بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
The Genocide in Gaza will not End Until we as Muslims End our Dependence on Democracy
News:
The 2024 American elections were held on the 5th November with Donald Trump, securing a decisive victory over Kamala Harris. Many Muslims in the US, once again participated in these democratic elections in the hope that their vote would help end the genocide in Gaza. Some supported Trump, either believing in his promise that he would bring peace to the region, or to “punish” Harris and the Biden administration for their continued support and funding of the genocidal Zionist entity. Others endorsed Harris, believing that she was the ‘lesser of the 2 evils’ and the better way for opponents of the Gaza war to advance their agenda. Others gave their vote to the Green Party representative, Jill Stein and People’s Party candidate Cornel West, due to their strong anti-war stance and pledge to stop the genocide.
Comment:
In these elections, as well as democratic elections within other western states, many Muslims strategized over the best way to play the democratic game to influence events in Palestine. However, the genocide in Gaza, the occupation of Palestine, and the oppression of Muslims elsewhere in the world will not end until we discard this delusion that engaging in the democratic system and electoral process will solve our problems as a Muslim Ummah. There is an English saying: “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” Have we not witnessed time and again the utter failure of western and other democratic states to stop the genocides or ethnic cleansing of Muslims in Syria, Yemen, Myanmar, the Central African Republic, Kashmir, East Turkestan and elsewhere, regardless of the scale of atrocities perpetrated and regardless of the views of their Muslim populations? Have we not seen western colonial wars take place in Afghanistan and Iraq, despite overwhelming domestic opposition? In Britain, millions marched against the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and yet the Blair government still went to war despite this mass expression of public opinion. This is because Western capitalist democratic governments do not define their foreign policy agendas and actions based upon domestic minority votes or even majority public opinion but rather long-term political and economic interests of the state – its institutions, bodies and structures – and to maintain their hegemony over the regions of the world, regardless of the ideological stance of the party or president in power. In this instance, the US and many other Western capitalist colonial governments see it in their national interests to preserve and strengthen the Zionist entity, regardless of the strength of opposition within their own public. Therefore, as Muslims, to believe that we can influence US or other Western foreign policy agendas in Palestine or the rest of the Muslim world by engaging in the democratic electoral process is ‘pie-in-the-sky’!!
Moreover, voting in these democratic elections is not simply expressing support for a candidate and their policies; it is endorsement of the validity of the system that they represent, support and stand for. It is legitimising and approving the capitalist colonial immoral system that helped establish, fund, protect, preserve and strengthen the Zionist entity. It is accepting a system that enabled this murderous occupation to conduct its genocide with impunity and that generated leaders of the likes of Trump, Biden and Harris who have no qualms to openly express their unswerving support of the murderous Jewish entity regardless of the scale of its crimes. Moira Donegan, a Guardian US columnist writes: “Does America deserve Trump? In the years since he rose to power, one theory posits that he is merely the manifestation of the nation’s unexorcised demons – a vestige of the racism that allowed this country to build its economy off the backs of the enslaved, of the casual relationship to violence that allowed it to build its territory and its global hegemony through violent conquest and coercion, of the grubby love of money and shameless disregard for principle that have always motivated our rapacious economy. In this version of the story, Trump is not merely a morbid symptom, but something like America’s comeuppance…” Such a reality is echoed within the capitalist democratic system of states across the western world. Is this really the type of system that can achieve justice for the Palestinians? Is this really the type of system that we as Muslims are willing to endorse through participating in the democratic elections of these countries? Do we really expect any help from the creator, funder and supporter of the assassin?
As Muslims, to end the genocide in Gaza, and the oppression of Muslims elsewhere, we need to lift our vision beyond failed strategies of change. We need to rid ourselves of the misguided belief that we can solve our problems through the democratic system which is entwined with colonialism and itself perpetrated numerous genocides in our Muslim lands. We need to break the illusion and dispel the myth that the ballot box holds the power to change the foreign policy decisions of the capitalist states we live within. It does NOT! Indeed, one of the best ways to express anger and opposition towards the state-sponsored genocide in Gaza is to disengage with the system that bankrolls and facilitates it!
If we really want to end the slaughter in Gaza, we need to look for the correct solution that will liberate the entire land of Palestine for good. It is an army that is decimating and annihilating the people of Gaza and the rest of Palestine. Therefore, an end to this genocide requires the mobilisation of an army to defend and liberate the people. Therefore, the call must go out to those officers of the Muslim armies to respond to their Islamic duty of defending and liberating their Ummah. However, there is no ruler or state today in the Muslim world that has the political will to move their army to fulfil this obligation. Therefore, as Muslims, we need to turn our focus to changing the leaderships and systems in the Muslim lands by removing the corrupt treacherous regimes that plague our countries, and establishing urgently the state that is built upon, represents and fights for Islam and the Ummah. This state is the Khilafah based upon the method of the Prophethood. Indeed, there can be no victory for this Ummah without obedience to Allah (swt) and reliance upon His solutions and system alone. Allah (swt) says:
[إِنَّمَا كَانَ قَوْلَ الْمُؤْمِنِينَ إِذَا دُعُوا إِلَى اللَّهِ وَرَسُولِهِ لِيَحْكُمَ بَيْنَهُمْ أَن يَقُولُوا سَمِعْنَا وَأَطَعْنَا وَأُوْلَئِكَ هُمُ الْمُفْلِحُونَ]
“The only statement of the (true) believers when they are called to Allah and His Messenger to judge between them is that they say, “We hear and we obey.” And those are the successful.” [An-Nur:51]
Written for the Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir by
Asma Siddiq
Member of the Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir