Debate:Humans when in power

[Positive]

One of the most strange phenomena of the human character is that humans misuse power.

 

The somali saying " nin xoog leh ayaa bisin bi'iyey" which literally means: humans when in power disobey God, in my humble opinion is true. When we look back in the history of the world or study our current world events we can see how steeped humans are in character. Both nations and individuals when they are in position of power show their real colour of character which is by generally misusing power. humans become egocentred as individuals and/or nations and the world and everything living in it, in their eyes, becomes an orchard which has to be sucked of every edible drop of nourishment and then thrown away when it no longer serves their purpose.

 

Just by looking in our mother country we see that people although "claiming" that they are: muslims, say their prayers, confirm the oneness of God and that prophet Mohamed (scw) is the messenger of God etc. still, those who ultimately come in the highest position(s) of leadership of the country, time and again misuse power.

 

But an even a more odd thing, I think, is that our people cheer for the perpetrators who misuse power by encouraging them to continue their wrong doings. Support for wrong doings have specially become an asset valued by our society lately. Just look at the political section in this forum: Warlords are cheered for without exception through mostly clan affiliation. The people instead of showing moral courage by restraining their evil intentions and consequently correcting the intentions of their leader(s) decide to become head and legs for injustice. Hence Friends, relatives, tribe/clan members, perpetuate and become part of establishment for a unjustice cause. While we are purposely adding fire to the furnace of the misuse of power everyone is still shouting for justices and equality!

 

The above paragraph is also reflective of our present global situation:the US and world. The friends of the United States have not been true to their core values and consequently have not been able to stop the misadventures of the United States. This has brought much suffering globally for everyone.

 

In our somali context I ask myself : Where is the islamic way of Life? Or do we belief that PURE RITUAL without proper religious intention and observance is a key to enter paradise ?

 

Maybe some of you will venture to answer these questions. But in wider perspective I also ask myself: What are the charms that power have that causes us to set aside moral and ethical values ?

 

Thanks

 

The Awakener2

[Viking]

Toosiye,

Is it power that corrupts or the wealth (or access to it) that brings this decay? You raised multiples issues but with a common denominator, injustice.

 

People who say one thing (like politicians often do) and do another show a high level of hypocrisy which is probably caused by conflict in their personality. This conflict is what makes him say one thing and then go ahead and do the total opposite (or neglect to fulfil the promises made). What causes this? Probably many reasons but one clear reason is the lack of faith in Allah SWT. As humans we are prone to err, but the quality of leadership Muslim populations have had for the last few centuries has been appalling which has had devastating effects on millions of lives. Perhaps this is a reflection of the state of the Ummah, if good seeds are planted then there is a good chance that tree will be healthy.

 

This kind of unstable personality combined with inept knowledge of Islam (and general ethics) makes these kind of leaders very dangerous people.

 

People who support warlords or other leaders on clan basis show that we clearly don't have solidarity as Somalis or Muslims but split further. If our identity was based on our qabiil which is Soomaal then we would be united and have a better chance to build a successful country. Who needs external enemies when you have cousins who are ready to kill you?

[Naden]

Interesting read, Positive.

 

……humans when in power disobey God, in my humble opinion is true.

Although people transgress against one another and against their faith/principles even when not in power, greed and influence make the temptation more difficult to resist. Power and money have their own standards of morality and ethics which, I believe, religious and social mores have always tried to curtail. Of course, it gets complicated and highly effective when religion is fused with economic and military power and one uses or justifies the presence of the other in the subjugation of people.

 

In our somali context I ask myself : Where is the islamic way of Life? Or do we belief that PURE RITUAL without proper religious intention and observance is a key to enter paradise?

I don’t think we need religion to know that robbing your neighbour or killing him is wrong. Most believe them to be universal values, a human instinct towards good and Muslims are instructed to believe that their religion responds to a created, unchanged instinct (30:30); the failure, I reckon, is at this greater level.

 

Do I think a religion should be blamed for the sins of the powerful and the silence of the rest? I don’t know. I do know this: Fir’oon (Pharaoh) is mentioned over 70 times in the Quran as he symbolizes oppression, corruption, and brutality. How important is this emphasis on this oppressor whose mention exceeds manners of ‘ritual’ such as ablution, charity and pilgrimage as well as divorce COMBINED? Are we to believe that God repeated the story of Pharaoh and his people simply to give a history lesson to the prophet and his followers across time? Is Pharaoh the only grand oppressor in human history?

