An Ode to Euthanasia

The Muslim world is confronted with a diverse variety of challenges, as it seeks to grapple with the onus of reform imposed upon it by the events of the recent past. It would be wrong to assume that the watershed events of September 11, 2001 were primarily responsible in creating a sense of introspection within the Islamic world and forcing it to come to terms, with its place in the world. The historic and disturbing events of 2001 were only the catalysts that added an increased amount of vigor to the voices of reform and change that already existed in the Islamic world. The global concern, which fixated on the problem of terrorism and its apparent roots in the Islamic nations, realized that the problem of modern day terrorism exited, in many ways, due to a transitional nature of the politics in Muslim nations. The Muslims politics are, presently and have been for some time, caught in a transitional state of change between the advocates of modernity and the guardians of tradition.

The result of this political struggle is the existence of a debate, within the Muslim politics, delineating what the parameters of political participation and the nature of governance should be in Muslim lands. Muslim politics are by the nature of their historic origins conservative and antithetical to the politics of change and reform, usually associated with the ideals of liberalism and secularism. The salient problem, which has manifested itself in this evolving discussion on the nature of politics in the Islamic world, and is seen as the most intractable obstacle hindering reforms, is the misunderstood nature of the debate itself. This misunderstanding stems from the intellectual failure of the Muslim intelligentsia to articulate the parameters of the debate and in the process, to convince the conservative elements of Muslim politics that reforms, liberalism and the idea of secular politics need not necessarily be detrimental to the belief structures of Islam.

One of the most maligned and abused terminological references in the Muslim political discourse, which invariably incites a visceral reaction of an emotional paranoia, is the idea of liberalism. Liberal politics and the ideals associated with it are hated in the Muslim political arena, because liberalism is correctly identified as the process of change and political innovations. To the conservative political Muslim elites, which rule over the destinies of the Muslims, change is seen as a threat to their own political interests and thus, has to be resisted. In this sense, conservative politics benefit from the nature of the religion, which is always conservative and therefore, favors the existence of a status quo, which is insulated against the forces of reforms and change.

It is no wonder that Muslim conservative politics, which are authoritarian and fascist in their political orientations, seek the support of religion as a substitute to their lack of political legitimacy. In the case of Muslim politics, the illiberal nature of Muslim politics wishes to be identified, as the bastion of Islamic mores, with the religion of Islam due to the simple reasons of political expediencies. Both authoritarian politics and religion share one sentiment universally and that is to avoid being held accountable for their actions. By girding its political raison d’etre as an example of Islamic rule, or sharia, the illiberal Muslim political regimes seek to create the impression that all their political policies are in harmony with the religion of Islam and thus the explication, which is created as the result of this implication is that to question the politics of the regime would be tantamount to challenging the religion of Islam itself.

Consequently, religion becomes a handmaiden to illiberal politics and is exploited to justify injustice and oppression. This is not to suggest that religion is always an unwitting accomplice, because once religion is exposed to the politics of power, it assumes an institutional interest of its own to seek the continuance of such a political-religious alliance. Therefore, the paramount consideration, which must remembered is that the religious leadership, which in this case would be the ulema in the Muslim lands, makes an informed choice to support an authoritarian government and its policies.

Thus, the moral corruption of a religion’s message originates from the mixture of religion, with politics as the clergy develop their own political interests and hence, start to employ religion for self-interested political gains and motives. This is precisely the problem in Muslim politics, with intertwining of religion with politics, because religion by being exposed to politics has itself become an interested political party with political interests. The universal message of Islam, as with any other religion, is peace, respect and tolerance, but this religious message is diluted by the principle of power politics which generally operates on the notions of a zero-sum game.

The reason why the religion of Islam has been discredited internationally has been due to the perception of the close identification of Islam, with the politics of Muslim countries and its influence in Muslim political thought. The final blame for this sordid state of affairs in which contemporary Islam finds rests on the shoulders of the Islamic ulema and their deliberate choice to pollute the message of religion with politics and to use religion for political aims. The political aim for which the ulema have used Islam has been based on the ideal of sectarianism and the use of sectarian politics, under the patronage of religion, to preserve the political interests of the demographically dominant religious interpretation in a Muslim nation. Therefore, the religion of Islam instead of being a unifying theme in Muslim nations and across the Islamic world, has been diabolically mutated by the ulema themselves to fan religious sectarianism, preach intolerance and create political and social injustices.

Ironically, the Muslim reaction to the loss of the Islamic piety and the international denigration of Islam, as a religion, instead of being one of moral and ethical introspection and reflection has been one of political and religious retrogression and rigidity. It seems that Islam, and Muslim political thought within it, instead of being inclusive of the arguments of reforms is practicing an exclusion of the intellectual thoughts, which can pull the Muslim politics out of the moral and political morass of its own creations. Even in the depths of this crisis, there is a potential for salvation. However, such a political and religious resurrection of Islam and the politics of the Muslim countries hinges on the political will of the Muslims to accept the need for a moral, cultural and political renaissance in Muslims politics and actualize such a choice via the adoption of liberalism as the preferred mechanism of Muslim politics.

It is in this sense that the role of the Muslim intelligentsia in the correct articulation of liberalism, as a solution, becomes crucial. The first step in this process is not to seek an immediate implementation of a liberal policy across the board in all Muslim countries, but to vocalize an understanding of what actually constitutes as liberalism and liberal policies. The misunderstanding in the Muslim politics, which believes that policies of liberalism promote the values of moral laxity and encourages ethical depravity, has to be dispelled by refuting such allegations by citing the reasons behind the historic genesis of political liberalism.

Political liberalism, as an idea, favors the politics of constitutionalism and supports the process of political change gradually, over a period time, in a constitutionally defined manner. This is the hidden beauty of liberalism, as a means of political expression, because by seeking political amendments, reforms and changes via a constitutionally structured means, liberalism actually encourages policies of consensual compromises. The partiality of liberalism towards a constitutional politics implies that it seeks to clearly spell out the political powers, responsibilities and privileges of all political interests in a polity and thus, creates a more inclusive political environment, where political power is structured and orderly and not subject to the arbitrary whims of personalities, and institutional self-interests.

Interestingly, the label of radical and reactionary politics is identified by the school of thought, which advocates the blend of religion, with politics to ensure a theocratic rule in the Islamic world. Radicalism is the idea, which supports immediate political change and a radical, thus defined, is a person who favors extra-constitutional politics of violence, intimidation and oppression to attain a political aim or a goal. In this sense, the ulema who favor the creation of an Islamic mode of governance based on sharia and are willing to employ a religious justification of violence to this end, are the biggest threat to the continuation of stable politics in the Muslim polities. In such a situation, the mantle of a conservative who supports traditional politics does not belong to the ulema, as the adherents of political mayhem, because the ulema, unlike a conservative are not interested in maintaining the prevailing status quo as much as they are eager to replace it.

Hence, historically speaking, liberalism has always been the political expression of seeking reforms in a highly structured constitutional sense, because it is the constitutional division of powers, mutually agreed upon, which can only guarantee the acceptance and the eventual sustainability of any political reforms. Hence, a liberal by definition is a person who believes in constitutional politics and who believes that political changes brought about as a result of constitutionalism, gradually, offers the best option for an enduring political stability and the protection of individual political rights and privileges. One of the misunderstandings about the nature of liberalism, which persists in the conservative Muslim politics, is that liberalism is an expression of political freedom per se. In reality and in practice, liberalism is an attempt to preserve political rights in a well defined legal and constitutional sense, which rightfully implies that the only difference between liberal politics and conservative politics is liberalism’s respect for constitutionalism over non-constitutional politics.

Once this true historic nature of liberalism is explained and the Muslim political thought taught to appreciate it, the next step should be the creation and implementation of constitutionalism in Muslim politics. The creation of a constitutional political environment, given the tenor of political uncertainties in the Muslim politics, is an unavoidable prerequisite towards a fair representative political plurality. The nature of Muslim politics, which itself is a sub-text to the reality of Islam, is not a monolithic entity. Islam is a dynamic confluence of political, cultural and social pluralities and thus, cannot be easily subsumed under a singular interpretation be that political or cultural or economic. Islam is not a monolith, in any sense of a definition, and it would a grave mistake to consider Islam as such and by implication to wrongly assume that Muslim political opinion is also monolithic.

