Overthrowing Tyrannical Regimes Is A Must For Muslims
07 December 2013
By Khalid Amayreh in occupied Palestine
There is no doubt that enduring political tyranny is
the fundamental root-cause of the many ills plaguing
the Arab world from Morocco to Bahrain. Hence, it is
essential that this tyranny be eradicated if the
estimated 300 million Arabs will have any real hope
for a better tomorrow.
We all know that there is not a single Arab country
that really enjoys any real semblance of democracy,
perhaps with the exception of Lebanon, a country with
35 religious sects and denominations which have
maintained an uneasy and often bloody coexistence
since independence in the mid 1940s.
Some Arab regimes have succeeded in bribing their
often politically-unconscious masses into submission
and pacification by granting them hefty financial
inducements. But life is more than just eating and
mating, and people in some of these oil-rich countries
are beginning to ask the hard questions the despotic
dynastic rulers have always dreaded.
In other countries, especially the so-called
republics, the comparatively more tyrannical regimes
continue to employ the same stale nationalistic
rhetoric which the masses have been hearing ad nauseam
and got fed up with for many decades.
The stale slogans include, inter alia, references to
western imperialism, Zionism, capitalism and
reactionary forces. Indeed, ever since the end of the
Second World War, any Arab daring to demand basic
human rights and civil rights from the tyrannical
regimes and ruling juntas has been automatically
charged with collaboration with Israel or being an
agent for Capitalistic or imperialistic forces.
Numerous prominent Arab intellectuals and thinkers
were executed on concocted charges. We all remember
the great Egyptian Islamic thinker Sayed Qutb as an
outstanding example of the victims of Gamal Abdul
Nasser's tyranny.
Nasser, undoubtedly a charismatic autocrat, tried to
create a false Arab religion, comprising a combination
of socialism and anti-Islam Arab nationalism. As we
all know, this religion died an ignominious death in
1967 when Israel defeated Egypt, Syria and Jordan and
seized the remainder of Palestine, including the Aqsa
Mosque, as well as the Egyptian Sinai Peninsula and
the Syrian Golan Heights.
We should also remember the fact that a few months
before that fateful war, the atheistic Baath party
declared the "end of Islam" when one of its leading
officials, Ibrahim Makhos, wrote in the Syrian army
magazine, Jayshu Shab (or the people's army) that
"Allah, religion and morality ought to be viewed as
mere mummies in the museum of history."!
Similarly, Gamal Abdul Nasser was declared as the
"last Arab prophet," although he was responsible for
the greatest Arab defeat since the Crusades seized
Jerusalem in 1099.
The reason for this historical background is to remind
readers that the current Arab regimes are mere
"extensions" -in every conceivable respect- of past
regimes in Cairo and Damascus. For example, Gen. Abdul
Fattah al-Sisi, the mass murderer who ordered his
henchmen to open fire indiscriminately on peaceful
protesters at Rabaa, openly claims he is a political
incarnation of Nasser.
Similarly, Bashar el-Assad, the Hitler of Syria who
didn't hesitate to exterminate his own people with
deadly chemical weapons, says he is following the
footsteps of his father Hafez el-Assad, the cursed
tyrant who murdered tens of thousands of innocent
Syrians in Hama and who is widely believed to have
ceded the Golan Heights to Israel in 1967 when he was
commander-in-chief of the Syrian army.
Criminals par excellence
The secular Arab media, much of which is vehemently
hostile to Islam, keeps referring to Islamists and
other free-minded individuals taking part in the
current revolutions in both Syria and Egypt as
"terrorists."
However, a thorough examination of outstanding facts
would reveal that the true terrorists are the regimes,
not their opponents.
In fact, there are numerous damn reasons justifying
and even necessitating revolution against these
nefarious regimes from the religious, moral, human and
political perspectives.
In the following paragraphs, I will present some of
the hard-pressing reasons making revolution a must.
First, some of these regimes, such as in Syria, have
been shamelessly trying to change the religion of 90%
of Syrians-from Islam to Godless secularism or
heretical Shiism (whereby Ali Bin abi Taleb is
worshipped as God incarnate).
Indeed, on every occasion, spokesmen and mouthpieces
of the Syrian regime boast of being the guardians of
secularism in the Arab world. By making the false
claim, they hope to obtain a certificate of good
conduct from the West, especially in the aftermath of
9/11 events in the US, when west governments became
more allergic to anything Islamic.