 

As demented and evil as he was, he is easily equaled if not exceeded by any engineer of genocide in the past few centuries, including our own leaders. What lessons are Muslims to draw from his story? People are expected to fight against oppressors, they are expected to fight tyranny, injustice, and genocide and if they do not, they suffer greatly in both worlds (43:54, 4:97). I couldn’t guess whether the key to paradise is through ritual (prayer, fasting, etc.) or personal ethics (bearing witness, keeping pants zipped up, etc.) alone but I believe able-bodied, quiet observers of injustice cannot guarantee a position of righteousness.

 

Realizing that the faith urges people to reject oppression and injustice in all its forms, many scholars through an unholy alliance with the powerful have diverted attention away from this. Curiously, religious commentary in general has tended to be associated with ruling parties. We see thousands of volumes on ablution and others but a dearth on fighting injustice and corrupt leadership.

[STOIC]

We express moral judgment on people when we believe certain things “ought†to be in a certain way. It is not surprising to witness human beings more interested in their own self than those of others. Many times we have seen people in power enforcing their rule of law to the objection of the public. Can this people be said they used religion to enforce their rule? Some have done it while others may be longing for that route. I believe for a great many people around the world justice is consistent with their most fundamental belief whether Christian, atheist or Muslim. It is the observance of these fundamental principle beliefs of justice that distinct them from the beast in the wild. Ethical actions are incumbent upon all the human being who regards themselves as apart of this world. This is why we shouldn’t let anyone off the hook just because he is from our circle of lineages or friends. We are all endowed with different degree of desires. It is how we pursue our desires that distinct us from one another. As a Muslim I am warned by the Quran to conduct my life in a kindness and a generous way. I am commanded to humility, patience and moderation. I am responsible to train my life in such way that I can lead my self to the realization of the truth. The most fundamental problem of our homeland today is tyranny and everyone wanting an autocratic rule of his kinsmen. May be some of this people are driven by conviction of innate superiority. This why you witness shear emotions and paranoia in the political section of this website every time a group seizes an outpost of God knows what city! Instead of Somalia people being worried about love, health, education and respect, they are instead worried about what tribe the next crown will be from. I have no reason why this people so cravenly adore a despot rulers. I can only say that they need to separate themselves from the imperfection of their evil thoughts.

[Viking]

naden,

Originally posted by Naden:

I couldn’t guess whether the key to paradise is through ritual (prayer, fasting, etc.) or personal ethics (bearing witness, keeping pants zipped up, etc.) alone but I believe able-bodied, quiet observers of injustice cannot guarantee a position of righteousness.

The obligatory religious rituals are basics and personal but most souls' downfall will probably be the result of unfair dealing with other souls. What value has the prayers (fasting, pilgrimage etc.) of a corrupt politician to his soul? Most of the actions that would affect the destiny of our souls are connected to others; lying, backbiting, all types of stealing and cheating, not paying Zakat, being unkind to your parents and others, arrogance, self-righteousness, pride, gluttony etc etc. The list is very long!

 

Originally posted by Naden:

Realizing that the faith urges people to reject oppression and injustice in all its forms, many scholars through an unholy alliance with the powerful have diverted attention away from this. Curiously, religious commentary in general has tended to be associated with ruling parties. We see thousands of volumes on ablution and others but a dearth on fighting injustice and corrupt leadership.

The unholy alliance with despotic leaders has marred the Ummah for the past few centuries. Most scholars are not independent and rely mostly on help from the sitting regimes. These regimes don't fund them without an agenda and therefore what the scholars produce is designed to suit and protect their funders and/or in some cases legitimize their presence.

 

I don't want to make this another thread where constructive argument is lost in the rubble being slung around, but I couldn't help remembering something the nomad Salafi_online once posted, calling it the Salafi Creed ("Our Creed, Our Call). This would be a sly example of how to pacify a people. Number 13 on that list was...

 

[13]: We do not deem it correct to revolt against the Muslim rulers as long as they are Muslims, nor do we feel that revolutions bring about reconciliation. Rather, they corrupt the community. As for the rulers of Aden, then we feel that fighting them is obligatory, until they repent from heresy, Socialism and calling people to the worship of Lenin and Marx and other than these two from those who professed disbelief.

SOL Source.

 

 

For scholars to succeed in doing their work properly, they need to be independent and funded by who they are working for, the people, not the govt.