Contrary to the wishful paeans for existence and the influence of a Muslim ummah, the reality is that no such ummah exists, or can exist, in any practical sense of the word given the diffuse nature of Muslim politics. The Muslim ummah is a myth. The myriad nature of Islamic and Muslim political thought defies such a myopic conceptualization due to the multitude of variances, which are present within and influence Muslim politics. The reality of the Muslim experience in international politics is that, the only viable agreement which the Muslims agree upon is the commonalty of their religion and other than this fact, they are as prone to disagreements any other group. Even if the mythical ummah were to magically manifest itself, it would be instinctively rejected by the Muslim political experience, which is pluralistic and thus, would resent being straitjacketed into a single dogmatic orthodoxy.

Therefore, the need for constitutional politics in the Muslim world is sorely needed to protect the sanctity of Islam, as a religion. Most Muslim nations do not enjoy ethnic or religious uniformity and thus, there are many different interpretations of religion, culture and politics, which jostle with one another and in the process, create the dynamics of Muslim politics. A significant number of Muslim states have non-Muslim minorities living within them and these minorities have, as such, a right to representative politics as much as the Muslim majorities of those nations. A constitutional politics in Muslim nations would help to create, protect and balance the interests of a majority, with the interests and rights of minority groups. This would eradicate the arguments of political disenfranchisement, whereby most Muslim nations have experienced a politically powerful minority ruling over a politically impotent majority.

Since these politically illegitimate regimes have periodically relied on religion, with the tacit and abetting compliance of the ulema, as a fulcrum to their power, the religion of Islam has been forced to practice the politics of a partisan nature. Therefore, the ironic demand of the situation, in which the Muslim world finds itself, is that any meaningful reform in political Islam has to entail the separation of religion from politics. The choice of secularism in Muslim politics and of secular political thought is urgently desired, because the mixture of religion with politics is slowly and surely poisoning the very essence of Islam by making it into an intolerant, regressive and reactionary religion. The message of Islam is too precious and too enlightened to be allowed to be ruined by the petty self-interests of political games of power.

This unfortunate facet of Islam’s marriage with politics can be glimpsed in the various debates, which have arisen in the Islamic world itself upon what constitutes the true nature of Islam. The end result of this unholy alliance is that there is a creeping disagreement, within the Islamic world itself, and whereas, at one point Muslims used to agree to the universality of the message of Islam; it is now being disputed. Hence, the need of the hour for the Muslims and the Islamic world is that any progress in the Muslim nations will only happen once the Muslims learn to respect the true meaning of Islam and its message and best way to truly appreciate the inherent wisdoms contained within Islam, is to protect Islam from the corrosive influence of politics.

The only solution to the problems being confronted by Islam lies in the adoption of secular, liberal (constitutional) politics by the Muslims. The fault in this scenario rests, with the clergy and its wrong interpretations of Islam for their own political gains. Constitutionalism and the politics based upon it, would solve the vast majority of the problems in the Islamic world and it would not only prevent Islam’s spoilage at the hands of politics, but will also greatly help in the preservation of Islam as one of the world’s great religion. This option, should it be utilized, would immensely benefit the Islamic world in creating an international image of itself on the very basis of what Islam proclaims and proudly stands for: peace, respect, tolerance, justice, progress, and enlightenment. Muslim constitutional politics would not only protect these ideals, but will also ensure their most equitable implementation unlike the arbitrary whims associated, with a theocratic politics.

Islam and its benefits to the humanity are too priceless and too invaluable to be judged only as a sum of politics. In this sense, the solution towards the revitalization of Islam as a religion of peace and tolerance lies through a choice, which all Muslims have to accept and there is no other alternative to this choice, if the only thing which matters to the Muslims of the world is Islam and its glory. If Muslims prefer the gains of political power and they wish to use and malign Islam for this purpose, then out of a common decency, they should stop pretending to act in the name of Islam, and they should be prepared to answer for their acts before the final Bar of Judgment.