Lessons from the European Union for the Muslim World

The desire for Unity in the Muslim world is strong and growing. Many surveys and opinion polls have suggested an increasing number of Muslims from countries as far apart as Egypt to Pakistan want to establish laws based on Sharia and desire unification of Muslim countries. Indeed there is a growing trend to attribute this call of unity to Islamic scripture rather than ideas of Pan-Arabism or some sort of socialist union. The discussion of how to implement such unity is now a hot topic of contention amongst many circles. A 2007 poll called “Muslim Public Opinion on US Policy, Attacks on Civilians and al Qaeda” by WorldPublicOpinion.Org revealed that an overall average 65% of people across the Muslim world support the goal to “unify all Islamic countries in to a single Islamic State or caliphate”.

An enthusiastic debate is being played out across the Muslim world and beyond as to how the unification of over 50 countries and territories should take place. One of the suggestions has been for all Muslim countries to enter in to a Muslim Union. In particular, there has been some discussion that this Union should be modelled after the European Union (EU).

Given that the EU has managed to bring together countries that little more than half a century ago were killing each other by the million this argument deserves to be examined. In addition the current global financial storm that is buffeting the EU gives us an opportunity to examine the robustness of such a union in the face of stern challenges.

The thinking behind this original European project was that closer integration between different European states would lead to an increase in prosperity and thus prevent another outbreak of war. Preceding the EU were three organisations which were set up during the Cold War era. These were the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), whose aim was to create a single market for the coal and steel industries on the continent – the key industries for war, in order to establish prosperity amongst the different nations. The European Economic Community (EEC) existed as a general customs and economic cooperation body, which went on to become the single market. Also, the European Atomic Energy Community (EAEC) existed to facilitate cooperation on nuclear energy between member states. Crucially, these organisations were a platform for the Capitalist European states to come together on the basis of their common ideological bond for mutual gain. Communist nations in Europe were excluded from the club.

After the Cold War, the EU succeeded these three organisations to create a common market to facilitate trade between countries in Europe by standardising laws to ensure the free movement of people, goods, services and capital. A bigger economic bloc would emerge to provide all nations with more power than they would have individually on the global scene. Together, European nations would be able to get better trade deals with international partners such as the USA and Russia. This increased financial power would bring more political influence in the world without the individual colonial baggage that many European nations carried from the preceding centuries.

Expansion of the EU has been driven by dual political and economic reasons. Richer nations like Germany would be able to gain access to cheaper labour whilst at the same time integrating its state politically and economically with the destiny of the rest of the continent, making it less likely to go to war with its neighbours. Poorer countries would be able to obtain financing for their domestic programmes at cheaper rates of interest due to the power of the Euro, which would be backed by the clout of the German Mark and hence, the German economy. Poorer nations would also gain access to bigger markets which would present no tariffs or other obstacles for trade, enabling them to earn wealth. In turn richer nations would able to produce and sell goods locally at lower costs and in a bigger market.

Politically, the EU would also be able to draw in the former Warsaw Pact and Soviet Union republics with the promise of a better economic future and thus check the power of Russia. Ostensibly there to spread democracy, expanding the EU would allow countries like Germany and France to gain more influence in an innocuous manner in Eastern Europe. Former Communist states were promised a slice of Capitalist nirvana by joining the EU, thus ideologically and politically realigning these countries.

Practically, though the EU has implemented a recognisable form of governance in the form of a Parliament and courts, the most prominent feature of the EU is the single market which in turn has spawned the Euro. Supplementing this is the legislative dimension which applies to all member states to support the market. This includes rules on the transfer of people between member states, job opportunities, contribution of subsidies to the Union and distribution of grants

This all would seem to work well in theory but there are many practical problems. The issue of EU citizens being able to work anywhere in the EU raises domestic concerns within individual member states about the rights of local citizens to jobs. This also leads to concerns about immigration and the impact this would have on local services such as healthcare and potential changes in culture due to an influx of foreign people. Many also object to their money being spent on people from other countries, such as the UK paying farming subsidies to France under the EU Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).