[Positive]

Viking,

I like your analysis of the human personality. Of course everything begins from the person. The more persons there are in a society who are corrupt, power hungry and unethical the more problems that society will face. Conversely the more virtuous, peace loving and ethical persons there are in a society the more happiness that society will experience both in here and supposedly in the hereafter.

 

Therefore the person or the personality types that dominate the society is the both the origin of the problems/happiness which a society has to experience and eventual the person is the means to the end when we want to initiate a positive change in that society.

 

I completly agree with you when you say:

 

Perhaps this is a reflection of the state of the Ummah, if good seeds are planted then there is a good chance that tree will be healthy

.

Unless the problem is adressed from the level of the person the leadership quality of a society can not be improved to the better. Hence your above observation is correct.

 

is it power that corrupts or the wealth (or access to it) that brings this decay?

 

Power and wealth go together. Power without wealth or wealth without power is vulnerable and has a tendence to be vanquished.

 

Naden,

 

You said:

 

I don’t think we need religion to know that robbing your neighbour or killing him is wrong. Most believe them to be universal values, a human instinct towards good and Muslims are instructed to believe that their religion responds to a created, unchanged instinct (30:30); the failure, I reckon, is at this greater level

.

We do not only bring up our children as physical entities but the parents try to transfer their collective experience to their children which then becomes part of their mental makeup. Religion is one of the experiences which we transfer to the coming generations. In our somali context Islam is part and parcel of our way of Life. Among other things it teaches for example that robbing your neighbour or killing him is wrong. The universal values are universal because as humans we are from the same origin( Hawo and Adam) and we have been all the time inheriting the (collective) experience of our human predecessors.

 

In my opinion religion is the most important source which differentiate what is good from what is bad. If we could only show in deeds the moral and ethical guideliness in Islam we would have been saved from many problem we face today in our country among them the misuse of power.

 

One more thought Naden: Where do the oppressors and religious scholars come from ? Yes from the society. The problem has to be sought in the moral and ethical evolution of the society. Our corrupt leaders and phony scholars are just reflections of the moral and ethical evolution of our society. It won't help to fight with them because they will be replaced by their likes. Does that sound Familiar ?

 

The wrongdoings we see out there on our leaders just mirrors our dominant social character/behaviour- nothing more.We always come back to the person. Only when the person evolves to a higher spiritual, ethical and moral ground have we won our real fight to rid ourselves of injustice, corrupt leadership and phony schoolar.

 

The task then is not to make revolutions but rather that the person makes real jihad with himself by persistently trying to make himself a better human being.

 

Thanks

 

The Awakener2

[Naden]

Originally posted by Viking:

For scholars to succeed in doing their work properly, they need to be independent and funded by who they are working for, the people, not the govt.

I agree. Scholars who are not serving political powers and not served by them can be judged by the people directly without a powerful intermediary.

 

It's interesting to note these 2 somewhat contradicting principles in the Salafi creed in the old thread:

 

[15]: We hold that the da'wah (call) of the Ikhwaanul-Muslimeen is not an upright and righteous da'wah that brings about the rectification of the community. Indeed, their da'wah is political, not religious.

[18]: We believe that politics is a part of the Religion, and those who try to separate the Religion from politics are only attempting to destroy the Religion and to spread chaos.

 

Originally posted by Positive:

Our corrupt leaders and phony scholars are just reflections of the moral and ethical evolution of our society. It won't help to fight with them because they

will

be replaced by their likes.

I agree that corrupt leaders and phony scholars are a product of their societies. However, fighting them is the ONLY way to curb their tyranny, restore justice, and allow effective leadership to take their place. Not only is fighting them necessary, it must be done by every generation, at every level of governace, and in every field including religious institutions. That there are other greedy elements in society is a given but that doesn’t deter a justice system, for instance, from arresting and prosecuting as many killers as caught.

 

Only when the person evolves to a higher spiritual, ethical and moral ground have we won our real fight to rid ourselves of injustice, corrupt leadership and phony schoolar. The task then is not to make revolutions but rather that the person makes real jihad with himself by persistently trying to make himself a better human being.

I’m afraid I don’t see how personal evolution could ever replace a revolution, no matter the form, against tyranny. I can understand your reasoning, that an overall lift in moral and ethical standards would certainly be reflected in the type of leadership in society. But would that be enough to ward off greed, special interest, and exploitation? I believe that couldn’t even occur at the family level, the smallest unit of governace, much less at the largest one.

