Rudyard Kipling"
“When you're left wounded on Afganistan's plains and
the women come out to cut up what remains, Just roll to your rifle
and blow out your brains,
And go to your God like a soldier”
General Douglas MacArthur"
“We are not retreating. We are advancing in another direction.”
“It is fatal to enter any war without the will to win it.” “Old soldiers never die; they just fade away.
“The soldier, above all other people, prays for peace, for he must suffer and be the deepest wounds and scars of war.”
“May God have mercy upon my enemies, because I won't .” “The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his.
“Nobody ever defended, there is only attack and attack and attack some more.
“It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather we should thank God that such men lived.
The Soldier stood and faced God
Which must always come to pass
He hoped his shoes were shining
Just as bright as his brass
"Step forward you Soldier,
How shall I deal with you?
Have you always turned the other cheek?
To My Church have you been true?"
"No, Lord, I guess I ain't
Because those of us who carry guns
Can't always be a saint."
I've had to work on Sundays
And at times my talk was tough,
And sometimes I've been violent,
Because the world is awfully rough.
But, I never took a penny
That wasn't mine to keep.
Though I worked a lot of overtime
When the bills got just too steep,
The Soldier squared his shoulders and said
And I never passed a cry for help
Though at times I shook with fear,
And sometimes, God forgive me,
I've wept unmanly tears.
I know I don't deserve a place
Among the people here.
They never wanted me around
Except to calm their fears.
If you've a place for me here,
Lord, It needn't be so grand,
I never expected or had too much,
But if you don't, I'll understand."
There was silence all around the throne
Where the saints had often trod
As the Soldier waited quietly,
For the judgment of his God.
"Step forward now, you Soldier,
You've borne your burden well.
Walk peacefully on Heaven's streets,
You've done your time in Hell."
Islamic economy - left of centre by Ahmad Farouk Musa
Monday, October 21, 2013
From Malaysiakini : There
should exist among the citizens neither extreme poverty nor, again,
excessive wealth, for both are productive of great evil. - Plato, The Republic COMMENT
Any move for a more robust democracy and the establishment of a civil
state or, in the Islamic Party of Malaysia (PAS) terminology, a state of
care and opportunity, is simply futile without a comprehensive economic
agenda.
The recent developments in the Middle East and North
Africa post-Arab Spring suggest that any transformation of political
nature would be void of values if there is no concomitant change in the
economic agenda. Hence it is imperative for the Islamic party that vies
the change in government to pay particular attention to this matter.
The Muslim Brotherhood, or more famously known as al-Ikhwan, is
probably the most organised civil society in Egypt. It has, for example,
been criticised for its economic agenda that prioritises the one
percent of the population. They are known now as "the Brotherhood's one
percent", a term initially coined by the world protest movement Occupy.
These
one percent refer to the tiny, wealthy segment of the ruling elite that
benefits from the economic policy against the 99 percent of the
population that is outside the circle. There was no significant change
in the neo-liberal policy of the previous regime that benefited a few
wealthy entrepreneurs, with emphasis on free market and privatisation,
except in curbing corrupt practices.
Critics maintained that
with this neo-liberal policy, it would not lessen the burden of funding
of the state but on the other hand, the private sector would be more
dependent on state patronage at the expense of the taxpayers and
consumers. Hence, the essence of this privatisation project mainly leads
to the accumulation of the wealth of the one percent.
The
liberals and free-market proponents often argue that the creation of the
wealthy one percent would then in turn lift up the poor with them.
However, history has shown that the greed of man will certainly promise
failure for such a noble idea. The very fact that the Arab Spring
revolution erupted in the Middle East and North Africa region is witness
to such a failure.
Thus, an approach to just economic system
that would stay true to the spirit of social justice is probably similar
to the one laid out by the late Muslim Brotherhood authority in
economics, Abdel-Hamid el-Ghazali.
Abdel-Hamid said: "Islam and
its economic system and approach to development is a real, continuous
and successful war on all forms of economic injustice - meaning
exploitation - through a distinct and absolute ban on usury and deceit;
monopoly and hoarding; extravagance and tricking; cheating and
undervaluation; fraud and deception; bribery and nepotism. And all other
forms of unjustly taking away people's money, as well as all forms of
improper practices in economic activities in production, distribution
and consumption."The failed economic agenda
The main criticism against any Islamist party in the modern world today
- especially the Brotherhood - is their economic policy that would set
them apart from other ideological forces.