These difficult issues, as well as others, are tolerated as long as the original Capitalist ideal of economic benefit for the country can be justified, as this is the raison d’être of the EU. Despite different countries within the EU operating slightly different models of Capitalism, such as the French model being more state interventionist whilst the British model is more free market oriented, member states are committed to the EU as long as the individual states continue to reap benefits.

However since its inception the EU has not faced a real challenge until the recent global financial crisis and this has revealed massive fault lines. The financial indiscretions of some nations like Greece have plunged the Euro Zone in to crisis, with the problem affecting a larger group of countries as well. Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece and Spain, collectively known as the PIIGS, have thrown the single currency in to crisis with Great Britain also teetering on the brink outside of the single currency.

Greece’s massive debt is a threat to the EU’s integrity. If it defaults then this will severely damage not only the Euro but the Union as a whole. Other PIIGS states will question the value of remaining in the EU if when things get tough they are abandoned. If any of them decides to leave then the EU as an economic and political project would be a failure. Practically, Greece is not at liberty to enact a UK style rescue by printing more currency as the Euro is not within its sovereign control. This leaves a massive political headache for both Greece and the EU.

The only viable solution seems to be that Greece would agree to a combination of massive spending cuts and rise in taxes in exchange for a bailout from the EU and other institutions. The ramifications of this are that the burden of Greece’s debt shall essentially be spread amongst the EU and citizens of other countries shall in essence have to help pay off this debt. This will merely address the short term problem without addressing the underlying fundamental problem with the structure of the EU that has led to this conundrum. This is just dealing with the problems of Greece, not addressing the rest of the PIIGS who are in a similar predicament.

The issue with the EU is that it has evolved beyond a simple common market whose aim was to provide an easy trading zone for all members and simple ‘prosperity for all’. With the introduction of a single currency and legislation that overrides certain aspects of national law the EU has taken on aspects of a sovereign State. The problem is that this pseudo polity conflicts with established nation states that constitute it. You have a situation where more and more power is being transferred to a central foreign body but there is no central government to provide overall direction for the member states.

The EU has slowly been moving towards this direction but this is highly contentious. By establishing a central budgetary authority each member nation would give up the ability to set their own domestic budgets. This would impact areas such as health, education, military, science, technology and others. This would alter the very essence of national politics as local politicians would no longer have the ability to determine the direction of the country. Essentially, it would mean each member deconstructing the nation state and giving up its sovereignty to become a province of the larger European super state.

Without the implementation of a unified government and the establishment of a formal EU super state, the EU only serves to entrench differences between member states rather than to unify them. EU rules and legislation are drafted not in the interests of the EU but are influenced by each member state to maximise their own individual benefit, even at the expense of others. Such a model is destined to fail to bring unity to different nations. Fundamentally, the idea of a political union contradicts the raison d’être of the EU’s foundation which was economic benefit for each individual sovereign nation state.

For the Muslim world, the desire for unity does not stem from the Capitalist aspiration of European states to benefit from each other economically. The unification of the Muslim world is an ideological stance directed by Islam itself for the sake of establishing political unity. The model of unification requires the adoption of a common ideological basis, Islam, rather than the pursuit of economic gain.

The purpose of this unified polity is to establish Islam as a ruling authority in the form of a State body. In addition, the history of the Muslim world is classically a unified one with varying levels of autonomy granted by a singular central authority. Separate Muslim countries are a relatively new reality, with every single Muslim state having being created by a vacating European colonial power in the 20^th Century.

Attempts have been made to re-establish some level of unity in the Muslim world in the form of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) and the Arab League. These however merely serve as cultural clubs or discussion forums, not bringing the unification of politics, economy, law and resources that is now being demanded in the Muslim world. Neither has any power to issue legally binding decisions which would directly impact the lives of citizens of their member states.

