Change Management:Marx and Muslims

While the Muslim World remains mired in debates about whether it is okay to eat a crow or not or whether namaz should be prayed with shalwars pulled up or not, the world has left us far behind in the race for science, technology and commerce. This has been the case for many centuries now, but it is only recently that the last boat set out and we missed it yet again. The question that remains is that do we have the ingenuity to fashion for ourselves a new boat? This article seeks not to design a new boat but to give an account of the climactic conditions we would come across, if we were to venture into the unknown of which we have been so mortally afraid. Perhaps we will take notice or maybe we shall not and if the latter be the case, then I am afraid only Iqbal’s refrain “Dastaan bhee na hogi tumhari dastanon mein” will remain.

The story of our times starts with the Industrial revolution and the colonial age. With new means of production and advancement in science and technology, humanity discovered enrichment beyond its wildest dreams. Like all processes, it started with the few and is now slowly expanding to many and many more, and with this revolution we saw a gradual dimming of borders and walls, though identity remained as strong as ever and will probably persist for as long as earth or humanity is destined to exist. But coming back to the enrichment, logic dictated that it be an evolutionary process slowly taking into its fold all of humanity. Others- especially those who failed to see the significance of the process and who attached a far greater importance to their own quarter of a century long existence- rallied around ideologies like that of Karl Marx or what they perceived of it. Don’t get me wrong- Karl Marx was a genius and visionary. Certainly humanity will realize one day the noble goal of achieving an egalitarian society but a certain amount of arrogance and an exaggerated sense of self importance forces people to think that maybe they can bring it about quicker.

In any event the development of Marxism came side by side the development of a radical form of Islamic revival whereby Islam was rehashed as the divine equivalent of Marxism. For detail on this read the works of Maulana Maududi and Allama Pervez. Historically- as I argued in my earlier piece “Myths of the Golden Age of Islam”- Islam was never a system but a set of universal principles which would ensure best practices so to speak in that system. However this new form of Islam forwarded in its variants by Syed Qutb’s Ikhwan-ul-Muslimeen and the Hizb-ut-tahrir does not draw much from history but chooses instead to invoke Islam as an ideology looking for a universal (not nation) state much like the USSR. While many Muslims walked the tightrope and remained in one form or the other committed to existing realities and new developments in the march of humanity, the impatient folk tried to change societies by adhering to these two ideologies i.e. Communism or distorted Marxism and radical Islam.

All along their common enemy was the global order and the logic of the process which was pushing along humanity on the road of non-ideological democratic societies based on self interest (in the most positive sense of the phrase) and capitalism, but the powers that be -and where self interest is at stake the powers tend to be quite focused at their goal- played the two against each other. If cold war was marked by capitalistic patronization of Islamic Jehadis against communist left both within Muslim countries and against USSR, then the propagation of a left movement, duly neutered and domesticated by capitalism, is the reality of our times today. For example CNBC, the premier American business channel, airs hours of Urdu programming dedicated to Faiz Ahmad Faiz, Habib Jalib and left wing politics. How is that possible? Without a core state like USSR, the left is capitalism’s best defence against radical jehadi elements. If cold war saw a shortlived love affair between radical Islam and capitalism, the post cold war scenario lends itself to a stronger but reinvented left, thoroughly loyal to capitalist interests.

Today the Islamists couch their demands in terms that were once used by Marxists. Indeed there has come to be a complete conformity of views between these two very disparate groups of the past. Over and over again we hear slogans against “samraj” and “imperialist Amrika” from the Islamists- i.e. words used by their communist foes from 30 years ago. And while Islamists and the remaining die-hard communists dream of new revolutions, the world has turned another page.

After crossing the nation state phase – which is one concrete reality in our evolution - humanity has now begun to reduce the impact of these nation states beyond mere administrative units. The global world is now a corporate driven world with basic allegiances lying with the company rather than country- after all the company pays a person and the country – well in many cases country is seen as a parasite eating off of the toil of an individual. For example… an SAP consultant or an Oracle consultant will be a consultant first and then a Pakistani or an Indian or a Muslim or a Hindu or a Christian or what have you. This ofcourse doesn’t mean that they are emotionally less involved with their other identities but that when push comes to shove, their way of life is corporate consumerism not nationalism or religion.

It is not something to be lamented but should be seen as merely the next stage of human development. To resist this change may delay it but change will come albeit more painfully. TV Channels and constant flow of information freely has also eroded any imagined ideological frontiers and now TV Channels are corporate owned and they decide what people believe or don’t believe. Is that scary? No- it is the logic of our existence after all- with time more and more TV Channels will emerge and many more voices will be heard. The process remains essentially the same.

With global capitalism has come competition in all spheres of life and freedom of speech, expression and the apparent freedom to choose – however manipulated- are its logical byproducts. No ideology- no matter how liberal or fair- can allow these freedoms to proliferate. The record of ideological states in allowing people to express themselves freely is rather poor. However the corporate reality has now begun to dictate the new logic. If indeed Pakistan is to become a civilian democracy, it might just be because Pakistan Army itself is gradually transforming itself into a grand corporate entity and will need the cover of a civilian constitutional set up to continue down that path.

The bottom line is that the logic of the process has triumphed and Muslims should embrace it wholeheartedly. The refusal to do so will only make transition more painful and slow. Instead the Muslims should revisit the change management technique that we believe the Holy Prophet (PBUH) left us in form of Ijtehad and Ijmah. A serious Ijtehad should be able to tell us that march of humanity will continue with or without us and that Ijmah (or consensus) is the basic principle of the system that we know as democracy.