Recently, America's Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), officially issued extracts of the report about the CIA conduct towards prisoners in the so-called ‘War on Terror'. The entire report extends to about 6000 pages, though only 400 of its pages were allowed to be published. However, these 400 pages are enough to reveal the inhumane and cruel face of the Western governments. According to the report, the prisoners were deprived of sleep for six continuous days, forced to stand. As a consequence of this psychological torture, prisoners suffered mental illness. Two prisoners had their leg bones broken. One prisoner was threatened that if he denies co-operation, his mother will be subjected to sexual harassment. This "civilized" intelligence agency also tortured people using water boarding which is one of the worst forms of torture in human history. In this technique the face and nose of a person are covered with cloth and then water is poured over him repeatedly such that he feels as if he is drowning. According to the report, Khalid Sheikh Muhammad was tortured in this way 183 times.
This ruthless behavior is not new. Before this revelation, the global media, shocking people the world over, broadcast pictures of the inhumane treatment of prisoners in the Abu Ghurayb Prison in Iraq. In the past, brutal torture and murder of millions of people by Britain, France, Italy, Spain and Portugal in their respective colonies is another chapter in dark Western history. In spite of all this Pakistani rulers and a specific segment of its followers propagate the viewpoint that the West is better than Muslims in matters of morals and civilization! Therefore, we find such people in our society who sing the praises of the Western moral zenith and consider the West as their role model. To them Muslim society is illiterate, backwards, vulgar and devoid of any civilization; whereas, the Western societies are civilized and ethical. Hence, they feel proud in parroting Western ideals. They view this imitation as progress and a sign of enlightenment.
One reason for their infatuation with the West is its material progress. Tall buildings, scientific inventions, constant flow of commodities, availability of better facilities and stable governments for people in comparison to the current standards in Muslim societies, leads them to the assumption that in terms values Western people are also better. No doubt, in terms of inventions and material progress, the West is far ahead than Muslim countries. Moreover, these countries are capable of taking initiatives for solving their problems, generating thinking for solving them, without support or guidance from other nations. However, these matters do not establish that the West is ahead in terms of human doctrines, values, goals and culture, or even that that what they possess surpasses Islam. Any country that possesses an ideology is capable of generating solutions for human problems, manifests such characteristics. Previously, Soviet Russia ensured implementation of the socialist ideology, giving rise to material progress and prosperity. Further back, when the Muslims comprehensively and exclusively implemented Islam, they were the world leaders in a myriad of fields over many centuries. However, there is a difference between possessing solutions for human problems, as a result of adhering to an ideology, and the validity of these solutions and ideology.
As for Western civilization, it is built on the basis of Capitalist ideology. However, the solutions it provides for life affairs generate further problems. This is so because its solutions come from the limited minds of men, rather than revealed by the Creator of humankind. The Western capitalist ideology is itself the root cause of ethical and cultural bankruptcy of West. Here, the supporters and promoters of Western values cite in defense, the charity, welfare work and good behavior of some Westerners and non-governmental organizations. They present the examples of the likes of Bill Gates. According to Forbes Magazine, Bill Gates and his wife gave $2.65 billion in charity for prevention of diseases in 2013. According to the magazine, Bill Gates and his wife have spent a large amount of $30.2 billion on charity which is 37% of their total wealth. Similarly the Co-Founder and CEO of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg gave $991 million in charity in 2013. After presenting such individual examples, a question is raised that if Westerners are so materialistic and declined in terms of ethical values, then why do we find such examples? In answer, it is mandatory for us to understand that Allah (swt) has created every human being with a similar nature. Just as He has granted every human with two eyes, nose, ear and hands, he has also placed in them some instincts and needs. No human can survive without breathing air, drinking water and eating food. These are his needs. Similarly, every human possesses instincts. The survival instinct manifests in a variety of ways, such as the desire to acquire money and items of luxury, or protects oneself from physical harm. He also has spiritual instinct that drives him to seek his purpose in life, question the reason for his existence and find tranquility in prayer and worship. Every human possesses the procreation instinct. That motivates him to establish relations with other human beings, taking care of his parents, wife and children, marrying and rescuing other humans in trouble or alleviating their suffering. All human beings possess these needs and instincts, whether he is Western or Eastern and all this drives need fulfillment. Therefore, just as he finds comfort and happiness in acquiring wealth, he can find happiness in helping the poor and saving the life of a drowning man or showing mercy towards a prisoner. So it is not surprising to find charitable individuals in any society. However, this does not establish the validity or invalidity of the ideology.
For establishing the validity or invalidity of ideology, we must turn our attention to the thoughts which a man carries about life. His thoughts shape his views towards matters. Thus, defamation of any Prophet, whether Musa (as), or Esa (as) or RasulAllah (saw) is disgraceful and in Muslim society there is a strong rejection of such defamation. This is because the ideology of Muslims, Islam, establishes specific values about Prophets. These thoughts shape the instinctive nature of a Muslim in a specific manner. Thus, the emotions of a Muslim are in accordance with the thoughts he carries. Compare this to the Western society. Defamation of any Prophet is not an issue for Westerners because in the view of the West, freedom of expression is the right of all individuals, and they can say or draw whatever they want about any Prophet.