Crucially, the member states of these organisations do not share a common basis upon which to interact with each other apart from loose cultural affiliation. Member states being run as theocracies, dictatorships, democracies, emirates and monarchies which varyingly implement Capitalism and Socialism with certain aspects of Islamic law. Due to the lack of a common ideology, meaningful unity of any form is impossible between these member states.

Historically, unity in the Muslim world has been achieved via the model of the Caliphate. This model, which was established 13 years after the Islam began, does not follow the gradualist approach of the EU. The Caliphate as a point of ideology unifies the interests of its various provinces, whereas the EU preserves divisions between different nation states. This is because the Caliphate is established upon Islam as a ruling ideology to which it calls other peoples and states to. The ability to unite not only the disparate warring tribes of Arabia but also foreign peoples such as the Persians, Egyptians, Anatolians and Central Asians in a short space of time was one of the stand out features of the historic Caliphate.

The obstacles in the Muslim world preventing political unity are the ruling authorities which do not Islam as a comprehensive ideology nor express a desire to abandon the nation state. An economic unification in an EU type model would not address this fundamental obstacle in the Muslim world. Just as the EU does, this type of Muslim Union would serve to entrench political differences and confirm the nation state rather than establish unity amongst the different Muslim peoples. Indeed practically such a union would not even be possible as the Muslim countries do not share a common ideological basis, Islamic or otherwise, with which to interface with each other.

The way to establish a lasting union for Muslims would be to establish a State with Islam as its ideological basis. This State would unify interests by establishing political unity and implementing one model of governance across all of its territory, with a single leader settling any differences of opinion. European countries have no fundamental requirement to be united due to Capitalism. Therefore, the European Union model would not deliver the type unity desired by the Muslim masses worldwide leaving the Caliphate as the only viable alternative.

Muhammad Asim

Twitter: @AsimWriter

Published on 3rd June 2010 in The News (Jang Group, Pakistan) as
Caliphate – only viable alternative to EU model?

Secularism – A Universal Value System?

Terrorism, sectarianism, violence against women and abuse of religious minorities amongst other things are blamed upon the influence of Islam upon the state in Muslim countries such as Pakistan. As a result there are some in society who see the only way of dealing with these problems is to confine Islam to the private lives of individuals and to leave the State free to govern, away from the influence of religion. Essentially, this is a call to secularism. The question needs to be asked: is secularism suitable for the people of Pakistan?

Secularism was established in Europe due to the specific historical experience that Europeans went through with the rule of the Church in Western society. The Church, led by the Pope, was instrumental in establishing the authority and writ of oppressive monarchies. Unlike in Islam where no such concept exists, clergy would claim to have a unique connection with God and would in turn use this to justify the rule of kings as being divinely decreed. During this period, the Western world was in darkness as Europe, split up in to various fiefdoms, and fought each other based upon political and religious sectarian grounds.

Martin Luther, a German priest, began to challenge the authority of the Pope with the publication of his famous treatise The Ninety Five Thesis in 1517. This lead to the Protestant revolution, which was a period of religious wars between European kingdoms which lasted for 131 years, being concluded with the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648. The major outcomes of this treaty were two. A new political order was established in Europe based upon the concept of sovereign states, ruled by a sovereign. Secondly, the many hundreds of princes across Europe were granted the right to determine their own sect of Christianity to be implemented. This had the effect of weakening the control of the Catholic Papacy over Europe.

Shortly after, the Age of Enlightenment and the promotion of reason began in Europe. As Christianity struggled to cope with reason, its fate was sealed with the emergence of the scientific method and empirical thinking, something religious dogma could not match. As Christianity became more irrelevant in the face of scientific progress, society began to adopt secularism from which new values such as freedom and democracy were established. This eventually led to the emergence of Capitalism, an entirely new ideology which placed legislation of laws in the hands of man and the promoted the idea of private ownership of both property and means of production. Once Capitalism was adopted, the Western world set itself upon a trajectory that would see it rise out of its dark slumber in to technological advancement, economic progress and political domination of the world.

