Political Islam and the problem of legitimacy in the modern world
In the name of the All-Merciful and All-Merciful Lord! After 1945, after two world wars, a secular (secular) world order was finally established in the world, which established a new political norm of legitimacy, according to which a political regime will be condemned as illegitimate if it does not fit into the general world liberal structure. If the regime is built into it, then it will be considered legitimate even if it is led by scoundrels. This norm is secularism. What is secularism? This is not only a simple separation of religion from the state, which is not atheism squared away. We believe that secularism is the incorporation of religion as an institution into the world system, in which religion loses its essence as a means of salvation. So, for example, the Vatican became simply one of the builders of world society and nothing more. This formulation of the question makes absolutely impossible any compromise of the liberal world order with Islam as a political subject, because Islam is the only force that insists on the objective nature of the Spirit, the objective essence of religion, which cannot be simply a part of the world system artificially created by the Tower of Babel, but exists independently and outside of it. When the question is posed in this way, no discussion between the liberal world order and Islam can take place, because the liberal world order cannot understand and accept Islam as the essence of a religious worldview.
Humanity is now in a state of deep crisis, political and economic. There are two main reasons for this crisis. The first reason is that 80% of humanity does not agree with the liberal understanding of the meaning of life, does not agree with the liberal world order existing de facto, does not agree with the fact that they are part of this order. This 80% is the humiliated and disenfranchised “world street”. The crisis is growing and many of those who can now be classified as middle class are in danger of being pushed out onto the “world street”, to the sidelines of the historical process; the growth of poverty and the growth of the crisis will mutually influence and mutually increase each other. Let’s give some numbers: in 1970, when the USSR was at the zenith of its power, 1% of humanity, the ruling class, owned 20% of the world’s wealth, today this 1% owns 90% of the world’s wealth. So that in 40-50 years, with the west and subsequent collapse of the USSR, the ruling elites took so much wealth, such a significant part of economic resources, which is 5-6 times greater than what was two generations ago.
But this is only one side of the crisis. The other side is that the liberal world order is emerging everywhere and is asserting itself, including through military means. The liberal order does not accept the position of Muslims and seeks to deprive them of their identity. Muslims try to resist and the world order punishes them for it. Now there are no longer conversations about the ethics of the methods used – a generation ago, during my youth, Muslim resistance was called anti-colonial struggle, but now it is terrorism and extremism. The liberal order has created a brand of “Islamic threat” or “Islamofascism” through which Islam will be demonized. And this brand puts Muslims in the position of those who make excuses, those who ask for forgiveness, that is, the liberal order stands in an active position, in the role of a judge. If this status quo is maintained, the Islamic Ummah cannot become a political entity.
What should we Muslims do? I think it is obvious – we must become an example for these 80% of humiliated, displaced people from history and be the vanguard in their fight against the world system. Without the involvement of all protest forces in the struggle, we will not be able to regain the political legitimacy we had 90 years ago. See how Islam has been limited and demonized in the 90 years since the elimination of the Caliphate! The caliphate is absolutely unacceptable to the liberal world, because it makes the Ummah a political player. Therefore, we must become a leading part of all protest forces, and not just a denomination closed to problems of people who do not belong to it. After the leftist forces have left the political scene, after Marxism has become a joke, only Political Islam can be the force that will lead humanity to triumph over liberal Satanism!
Heydar Jemal