بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
Pakistan Headlines 04/06/2016
Headlines:
- "Strong Man" Raheel is Weak before US Drone Programme
- Democracy is the Cause of Pakistan's Many Crises
- Revival in Education Mandates Islam as the Basis of the State
- Budget Based on Capitalism Promises only More Poverty
Details:
"Strong Man" Raheel is Weak-Kneed before US Drone Programme
Chief of Army Staff General Raheel Sharif said on 1 June 2016, US drone strikes are regrettable and must stop as they are a threat to the sovereignty and security of the country. On 25 May, Gen Sharif told US Ambassador to Pakistan David Hale that the US should desist from taking unilateral actions that undermine trust and affect counterterrorism cooperation. “Such acts of sovereignty violations are detrimental to relations between both countries and are counterproductive for ongoing peace process for regional stability,” he had said. Mere words are little reassurance, when General Raheel commands enough forces to stop the drone strikes dead, as they are dependant on CIA and private military operations that are ongoing within Pakistani territory. General Raheel's strength in fighting the tribal enemies of the US occupation forces in Afghanistan and rounding up those who call for Islamic ruling is absent when it comes to eradicating the violent US operations on our soil.
Even before his current post as COAS, General Raheel has been in the military leadership, being the right hand of Kayani and favoured by Musharraf. The US has been carrying out drone strikes in Pakistan since June 2004. Since then there have been more strikes on the country than on any other beyond Afghanistan. Initially the strikes were launched from airbases inside Pakistan. However anger within the armed forces drives the US drones to be expelled across the border into Afghanistan, although the vital intelligence gaining personnel remained firmly within Pakistan. The total strikes 424 of which 373 were ordered in the era of the Obama administration, the same administration that bestowed a Legion of Merit on General Raheel for his loyalty. Not only are the drone attacks making a mockery of our borders, 424-966 civilians have been killed of which 172-207 are estimated to be children.
The so-called strong man of Pakistan has proved that he is only strong in implementing US instructions and weak in standing in the face of the barefaced violations by the US of Pakistan's sovereignty. A Khaleefah Rashid is the true strong man that the Ummah needs. Ruling by Islam, he will obliterate the US intelligence and private military presence on our soil, rendering the drone programme blind. Moreover, he will mobilize the tribal and armed forces to eradicate the US occupation of Afghanistan, including its drone bases.
Democracy is the Cause of Pakistan's Many Crises
President Mamnoon Hussain while addressing a joint session of parliament on 1 June 2016 said Pakistan's democracy has been strengthened to the extent that it can now withstand various crises. The President spoke of Democracy as if it is the cause of joy for the Muslims of Pakistan. The central failure of all democratic regimes is that they remain dominated by the vested interests of the ‘privileged’ and the ‘powerful’ such as the ruling dynasties, the state officials, the generals, the large land and industrialists, and the external powers. As a result of these vested interests, Pakistan suffered from power struggles, weak government, corruption, nepotism, fickle law making and bad governance.
Vested interests take root in democracy primarily through its law-making process. In democratic theory, sovereignty is for man and not for Allah; this means that the general population is supposed to decide the laws by which they will live. But, in practice, these laws are made by a small elected legislative assembly on behalf of the general population, thereby giving the legislative assembly vast, absolute powers to determine the laws that millions must obey. It is here that the powerful and the privileged find their opportunity. Powerful elite groupings will always be much more capable than the ordinary millions to influence these law makers and so manipulate the legislation that they produce, whether through legalised techniques such as election funding and lobbying, or through techniques that remain illegitimate, such as bribery and blackmail. Once law-making is controlled by powerful elite groupings, these groupings practically gain absolute power over all of the affairs of the government, the country and the general population. In other words, practical democracy results in dictatorship by powerful elites. Instead of ‘rule of the people, by the people, for the people’ democracy creates ‘rule of the people, by the elite, for the elite’. This is the true reality of democracy. And this is the case in all democracies in the world.