The West embarked upon the course of secularism in response to both the oppression and the inability of Christianity to unite and lead society. It is important to note that secularism emerged due to the particular common experience of European states with Christianity. At the same time in the Muslim world, though there were political conflicts that would at times break out in to military strife there were no wars based upon religious sectarianism. The Muslim world for the majority of its history has been led by a Caliphate, first established in Medina after the Hijrah. No Muslim centre of power disputed the necessity of having a Caliph, nor desired to rule other than by Islam. The Muslim world did not have the same experience of Islam as the Europeans did with Christianity.

Whilst Europe was engulfed in religious strife, Islam by being implemented through the Caliphate facilitated progress on all fronts. Countless inventions and discoveries in the fields of engineering, chemistry, physics, astronomy and medicine to name a few are well documented. The Muslim world with the total application of Islam in all areas of life had no problems with science or reason. Islam was able to facilitate material progress whilst providing detailed solutions for life which Christianity was simply incapable of providing.

The Islamic world was also home to people of other faiths such as Jews and Christians, with the descendants of such communities existing to this day in places like the Middle East and Turkey. Muslims who differed in their understanding of Islam were considered a source of strength, not weakness, as flourishing schools of thought such as Hanafi, Shafi’i, Hanbali, Maliki, Jafri and others proved. It was due to the inability of Christianity to provide anything more than simple moral guidelines that the West had to turn to secularism and ideas of freedom and democracy to run society, something which the Muslim world never had a need for.

During history though Muslim power peaked and waned, it was never extinguished as Islam was implemented not as a ‘state religion’ but an ideology. This meant that Islam was the exclusive source of laws for all areas of life such as economy, judiciary, societal relations, ruling, governance structure, trade, company structures and so on. This was the case until the end of the First World War, when the Ottoman Caliphate was abolished in Turkey by Mustafa Kemal and was succeeded by secular nation states. Today these secular states may implement aspects of Islam, such as parts of the penal code or family law, but place legislation in the hands of man either via dictatorships or parliaments. These secular states do not provide the mechanism which Islam provides, namely the authority of the Imam or Caliph, to resolve all disputes be they temporal or spiritual.

It would be incorrect to view any state in the world today as being Islamic due to snippets of Islamic law being applied in a sea of man made law and thus declare Islam’s ‘interference’ in the state to be the problem facing Muslims. The solution would rather be to return to the classical method of living by Islam, which is to implement it in the form of an ideological Caliphate which would be able to legitimately deal with both temporal and spiritual disputes.

Muhammad Asim

mamuhammadasim@gmail.com

The author is a freelance analyst and columnist

[From August 2010]

Secularistan

There has been a concerted push in recent weeks and months, culminating on 14^th August, by the chattering classes to denounce all things Islamic in Pakistan and call in earnest for secularism to be implemented. Religion was never supposed to control the State as it supposedly does today. Citizenry were supposed to be free to visit whatever house of worship they chose in pursuit of glorifying their deity, but the deal was they were to keep their beliefs out of running the country. This allegedly has not happened and now we have ended up with a failing backward State, with blame for this being laid on the door of Islam. Enter the secular crusaders, here to save the nation by the light of liberalism!

But before the noble forces of hedonism are unleashed on the people it is worth asking that is Pakistan a State based upon Islam? Yes we have the word ‘Islamic’ in the name of the country and yes there is something written in the preamble of the ever amendable constitution that says no law will be enacted that is ‘repugnant’ to Islam. However mere words do not make a State Islamic (legally non-binding ones too at that). Whether under dictatorship or democracy, Pakistan has always enacted laws which have served the will of the ruling class. When Islam has been dragged out of the mosques it is confined to, it has been by politicians seeking to win influence over the people or rulers taking decisions for the sake of political expediency rather than attempting to deduce the hukm of Allah on a matter.

