Headline News 03/11/2018

Headlines

• Pakistan Releases Blasphemer as Attempted Gesture to Hypocritical Western Public Opinion

• Taliban Control of Afghanistan Increasing according to US Inspector

• Record US Trade Deficit with China despite Tariffs

Details

Pakistan Releases Blasphemer as Attempted Gesture to Hypocritical Western Public Opinion

The new government of Imran Khan had hoped that the court release of the blasphemer Asia Noreen would placate Western public opinion but Western media has responded only with anger after seeing the response of Muslims in Pakistan to her release. According to the New York Times:

After spending eight years on death row, Asia Bibi, a Christian, was acquitted by Pakistan’s Supreme Court this week. For many here it seemed like a good day. The country’s highest court had finally delivered justice and released a woman whose life has already been destroyed by years in solitary confinement. The court decision quoted Islamic scriptures, bits of letters by the Prophet Muhammad and a smattering of Shakespeare. A great wrong was righted.

And that’s why Pakistan’s new religious right, which has rebranded itself as the protector of the Prophet’s honor, has threatened to bring the country to a halt.

Posters were put up with fatwas against the judges who had issued the Bibi decision. The judges’ guards and cooks were urged to kill them before evening; anyone who did would earn great rewards in the afterlife. Pakistani conservatives, emboldened by gains in the general election this summer, goaded the generals into rebelling against the army chief, whom they accused of being an Ahmadi, a persecuted religious minority. They called Prime Minister Imran Khan a “Jew child.”

Khan, in an impromptu address to the nation, seemed appalled at the language and the implication: He said his government had already done more than any other for Islam and warned protesters not to take on the state. But the mobs will settle for nothing short of Bibi’s public hanging.

Until just a few decades back, it was standard for countries to have laws against blasphemy and many non-Muslim countries still have them. In this week, the European court upheld an Austrian law against blasphemy while Ireland voted to remove a reference to blasphemy that until now exists in its constitution. According to DW:

The Strasbourg-based ECHR ruled that Austrian courts carefully balanced the applicant's "right to freedom of expression with the right of others to have their religious feelings protected, and served the legitimate aim of preserving religious peace in Austria."

The ECHR judgement has itself come under considerable attack in the West. Unfortunately, the Western concept of Freedom means something very different from toleration. Only Islam truly practised toleration for others, going as far as to permit parallel legislation for non-Muslim communities to maintain their own distinctive lifestyles while remaining part of Islamic society. A key requirement of this multiculturalist approach is that the beliefs of others are not insulted. Allah (swt) says in the Noble Quran:

(وَلاَ تَسُبُّواْ الَّذِينَ يَدْعُونَ مِن دُونِ اللّهِ فَيَسُبُّواْ اللّهَ عَدْوًا بِغَيْرِ عِلْمٍ كَذَلِكَ زَيَّنَّا لِكُلِّ أُمَّةٍ عَمَلَهُمْ ثُمَّ إِلَى رَبِّهِم مَّرْجِعُهُمْ فَيُنَبِّئُهُم بِمَا كَانُواْ يَعْمَلُونَ)

“And do not insult those they invoke other than Allah, lest they insult Allah in enmity without knowledge. Thus We have made pleasing to every community their deeds. Then to their Lord is their return, and He will inform them about what they used to do.” [al-An’am 108]

Taliban Control of Afghanistan Increasing according to US Inspector

According to CNN:

The Taliban have strengthened their grip in Afghanistan over the past three years, according to a new report released by the US government's own ombudsman of the war.

In its quarterly report for the US Congress, the Special Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction (SIGAR) said, "The Taliban now controls more territory than at any time since 2001."

The Afghan government currently controls or influences only 55.5% of the country's districts, marking the lowest level recorded since SIGAR began tracking district control in November 2015.

However, other estimates put Taliban control in the majority. The only reason that the foreign disbeliever continues to occupy Muslim lands is the cooperation he receives from Muslim governments that prevent their armies from ejecting him. If the foreign occupation is unable to defeat mere Muslim groups then how would they defeat the professionally-trained armies of Muslims, particularly if they were to unite under a unified Islamic Khilafah (Caliphate) State on the method of the Prophet (saw)?

Record US Trade Deficit with China despite Tariffs

According to the Huffington Post:

President Donald Trump’s steep tariffs on billions of dollars worth of Chinese products don’t seem to be particularly effective at re-balancing trade. America’s trade deficit with China hit a record high in September, according to figures reported Friday by the U.S. Commerce Department.

The deficit in goods and services trade with China increased to $40.2 billion for the month, the highest ever.

In addition, America’s overall foreign trade deficit in goods and services from all countries increased 1.3 percent from August to hit $54 billion for September — hitting a seven-month high. The deficit for goods alone hit an all-time high at $218 billion, reported CNBC.
The U.S. is on track to post its biggest foreign trade deficit in a decade, Market Watch reported.

Western countries do not fail to reprimand others for trade deficits or adoption of tariffs but these same Western countries themselves ignore all such advice when devising their own policies.

Capitalist economic thinking, as studied in universities, is designed to open world wealth, resources and markets to Western exploitation. Muslims will never escape their economic malaise until they reject Capitalist economics and return to the implementation of the Islamic economic system that enabled the Islamic Khilafah to be the sole global superpower for a millennium.