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MPs Expenses Scandal: HTB letter to non-Muslim commentators |
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Leaflets
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Saturday, 23 May 2009 |
 The MPs’ Expenses Crisis May 2009
The accursed power which stands on Privilege
(And goes with Women, and Champagne, and Bridge)
Broke—and Democracy resumed her reign:
(Which goes with Bridge, and Women and Champagne).
Hilaire Belloc - “On a General Election” - 1906
For over two centuries, western politicians told the rest of the world that representative democracy was the greatest political model that had ever been created. For decades they said that their values were universal and should be aspired to by the rest of mankind. In the years after 9/11 governments in Washington and London used democracy as a pretext for fighting wars from Baghdad to Kandahar.
But today, in the ‘mother of all Parliaments’, liberal democracy has been exposed as little better than a banana republic, usurped by a narrow elite to exploit the masses under the guise of representative government. Westminster democracy looks remarkably similar to sub-Saharan Africa and MP’s claims for dry rot and horse manure are, perhaps, appropriate metaphors for this sorry saga.
The belated apologies look empty, particularly when preceded by the excuse that these expenses were ‘within the rules’. Now, British politicians who see their political world crashing down are desperately scrambling to make cosmetic changes instead of tackling the underlying causes of the modern political system. But thus far, their vain attempts to restore credibility are to be pitied more than admired.
But it is our contention that this exposure of collective dishonour - this collapse of confidence in the political class - is merely a symptom of a deeper ideological problem. We hope to illustrate this and to contrast it with Islam’s alternative outlook.
A Crisis in Ideology
This crisis is part of a much wider ideological demise. The common link between this political scandal, the economic disaster, the war in Iraq and a failed social model are the values of capitalism. Excess, greed, individualism and materialism are the fruits of capitalism and its failed value system. Just as ‘greedy bankers’ have become the face of the disaster Capitalists, ‘hoodies’ have become the face of ‘Broken Britain’, Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib are seen as the western commitment to Universal Human Rights, so corrupt MPs have become the face of the democratic deceit. Secular, liberal, capitalist states are all suffering to a lesser or greater extent from this ideological decay. The economic collapse is certainly the most far reaching and is set to make victims not only of ordinary citizens in western societies, but on the world’s poor who were once promised that Capitalism would make poverty history. But the other facets of the west’s way of life are no less disastrous or any less deceitful in their promises.
These dishonourable members merely reflect a wider crisis of values in society. What they have done, and rightly been condemned for, is not very different to those now infamous greedy bankers. But it is also not dissimilar in essence to the ordinary bloke completing his tax return, or fiddling expenses at work, though of a markedly different scale.
It is the near total separation of God from collective life that has left society to be dominated by material values. ‘WIFM’ – ‘what’s in it for me’ is the fundamental question people ask themselves, and not how will I be judged on my behaviour. Western society has virtually confined all values bar material ones to the home and the private space. When such values are relegated to the peripherals of society when success and failure is judged purely by the wealth that you have, the value of your house and what you materially own, is there any wonder that politicians behave like they do, no matter where in the world one lives.
The Islamic ethos ensures that society is more evenly balanced between material, moral, humanitarian and spiritual values. Politicians have to have a strong foundation rooted in values which are strongly correlated with helping the needs of their citizens. It is, in the end, only an atmosphere of God-consciousness that can ensure that every penny they earn should be made transparent to ensure that even the appearance of corruption is even challenged.
An Isolated Episode?
This expenses scandal is far from an isolated aberration in the democratic system. Election rigging in local councils, cash for questions, cash for amending legislation and loans for peerages are all examples in the UK alone. The alleged attempted sale of a Senate seat in the USA was a similar shocking episode. It could be argued that in America the political class sold out some time ago to special interest groups - so much so that Washington DC has become a byword for organised and institutionalised corruption. India, considered by many to be the largest democracy, is also considered to be the most corrupt. Politicians at both federal and state level have been milking the country dry since partition in 1947. Israel is touted as the only democracy in the Middle East. Yet what does it say about its government when a former President is being tried for rape and the ex-Prime Minister investigated for corruption. To cap it all, recent democratic elections in Kenya, Zimbabwe and Pakistan have all yielded corrupt results, and Russia’s conversion to democracy has produced an oligarchy.
So the problem is far deeper than a few greedy MPs and the image of liberal democracy around the world is far from the ideal it was once held to be. People just don’t believe in it like they used to and are looking for an alternative.
Money and Politics don’t mix well
People always say never mix religion and politics. But the western cocktail of money and politics has caused huge problems in personal behaviour, in society’s values and in global peace and security. The Islamic system would take the money out of modern politics. The electoral circus every four or five years (every two years in the United States) in the west positively encourages the growth of money in politics forcing politicians to either raise tawdry amounts of money for re-election or maximise their own wealth before they get booted out. The Islamic system though not immune from the temptations on offer seeks to actively detach both finance and the interests of corporations from politics. Whereas capitalism and democracies are fused at the hip in the west, so creating a class of politicians who are either personally corrupt or beholden to a corporate class, no such influence is permitted in an Islamic political model where strong restrictions surrounding relationships and influence are in force. The Islamic economic system is also the complete antithesis to the capitalist economy, putting the problems of the ordinary man over big business. A Khilafah state is the only vehicle to establish this Islamic political system and today provides a unique opportunity to show that there is a better way to manage politics. The Muslim world, when it implemented Islam in its politics, was a giant in global affairs, led in science, prosperity, healthcare and helped Europe emerge from its dark ages.
Tried and trusted in the Muslim world
The Islamic political model is tried and trusted, it balances the material instincts of individuals with strong spiritual values, it makes accountability the key tenet of its political system and obliges every citizen to participate actively, it promotes political service while not forgetting that society’s greatest wealth is its values and beliefs and that politicians without values are like ships without water. The Shariah rules on politics are fixed and cannot be so easily manipulated. They build a culture of accounting the ruler by the ordinary citizen, political parties, elected assemblies and by the judiciary itself. It puts no one above the law and does not exempt politicians from paying taxes or from prosecution.
The Umayyad Caliph Umar bin Abdul Aziz (717-730) once said "Rulers usually appoint people to watch over their subjects. I appoint you a watcher over me and my behaviour. If you find me at fault in word or action guide me and stop me from doing it." This was an institutionalised mechanism of accountability, but his personal God-consciousness was such that it is said that he would put out a candle which was fuelled by money from the treasury even if someone busied him asking about his personal well-being.
The combination of values and rules in Islam made a political culture where the first Caliph Abu Bakr once said: “after my death hand over to Umar (his successor) this milk-camel and dish which were given to me on account of my Khilafah (Caliphate).” They were not to be inherited as part of his personal estate.
What we need today is fresh thinking, not another model of capitalism or some diluted set of reforms. It is a system so bankrupt that the world needs radical new alternatives, intertwined with new values. This is the essence of the Islamic alternative.
إِنَّا أَنزَلْنَا عَلَيْكَ الْكِتَابَ لِلنَّاسِ بِالْحَقِّ
Allah (swt) informs: “Verily we have revealed the book to you in truth for instructing mankind.” [39:41]
Hizb ut-Tahrir
Britain
22st Jumad al Awwal 1430
17th May 2009
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