The case of Raymond Davis is case and point; the CIA was let in to the country by the secular dictator Musharraf and allowed to stay and expand by secular democrats of the current regime. That Islam considers the presence of foreign military/intelligence personnel on its territory as forbidden is irrelevant. But when caught in a bind over the murderous actions of the spy of our ‘ally’, rules of diyat were used to get him off the hook. One wonders what happens to the Islamic enthusiasm of these rulers when it comes to cutting the hands of those corrupt thieves in power.

Indeed the few areas of the State where Islam is involved, such as family law, actually proves to reflect the true secular spirit; the rejection or selective adoption of God’s law based upon the judgement of man, thus resulting in the latter transcending the former in authority.

So what do our secular warriors cry out for? It isn’t as if though Islamic rules on private property or land distribution are shaping the economy. It isn’t as if the Islamic directive to have a currency backed by the gold standard instead of a weak fiat system is being adhered to. It isn’t as if though the rules of Islam of freeing your Muslims brothers around the world from occupation are guiding the foreign policy. It is not as if though the political system is based upon the Shariah model of the Caliphate. So what is it?

The secularists have long coveted the Western secular model which is failing before our very eyes for Pakistan. However due to ironically having blind faith in the West these secularists refuse to accept that events like the UK riots and the collapsing global financial system are results of the values that secular liberalism espouses. Concepts of individualism and consumerism are driving the decline of Western power in every sphere ranging from the societal to the economic. Despite this, the secularists are bent upon implementing such a bankrupt model on the country due to a combination of their desire to indulge their whims and lusts as well as their disdain of Islam.

At home, they are alarmed that the very political system which has made them rich, powerful and influential is also coming under threat. Pakistanis are increasingly disillusioned with the same old tired chants of democracy, democracy, democracy. The people have seen that there is no material difference in policies between a democracy and dictatorship; both secular systems subjugate the nation to America and sustain the same corrupt politicians and political parties. Both systems support a deeply unpopular war and support murderous drone strikes on their own kith and kin. Both fail to address serious problems in the economy such as crushing poverty, mounting national debt due to loan addiction, rampant inflation and a chronic shortage of energy. Both fail to establish rule of law in society where the rich and the poor, the powerful and the weak are subject to same justice. Both fan the flames of sectarian hatred as a tyrannical few desperately try to hold on to power and wealth in places like Karachi, playing politics with lives and blood of innocent bystanders.

Pakistanis are increasingly turning towards ideological Islam as practiced by the Holy Prophet (saw), which the secularists condescendingly label as Islamism. They desire a true Islamic State, the Caliphate, on the model of the State the Holy Prophet (saw) established in Medina. This is something the secularists cannot stand, leaving them with no option but to engage in flippant discussion amongst themselves whilst shutting down any voices of dissent, with force if necessary. Peaceful political groups like Hizb ut Tahrir are subjected to abductions and shambolic bans; actions which apparently do not contradict their secular liberal beliefs. Large amounts of money are ploughed in to foreign sponsored projects and organisations which claim to combat extremism whilst leading the youth astray.

At the time of the Holy Prophet (saw) the Quraish would employ identical tactics in an attempt to crush the message of Islam. Amongst these included torture, boycott and even spending money to hire dancers to distract the people whilst the Holy Prophet (saw) proclaimed his message in public. There were those who would thrust their fingers in to their ears and told others to do the same just so the message of Islam could be ignored.

It is ironic how much these so called modernists have in common with folk who lived 1400 years ago, though sadly not those on the side of Islam. The secularists should be warned however that such tactics have never worked in history and that they cannot fight the message of Islam with incoherent babble or brute force. If they truly wish to prove themselves superior, let them publically debate those working for the Caliphate so people can see whose ideas are truly the strongest and worth following.

What do they have to fear in debate apart from losing?

Muhammad Asim.

The author is a freelance columnist.

 

Twitter: @AsimWriter