Are Western Values Universal?
Tony Blair addressed the Labour Party’s Annual conference with a speech which was marked as having more sound bite and less policy. Within the speech there was one statement which bore looking deeper into. Seeking to justify the unjustifiable he sought to convince the grass roots of a possible war against Iraq.
He used the same tired statements which aimed to twist western intentions for intervening in Iraq. He then tried to justify why the Muslims of Iraq would whoop with joy at the thought of occupation by pointing to past interventions which the doom mongers had warned against but which were in the end hailed as most welcomed.
Blair started,
"But I’ve lost count of the number of supposedly intelligent people who’ve said to me.
You don’t understand the Serbs. They’re very attached to Milosevic. No they weren’t.
The Afghans are different. They like religious extremism. No they didn’t.
The Iraqis don’t have the same tradition of political freedom. No they don’t but I bet they’d like to."
Furthermore he made a statement which bears further explanation and indeed refutation, he said:
"Our values aren’t western values. They’re human values, and anywhere, anytime people are given the chance, they embrace them. "
The reason for addressing this statement, if it were not obvious already, is backed up by a recent e-mail we received at Khilafah.com from a Muslim from Saudi Arabia, the brother explained his exasperation at the anti-Islamic agenda of the Western media and whilst seeking to correct this image he came across Khilafah.com.
"Me and my friend decided to write a newsletter on, ‘correcting the image of islam’, we have been doing research on this topic and have found many sites that we were very impressed with. We soon found your site and we opened up your article about, “It’s a war against Islam” by Mr. Abu Musab. I soon read the quote pasted at the top of the email “Islam does not believe in democracy, freedom, tolerance or reason.”] and became sick. Islam is about freedom, tolerance, reason, and democracy. I thought I was defending Islam from the west, now I know that I am defending Islam from the muslims!!! "
Both Tony Blair’s statement and the statement from the Muslim from Saudi Arabia are linked, although the motivation completely different, the British Prime Minister must recognise that Western Values are just that, values which the west aims to foist upon the Muslims which are deeply engrained with the West’s value system but are nicely cloaked by claims of universality. These values are neither universal nor human values; a lot of Muslims like the brother from Saudi Arabia have confidence in Islam and its superiority to the Western way of life, but mistakenly view that ideas such as Freedom, Democracy, Toleration and Reason are based upon a western conception of values.
Anti-Semantic
These ideas are not words which solely describe the human condition, they are political concepts intrinsically linked with another way of life. Firstly it is important to be clear upon the basis of these ideas.
The Ideology of choice for the West is Capitalism, its existence stems from a reaction to the Dogma of the Church and for Reason to be made dominant over the perceived dictates of the Creator of man and all he can observe. This is why the basis of Capitalism is Secularism, this means whether the Creator exists or not that doesn’t matter, what is important is that man should determine the way society should live and be governed. Surely this is wrong, what is important is this base question, who created man? Where he came from stems from his natural weakness, the rational answer to this question must draw man to the conclusion that the Creator created man and also defined how he should live his life. Capitalism didn’t bother to tackle these most important of questions and indeed relegated them to the sidelines, instead it sought to focus upon the political ideas which should govern society, among which were Democracy and Freedom. Toleration and Reason also stem from the Philosophers who contributed to the evolution of Capitalism.
The point is that these terms are fully loaded and are therefore part and parcel of Capitalism. Democracy (external link) for example is not about voting, for that is a style to realise the objective of this ruling system, rather it is about giving human beings the ability to legislate and acquire the sovereignty whereas all Muslims must believe only Allah (Subhanahu Wa Ta’aala) can wield such authority.
Personal Freedom (external link) allows human beings within bounds to act as they wish, this includes sexual freedom, illicit relationships and homosexuality. Surely we as Muslims believe in Halal and Haram as a criteria for action and not out desires.
Toleration is also linked to Pluralism (external link) which allows for the existence of multiple ideas in society whether these ideas are beneficial or detrimental to it. This pervasive idea allows for the existence of Political parties to call for ideas which are foreign to Allah’s commands and movements which spread ideas which Allah (Subhanahu Wa Ta’aala) prohibits such as sexual perversion, adultery, gambling, drinking alcohol, abortion, and the use of women as sexual objects.
Allah (Subhanahu Wa Ta’aala) says,
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“O believers! Do not say: ‘Ra’ina’, but say “Unzurna” and listen; and for the disbelievers there is a painful punishment.” [TMQ Al-Baqarah: 104]
The famous Mufassir Ibn Kathir explained in his tafseer of this ayah:
"This verse refers to the Jews who used puns in their conversations with the Prophet (Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam) in an attempt to make fun of him. They, (may Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta’aala curse them) addressed him with the word ‘Ra’ina’ which literally means ‘consider us’ but can also mean ‘stupidity’, and when they greeted him they said ‘As-Samu 'Alaykum’ that is, ‘death to you’ rather than ‘As Sallamu 'Alaykum’ that is ‘peace be on you’.
What this Ayah and its tafseer indicate to us is the importance of terminology. If a statement has a loaded definition contradicting the concepts of Islam they must be relinquished for the Islamic concept and its terminology. This is because the danger in calling to the Western ideas and concepts would mean the appearance of this foreign way of life upon the lives of the Muslims and this is both dangerous for our Islam and prohibited by Allah (Subhanahu Wa Ta’aala).
We have our own terminology and idioms and we must both use these and comprehend the importance of realising there meanings so as to work diligently to bring these back to life through the pre-eminence of the Islamic way of life absent from the world due to the absence of the Islamic Khilafah.
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