Well, true secularism means freedom of religion, first
and foremost. It also implies, as in the U.S.,
protection of religion from government interference.
But in Syria and Egypt, this is not the case as
everyone working in the mosques and Islamic affairs
ministries -from the lowest ranking employee to the
cabinet Minister- is appointed by the Intelligence
apparatus. In Egypt, the Sheikh of Azhar must be
answerable to the tyrant ruling to the country. This
was amply evident in the absolute and unequivocal
support and backing of the Sheikh of Azhar to the
bloody coup against the only democratically-elected
president in Egypt's history.
This means that religion is manipulated by the
government as religious officials must always be loyal
to the regime, not to Islam or to God. This explains
the fact the official religious establishment in Egypt
and Syria as well as other Arab countries are siding
with the manifestly evil and murderous regimes,
although it is manifestly clear from the Islamic
perspective that many of these regimes are apostates.
Second, in Syria and Egypt, one has to be a member of
an atheistic or secular party in order to practice his
political rights. The new Egyptian Constitution, being
prepared by secular fanatics handpicked by the
murderous military junta, allows for the formation of
political parties based on atheism, secularism, even
sexual perversion but not on Islam. This happens in a
country whose constitution stipulates in its second
article that Islam is "state religion."
And in Syria, which also proclaims Islam as state
religion, anyone convicted of affiliation with an
Islamist political party is executed before a firing
squad. But this doesn't prevent the regime from
claiming that Syria is the most democratic country
under the sun.
Third, the secular but fascist regimes legalize and
encourage every conceivable violation of the Islamic
faith, including gambling, prostitution, usury, media
promiscuity and atheism. Indeed, it is well known that
while religious people are refused admission into
numerous jobs and occupations, atheists and
unreligious people are readily accepted into the army,
air-force, intelligence and other "sensitive" fields.
In fact, in Syria, and ever since the Baathist coupe
of 1963, only Alawites and non-Muslims are accepted in
high-ranking jobs in the security apparatuses. In some
cases, Sunnis are accepted as a cover-up. However
these Sunnis are stripped of any real authority or
power.
One Syrian official intimated to this writer that even
an Alawhite janitor in any given ministry in Syria has
more real power than a Sunni cabinet minister.
Fourth, the ruling regimes in most Arab countries are
decidedly anti-democratic. In fact, Arab regimes and
democracy cannot be used in the same sentence. They
are an eternal oxymoron. Indeed, the highest strategy
of any Arab state is to keep the current regime in
power. Every other consideration is subservient to
that strategy.
Sometimes, some of these regimes are forced to
organize elections, mainly under foreign pressure. But
before they embark on holding the elections, they
promulgate draconian laws designed to maximize the
chances of success for anti-Islam secular candidates
and/or regime supporters, and minimize the chances of
the Islamists.
And in case the Islamists win despite all the odds and
hurdles as happened in Egypt in 2012, the regimes, or
the deep state apparatus ( e.g. the justice system),
resort to canceling the elections altogether for
"technical or procedural reasons."
The reason the elections results are cancelled is
simple. These people are infinitely corrupt. They are
big thieves to say the very least. Hence, they are
really worried that any clean government which might
arise as a result of the democratic process would put
them behind bars and recover the millions of dollars
that they have embezzled.
Hence, they follow the adage "let us eat them for
lunch before they eat us for dinner."
Real Conflict
The real conflict in the Arab world is not between
Islam and secularism, although secularism is not part
of Islam as there is no real separation between mosque
and state.
The real conflict is actually between fascism, which
often dons a secular attire, and democracy. The
problem for the fascists is that they can't allow true
democracy to take root in their countries for two main
reasons.
First, a true democracy would overthrow the tyrants
sooner or later, forcing them to lose their grip on
power and privileges, especially the huge thefts they
amassed at the expense of the people.
Second, a true democracy would sooner or later bring
the Islamists to the fore.
Hence, the most "reasonable option" for these fascists
is to seek alliance with pseudo-liberals, leftists,
and religious minorities on the ground that the
Islamists are their "common enemy."
To conclude, the Islamists have every right under the
sun to revolt against these criminal and bankrupt
regimes. Indeed, the Islamists are damn correct in
claiming that their very religion (Islam) is at stake
especially if these regimes are allowed to linger
unopposed and unchallenged.
Khalid Amayreh is an
American-educated journalist living in al-Khalil in
occupied Palestine.
©
EsinIslam.Com
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