Therefore, a Western man also possesses the procreation instinct which encourages some Westerners to take care of other people, sacrifice for them and behave with them gracefully. However, due to the adoption of concepts arising from Capitalism, the Western man is overwhelmed with individualism, materialism, consumerism, and a race for luxuries and amassing of wealth. The Capitalist ideology is a materialistic ideology which establishes that the pursuit of material pleasures as the core objective of life. It views that attaining wealth and luxuries is a fundamental source of happiness and satisfaction in life. The pioneer thinker of Capitalism, Adam Smith, author of "The Wealth of Nations" and "The Theory of Moral Sentiments," held the view that God has created this world for humans to attain maximum happiness by acquiring material luxuries. The Capitalist view is that when each individual is left free for his material betterment, with the least possible governmental interference, the interests of society will be preserved automatically. Benefit becomes predominate in man to the point that morals are evaluated on its basis. Honesty is not a value that should be acquired unless it has a material utility. Thus, honesty is the best policy and makes good business sense as people prefer to buy from the honest. Yet honesty can be thrown out of the window if it gets in the way of profits. Or from a utility perspective, humanitarian charity is good for tax relief, but not in itself. Benefit is the evaluation for religion too and any religious law that limits the material or sensual pleasure of man, needs to be reformed, whether it is to do with usury or marriage. Hence, the parameter this ideology sets for life is benefit and loss. The focus of a man while doing an action should be the benefit this action will render to him, regardless of it being a business matter, personal relations or even moral issues. Therefore, if good morals would yield benefit at some point then morals and ethics should be adhered to. If such good morals may result in material loss, then morals need not to be cared for. For the same reason, morals and ethics always remain secondary options in Western society. As long as the capitalist ideology remains implemented in the Western society, the Western society will be unable to rid itself of the moral malaise and laxity that many of its people complain.
The creed of capitalist ideology is secularism. It limits religion to the personal life of an individual. Confining religion to the individual has also led to the confining of the pursuit of humanitarian, ethical and moral matters to individuals. So individuals and non-governmental organizations pursue charity, whereas it is not the job of the state. Moreover, secularism proclaims that man should develop his own system of laws, subject to his whims and desires rather than the commands and prohibitions of his Creator (swt). Secularism asserts that the human mind, rather than revealed religion, must decide the things which should be valid and legal for society and which should be illegal and invalid. So it is the human mind that concludes which things are good for society and which are bad. Therefore, in the view of Western society, human ration can decide the good moral behavior and bad morals. Moreover, there is no need of taking dictations from religion for defining good and bad principles for society.
The Western decline is most evident in their social system. Western society is awful in its treatment of the weak and sick stories bombard its people continuously. On 11th January 2015, Associated Press reported that police arrested a 25-year-old man in the American state of Florida, who out of stress killed his child by throwing her off a bridge. Reuters reported on 30th December 2014 that again in Florida, police arrested a couple on murder charges who didn't feed anything to their newborn child, who died of starvation at the age of just 22 days. Reuters reported on 21st December that a woman in Australia killed her seven children and one nephew, with ages between 2 and 14 years. Associated Press reported on 5th November that the New York police has registered a case against a billionaire woman who killed her 8 years old sick child by overdosing on medication in February 2010. Associated Press reported on 30th October 2014 that a murder case was started against a married couple in the US state of Pennsylvania because they starved their 9 year old sick child to death. The weight of this child had reduced to 17 pounds only. Police found this boy in a such a pitiful condition, that his corpse was covered in a piece of cloth inside a toilet. Reuters reported in 19th October 2014 that in New York City a 20 year old man killed his 3 year old child by choking her throat, just because she defecated in her pants. These heartbreaking stories are only those that appeared in the news during the last four months, the actual severity is greater. This is the glimpse of the real face of Western society, where capitalism has encouraged individualism and personal happiness to such a level, that parents feel a burden in protecting and nurturing their child. They consider their own flesh and blood as an obstacle to happiness in their life. In the Muslim world, despite the huge economic problems, we find that children are cared for as a priority in life, with huge sacrifices from parents, and this is because of the Islamic values that people still adhere too.
Just as it neglects the weak, Secularism ensures that the mighty prevails. As for the ruling system and the actions of politicians, the US Congress and Senate are reservoirs of immensely rich people, similar to the situation of the Pakistani National Assembly and Senate. More than half of American representatives own more than $1 million and 200 members of Congress are multi-millionaires. Whereas, thirteen representatives can be considered to have working class origins. The salary of one American Congress representative is $174000. According to a report by the Weekly Standard Magazine, 100 members of US Senate have spent $5.25 million on personal grooming in 15 years. Whereas, during one year, their personal and official expenses were $4,005,900. This condition is also a direct result of Capitalism. This ideology sets the objective of an individual's life as the amassing of wealth and fulfillment of personal desires. It thus provides a ruling system that allows materialistic individuals to increase their wealth many-fold. The Democracy that emanates from this ideology assures that elected representatives can change the laws in accordance with their desires, so as to fill their own pockets, as well as those of their fellows. Wherever democracy exists, the elite has manipulated laws in a way that has made them the owners of such assets which yield overwhelming wealth, such as electricity, oil, gas and minerals, large scale construction, heavy industry and arms and munitions factories.