What is clear is that
it would be safe to assume that there are no fundamental differences
between the Islamist and those of any authoritarian regime. So one may
ask a very pertinent question: Do Islamists have an economic agenda
different from the one of their predecessors?
Now, the usual
term being used by many Islamists is "Islamic economy", a controversial
term among the academic and intellectual circles. This term basically
denotes a distinct economic system that is set apart from the
"capitalist and socialist ideologies".
The problem is that there
is a very distinct separation between what is supposed to be Islamic
values to that of the practice in such system. A clear example is that
of the so-called "Islamic banks" that basically replace conventional
terms with Islamic (read: Arabic) terms but seem to be more repressive
than the conventional banks.
This concept of Islamic economy has
turned into a very profitable business, banking on the ignorance of the
masses and the deceitful usage of Arabic terminologies that are
construed as Islamic.
And Islamic clerics with doctoral degrees
in banking and economics are the main collaborators, since they
participated in laying down the legal and doctrinal basis of the
economic transactions and endorsed the banking products as
syariah-compliant.
In actual sense such transactions are in direct conflict with the values of justice that underlie the basis of Islamic economy.
More apparent is the dichotomy between what is stipulated in the
Islamists' economy and their actual policy. Many of the actual economic
policies on the ground are not much different from the capitalist
practices that prevailed during the era of the former regime.
This
has led to many researchers to describe the Muslim Brotherhood's
economic vision as a neo-liberal vision similar to that of its
predecessor. Islamists also failed to realise that such policies were
among the major causes that sparked the revolt against the previous
regimes.
Why Egyptians poured onto the streets
In
fact, one of the defining slogans of the Egyptian Revolution was the
chant of "bread, freedom and social justice". As Oxford University
Professor Walter Armbrust states: "Egypt and Tunisia are the first
nations to carry out successful revolutions against neo-liberal
regimes', and the failure of neoliberalism in Egypt was one of the prime
motivations for people to pour out onto the streets."
Furthermore, there appears to be a separation between the Islamist
ideological discourse and their economic behaviour. On one hand they
talked about transparency, accountability and social justice but these
are met with inflated wealth among "Islamist" businessmen at the expense
of the poor.
It is basically a theory that focuses on the
wealthy by increasing their numbers - by raising the ceiling that was
placed on the Brotherhood's one percent - which is believed would in
turn lift up the poor with them. But then the failure of these arguments
and projects are the very reason why there was a revolution in the
first place.
Without doubt, many Islamists derived their
inspiration from the economic model provided by the Turkish Justice and
Development Party (AKP) that has been touted to have successfully
elevated the country's gross domestic product (GDP) and paid the last
instalment of its debt to the International Monetary Fund.
However
it is of note that in the last decade, Turkey has borrowed increasingly
more in the international financial markets, and in particular, the
foreign debt of the private sector has reached unforeseen levels. This
is obviously a very fragile situation, for when the private debtors go
bankrupt, the private losses are often socialised.
Through its
economic policies, the AKP has been imposing its neo-liberal agenda by
increasingly commercialising public services, creating areas of rent for
large corporations and eroding the living standards and security of a
significant part of the working class.
While Turkey's GDP has
increased, the income distribution is very skewed. And if the Gini
coefficient is any measure of income inequality, then India is said to
beat Turkey by far, .34 to .40 in 2010 respectively, where the lower the
Gini coefficient, the lower the income inequality.
Unfortunately, the delusive success story of increase in GDP has
reinforced misplaced faith in the free market despite the fact that the
social indicators of development, such as the number of people living
below the poverty line, took a downturn after 2008. The AKP has somehow
managed to amplify the neo-liberal policies that have been in existence
since the 1990s.
This further attests to the fact that
"Islamists" do not have their own economic agenda, apart from a
continuation of the prevailing capitalist system. And the planned urban
restructuring of Taksim Square and the destruction of Gezi Park has to
be understood in the context of state-driven privatisation projects
propelled by the underlying neo-liberal policy.Tomorrow: The unfinished revolution
DR AHMAD FAROUK MUSA is a director at the Islamic Renaissance Front and an academician with Monash University.