[me]

Human beings are inherently corrupt. To prevent the misuse of power, there should be a system in place that makes the misuse of power harder. So we should mistrust al those in power and limit their powers or at least divide the powers.

 

Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

 

 

Martin Luther King Jr. said "What is needed is a realization that power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anaemic. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love".

[Positive]

Naden,

 

You have written:

 

However, fighting them is the ONLY way to curb their tyranny, restore justice, and allow effective leadership to take their place

 

Every reaction which one chooses to make in any level of his being has three consequences for him and for the others it concerns: constructive, neutral and distructive. We have also to remember that every challenge that one faces in Life has potentially limitless options which can bring the desired result. In my view the words: ONLY WAY, in your sentence confines the possibilities one has.

 

Now in order to curb tyranny and restore justice you do not always need to fight in a distructive manner. You have an alternative namely that you can bring changes in a more peaceful and constructive manner. The beauty of Life is that,contrary to distructive means, you can bring changes through kind and loving manners! It is only a matter of choice which you can make: actions through kind and loving means.

 

Of course we have free will and can choose to bring changes through fight and other distructive means and we do that many times. You would agree with me though we usually pay a high price both materially and in Life. And still worse, because of the use of force, usually the change we make sets the stage for a new round of injutice eventually may be new fighting. The reason is, I think, that nothing that is brought through the use of force is usually justice.Hence this is not an option which I recommend.

 

There is no perfection in Life as we live it in here but constructive actions done on a spirit of love and kindness offer better solutions then distructive actions done on hatred and vengeance.

 

one needs to develop personal quality of tolerance, kindness and love to the others and to his environment. When the majority of our people develop and achieve the aforementioned personal qualities can our wounds be healed. And then Life can become the happiness it is supposed to be.

 

Only in higher ethical and moral qualities can we obey God and can serve as good stewards for His cause.

 

Thanks

 

The awakener2

[Thierry.]

A Famous scholar Ibn Qayeem wrote long ago that the leader of a nation or a group of people is a manifestation of the people he/she rules. I think this a very interesting statement that the Scholar made.

Good people are not ruled by a bad leader and vice verse, it would not be fair to see the Ansar of madena to be ruled by someone of Husni Mubarak’s calibre and equally it would be unfair for hajaaj bin Youssef to rule over us today let alone Abu baker Sadiiq (ra).

 

A ruler’s corruption and injustice is a mirror reflection of a society’s injustice and wrong doing. If you wrong someone he who is stronger than you will wrong you.

If you steal from the poor then politicians will steal from the treasury (look at the situation in Nigeria).

 

So to uproot evil and injustice we first have to start with our own Nafs once we have conquered that then start with your own household, it would be hypocritical to criticize a tyrant when we are doing the same thing in a smaller scale.

[Naden]

Originally posted by Ibn Abbas:

So to uproot evil and injustice we first have to start with our own Nafs once we have conquered that then start with your own household, it would be hypocritical to criticize a tyrant when we are doing the same thing in a smaller scale.

What if after you've cleaned your nafs of all evil, straightened out your kin, and even sternly lectured your neighbours, people in power are still robbing and maiming. What do you think should happen then?

[Socod_badne]

Originally posted by Naden:

What if after you've cleaned your nafs of all evil, straightened out your kin, and even sternly lectured your neighbours, people in power are still robbing and maiming.

What do you think should happen then?

Repeat it all over. Do it as often as it takes.

 

Practice makes perfect.

[Thierry.]

Naden that’s an hypothetical question.

 

But to give you an answer

 

We go back to the beautiful Hadeeth of the Prophet SAW when he said

Deen is naseeha (advice)

 

So advice the leader and don’t loose patience, keep advising him and maybe he will take your advice.

[Naden]

Originally posted by Thierry.:

So advice the leader and don’t loose patience, keep advising him and maybe he will take your advice.

Advice wouldn't break up a fight between 7 year olds in a playground. Listen, I get what you're saying, all this business of 'bad' people being ruled by equally rotten leaders. I'm curious where you stand on the punishment of murdering/thieving leaders because my guess is that a common criminal would have the weight of divine and human legislation crashing down on his head.

 

There is no reason for a leader be somehow immune from God's legislation and be tolerated until he wisens up and heeds advice, no matter how sinful the individual citizen. And I'm almost certain there isn't a hadeeth that gives tyrants sick notes from worldly accountability. If a rule can't be applied to one person, it should not be applied to others.