What would you do if you lived in a despotic state?

Imagine our government in the UK stole the natural resources and pocketed it, the family members of the government lived the high life of excess and opulence and they run a state based on nepotism and cronyism and the entire civil service was deeply immersed in corruption. You couldn’t even get a birth certificate or train ticket without having to pay a huge bribe to every tear of civil servants. Imagine you were stripped off your basic freedom and civil liberties, your loved ones were locked up for peaceful political activities and being members of the opposition parties, your friends and family members were being kidnapped and disappeared without a trace and political prisoners were incarcerated without any legal recourse for years? What would you do? Muslims in Muslim majority countries face these atrocious conditions on a regular basis, what should they do?

Today wherever we turn our eyes, from Indonesia to Mauritania and from Uzbekistan to Kenya, we witness a constant and deafening lamentation of the Muslims – Muslims who are living in Muslim majority countries are in a state of total meltdown and disarray. Some people are extremely angry and some are living a life of total despondency, some are desperately poor sinking even further into poverty and some living under decades of occupation, war, illegitimate governments and repression. What would you do if generations of your family had lived under such conditions? What should the Muslims in the Muslim majority countries do when faced with these terrible conditions?

There are the ruling class fighting tooth and nail to keep the status quo and retain the state coffer’s funds to maintain their life of fun and frolics, these elite ruling class never even think twice in using the state apparatus including the police and army to remain in power at all cost! There are those who are fighting for real change but not really going very far. They are involved in political change through the ballot boxes but ballot boxes are rigged and the same bunch of crooks and criminals remain in power. They rob their nations in broad day light while keeping a fake and shameless façade for the rest of the world to see. There are those who have chosen guns and bombs for a quick revolution to end their decades and generations of subjugation. The consequence is devastating but the same! No change under any circumstances. Whichever way you look the picture is dreadfully bleak and acutely depressing. There seems no future ahead for the Muslim world! If you were living under such condition and our government in the UK did the same what would you do? What should the Muslims in the Muslim majority countries do?

Any time the Muslim masses try to break free from these desperate situations they are catapulted even deeper into the quicksand of more misery and more repression. They have suffered at the hands of these tyrants for decades and the fact that they are not finding any way out is driving some to resort to extremes measures. They live under constant state of fear and uncertainty. When they leave home in the morning they have no guarantee of returning and when they seek opportunities to keep their families alive they have no prospects – the doors are shut! They don’t even earn a pound day! What should these people do?

Our governments in the West happily sell weapons to these despots, fill their armory with bullets, bombs, missiles, security apparatus, crowd control devices, sophisticated intelligence equipment, eavesdropping and spying machines and advance technology in exchange for favourable trade deals, endless oil and gas supplies, building and manufacturing contracts etc. What the Muslims masses in those Muslim majority countries get in return is further repression by the brutal authoritarians regimes in their respective countries! What should the Muslims in Muslim majority countries do under such circumstances?

Our leaders wine and dine with ruthless monarchs and build friendship with prince and princesses. Our former prime ministers are appointed as special advisors and consultants to these dictatorships. Our government’s close friends get kickbacks for the smooth introductions and sweet words in the form of privileges and some of them are even given peerages to sit at the House of Lords, the most important second chamber in our parliamentary democracy in the UK. We are told our government is happy to pursue an unethical foreign policy because it is all in our national interest! The message we give to the illegitimate rulers of the Muslim world is that they can carry on doing their ruthless work as long as the West gets financial benefits. What should the Muslims in Muslim majority countries do?

I have seen the rampant poverty that has been imposed on the majority of the people of the world especially in the Muslim majority countries. Take a minute to imagine the following real life and daily experience of people in the Muslim world: the poor farmers in the plains of the river Nile in Sudan and Egypt farming for little or no return, the hardworking manual labourers in the construction sites of the Middle East breaking their backs to construct buildings of luxury and richness while not even getting paid for for months, the daily humiliation and poverty suffered by Palestinians at the hands of the Western project called the Zionist state of Israel, the rickshaw drivers in Bangladesh ferrying people around for pennies, the millions of jobless and hapless Afghans loitering the streets of their war ravaged country, the ordinary Pakistani masses caught up between the powerful land owners, military and governing elite on one side and religious fanatics on the other, the desperate children begging in the streets of Nigeria pleading for a bite to eat and the orphan children of the Gambia picking scraps from the rubbish tips just to survive! What would you do if the above-mentioned experiences were a reality in the West today? What should the Muslims in the Muslim majority countries do?

These are real and everyday experience of people living in Muslim majority countries. While we live in luxury and life of excess and wastefulness a child dies every 20 seconds due to lack of food or clean water in the poorest parts of the world! What should the Muslims in the Muslim majority countries do?
Islam is a religion of knowledge, creativity, freedom, moderation, dignity, fairness and justice but todays Muslim world is the total opposite. Surely we should ask ourselves what has gone wrong? A religion steeped in such brilliant principles should not have followers who are demonstrating the opposite. We must ask ourselves what has gone wrong with the Muslims today? It was not that long ago when the golden age of the world was was led by the Muslims but today Muslims are living a miserable age, we must ask ourselves what has gone wrong?

If the Muslims were experiencing what we have in the West today – real freedom, rule of law, economic and educational opportunities and democracy I believe those golden principles of Islam would be visible in the Muslim world. The world would see proliferation of peace and stability. However, for as long as the Muslim world is led by the crooks and criminals and our governments in the West sustain them with unethical foreign policies the true spirit of Muslims would be lost.

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