As for the Western honesty in trade and business, the economic crisis that started from the US and engulfed Europe also in 2008, is an example to establish that capitalist companies abuse the trust of the people, keep them in the dark and provide misinformation to seize large amounts of money from them. In 2010, Goldman Sachs accepted that the company will pay $550 million as a fine for cheating its investors willingly. Last year, the Royal Bank of Scotland accepted to pay $150 million as a fine, after it was alleged that in 2007 the company adopted unscrupulous short-cut methods for selling mortgage-backed-bonds worth $2.2 billion. The bank has also been investigated for knowingly and willingly bankrupting flourishing businesses, so that it could buy them at cheap prices afterwards. In October 2013, the Dawn in conjunction with The Guardian reported a scandal in sales of impure meat in Europe. Every week 50 million Europeans use processed meat which was found to be mixed with horse's meat, after DNA analysis was conducted. European companies, such as the British Sodexo, the French "À la Table de Spanghero" and the Dutch "Wiljo Import en Export BV" and "Vleesgroothandel Willy Selten BV", were mixing cow's meat with horse's meat. In an interview with an employee of one of the companies said that they also used to mix old defrosted meat during supply and sometimes this meat was so old that its color had turned green! In December 2014, the Washington Post published a report which explained how the American multi-national companies had shifted their legal addressees to the Cayman Islands, Luxembourg and Bermuda, where taxes are either very low or almost zero. For this, they arranged a merger with small companies and then registered their company in low tax countries. According to an estimate these companies were dodging $100 billion in terms of taxes.
The influence of materialism that emanates from Capitalism has not only poisoned the common man, government elite and politicians, but also the religious clergy. In January 2012, the Catholic Church scandal surfaced in which the butler of Pope Benedict, Paolo Gabriele, leaked confidential documents of Vatican. Among these letters where those containing conversations between Pope Benedict and various officials of the Vatican, about internal issues including the power clashes, conspiracies, factions and monetary corruption. On the basis of this information the Italian journalist, Gianluigi Nuzzi, has written a book entitled "His Holiness: The Secret Papers of Benedict XVI" in which the corruption in the Vatican is exposed. Reuters reported that on 23rd October 2013 there was a suspension from the exercise of episcopal office of the German bishop, Monsignor Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst, because he spent 31 million Euros from the funds of the church, on construction of his new residence. According to an estimate the cost of the bathtub in the washroom of his residence is 15000 Euros, which is the equivalent of Rs. 1765000, whereas the conference table in his home is worth 25000 Euros (Rs. 2975000) and the built in closets were valued at $500,000. Due to this extravagance, the German bishop became known as the "gold-plated bishop" and "the bishop of bling" in the media.
The West which accuses Muslim societies over ill treatment of women and uses this premise as a campaign for Muslims to turn away from their Deen and adopt Western standards. However, the Western values were exposed by a poll conducted by the European Union Agency of Fundamental Rights (FRA). This survey was conducted from March to September 2012 and published in March 2014, in 28 European countries, in which 42,000 women were interviewed of ages between 18 to 74 years. According to survey every woman after 15 years of age had been subjected to sexual harassment. The sanctity of one out of twenty women was violated by man and one out of five women experienced physical torture from her domestic partner. According to the report only 14 % of women reported these harassment to police. The report highlights the brutal treatment of women in a society which claims the liberation of women.
Capitalism gives the concept that leaving the man free to pursue his desires is the guarantee of happiness and harmony. Thus, every human must have complete freedom of belief, expression of opinion, ownership and personal freedom and any restriction on these freedoms is wrong, particularly restrictions in the name of religion are signs of backwardness and narrow mindedness. However, this ideology has completely failed in providing happiness and harmony to man. This fact is also indicated by the statistics which Western health organizations provide about the usage of drugs related to depression in their society. In America the usage of drugs related to depression is second only to cardiac drugs and according to estimates, drugs related to depression will climb to the top spot by 2020.
This is the real picture of Western society which is kept hidden from Muslims. The current Democratic politicians, rulers and liberal people keep praising the West like parrots, so that we may accept the political hegemony of the West. Rather, we are asked to feel proud of the shackles of Western slavery around our necks. Today, the whole world, including the West, is in dire need of the Islamic ideology and the ruling system which emanates from it, the Khilafah "Caliphate". A Khilafah "Caliphate" State which nurtured a civilization that was a shining example in the pursuit of humanitarian, spiritual, moral and ethical matters for humanity in the past, as well as astounding material progress in fields as varied as engineering and medicine. It is only the Khilafah "Caliphate" which can replace the futile and declined civilization of West today.
Written for the Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir by
Dr. Iftikhar - Pakistan
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