Islam has given an excellent system of law, the Shar’ia, that is designed by the Creator of man, who knows man better than he knows himself. The Islamic Shar’ia is a fixed law emanating from the divine sources, the Qur’an and the Sunnah, which are free from control by any man no matter how powerful. Islam does not permit powerful elites to usurp the rights of the masses, but rather Islam motivates and harnesses those who have great capability and intelligence so that their efforts benefit not only themselves but also the entire citizenship of the state. In Islam, the Khalifah is chosen by the Ummah in order to implement Islam alone and he is accountable in front of the Ummah on his implementation of Islam. Regarding each and every law that the Khalifah institutes in the state, he must satisfy the Ummah, and her representatives in the assembly, that it is derived from the Qur’an and the Sunnah. Neither the assembly nor the Khalifah have the authority to legislate, rather both are bound to an independent, fixed reference, the Qur’an and the Sunnah. Allah (swt) said, ﴿وَمَنْ لَمْ يَحْكُمْ بِمَا أَنزَلَ اللَّهُ فَأُوْلَئِكَ هُمْ الْفَاسِقُونَ﴾ “And whosoever does not judge by all that Allah has revealed, such are the Fâsiqûn” [Surah al-Mai’dah 5:47]
Revival in Education Mandates Islam as the Basis of the State
Finance Minister Ishaq Dar announced on 1 June that Pakistan would award 100 scholarships every year to students of least developed countries for graduate studies in Pakistan in fields of science, agriculture, engineering and medicine. Addressing the concluding session of the general assembly of OIC Standing Committee on Scientific and Technological Cooperation (Comstech), Mr Dar said, “Unfortunately, the Muslim world has lagged behind discernibly in contributing to these scientific advancements. Therefore, now it is imperative for Muslim countries to take collective cognisance of the situation and come out with innovative solutions to bridge this deficit.”
Indeed the Muslim World has fallen far behind from where it was in the era of the Khilafah "Caliphate", where it was the world's leading state in education. Since the creation of Pakistan, education has been woefully neglected and corrupted, leading to tens of millions our sons and daughters being deprived of an education that Islam has mandated as a right for them. Pakistan in 2012 was ranked 113th among 120 countries for literacy. A British colonialist education has divided empirical sciences from Islamic education to form two separate institutions, main stream schools and madrassas. This has continued to be implemented in almost the same format, without consideration of Islam's viewpoint on this matter. In Islam there is no detachment of religion from life, unlike Western civilization, and when Islam was the basis of the state, the Muslims excelled.
Islam mandates the development of dynamic, sincere and aware Islamic personalities. Thus the Khilafah "Caliphate" cultures people by Islam in a manner that they are able to apply Islam in their political as well as individual lives. And they know the purpose of their life in this world is to worship Allah (swt), rather than divorcing Islam from political life. This ensures that the sons and daughters of the Ummah look to their Deen to provide solutions to the problems the Ummah faces, economically, politically, internally and externally. It is this that allowed an Islamic civilization that was a beacon of light for over a millennium. The state produced brilliant sons and daughters, pioneers and leading authorities in fields as diverse as mathematics and medicine, jurisprudence and astronomy. Arabic language, the official language of the Khilafah "Caliphate", became the mark of the educated men and women of the world. And the cities of the Khilafah "Caliphate" were the favored destination for education of the European elite.
Budget Based on Capitalism Promises only More Poverty
Ahead of Budget Day, President Mamnoon Hussain on 1 June boasted regarding the economy and said that under the PML-N government the system of tax collection had improved and growth had been sustained, he said.
In a country where a third of the population can be said to be living on a monthly per adult income of Rs3,000, there can be no other priority more important than abolishing capitalism which has led to the immense concentration of wealth into the hands of a few. Ever increasing taxation is crippling earnings, making agricultural inputs and industrial production. As for growth has been fuelled by rising consumption, now 89 per cent of GDP, and growing at around 5pc annually, against GDP growth of under 4pc per year. As for the growth profile, the modest GDP growth is led by the services sector, while industrial manufacturing and agriculture have performed below GDP, at 3.5pc and 3pc respectively. The services sector, now 59pc of GDP, is oversize in relation to industry’s share of 21pc. More than half of service GDP, or 32pc of the total GDP, comes from trading and storage/distribution, rather than actual local production. As for the much boasted about mega projects and foreign investment, it is about foreign companies becoming more dominant in Pakistan, whilst local industry and agriculture are in steep decline. So under capitalism Pakistan's economy remains deprived of heavy industry of its own and is increasingly dependent on foreign companies. As if all this was not enough, wealth is being increasingly concentrated in the hands of a select elite through privatization of that which Islam has mandated as public property, energy and minerals.
The way forward for actual economic revival is the abolition of the Capitalist economic system and the comprehensive re-establishment of the Islamic economic system through the Khilafah "Caliphate" (Caliphate) on the Method of the Prophethood.