efforts and sacrifices are there for everyone to see,” Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said. “The international community should recognise that… and give Pakistan the full credit it deserves.”

The remarks were made at a press briefing following a meeting between Mr Wang and Foreign Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif.

The BRICS declaration had already unnerved the Pakistani leadership, as the News reported earlier:

The federal cabinet, which met in Islamabad on Thursday with Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi in the chair, expressed its deep concerns over the BRICS declaration, adding that the Terrorists organizations mentioned in BRICS declaration are already banned in Pakistan.

For decades the Pakistani elite have been working to improve their relationship with China as a counter to American pressure. However, the Pakistani leadership fails to understand that China will only act according to its own interests. At the present time, China is in a complex relationship with the United States, and China is currently balancing its interests in different spheres in negotiation with America. It was America that facilitated India’s withdrawal from the Doklam border dispute with China, and in return China must work to satisfy American demands of Pakistan.

Muslim countries will never succeed by depending on others. The time is close, by Allah’s permission, when sincere indigenous ideological leadership will re-establish the Islamic Khilafah State (Caliphate) on the method of the Prophet ﷺ rendering the Muslim Ummah truly independent of disbelieving foreign powers.