Third Way: Can Islam Be an Alternative New World Order?
We are living in a global village, but can a global village live without its leadership? Now the world is seriously seeking to replace the old order, which was dominated by the West and America for over two centuries, with a new global world. According to Kishore Mahbubabi, Dean and Professor at the Lee Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore, throughout history the most important geopolitical relationship has been between the world’s greatest power, currently the US, and the world’s greatest emerging power, currently China. But scholars like Mahbubabi have failed to include the rise of an emerging power or way—the Third Way-- as an alternative to the current global system. Islam constitutes a different civilization. It is an entirely different way of looking at the world’s problems and order. For years, the West has avoided the sleeping tiger, but now the tiger is stirring.
A new great game is beginning. Islam is not just a religion; it is a way of life. If the new game between the Muslims and the rest of the world is commencing, we are headed for interesting times, and, to use radio anchors’ popular terms, stay tuned to the future of UMMAH (the National Global Muslim Community) to understand our new world order. There was a time when the West and the United States set about remaking Islam into their own progressive image: fundamentalist, moderate, radical, jihadist, extremist, and militant. The current rise of political Islam in the Arabian countries and the Middle East shows that the West is remaking Islam only in their own mind, so that Western countries already know or do not want to know that the problem in the Muslim world is not about Islamic fundamentalism, poverty, corruption, or democracy; it is about a different civilization, values, and belief in the superiority of its culture over all other civilizations and cultures.
Many Islamic scholars such as Said'i Kurdi, Fethullah Gülen, and others think that the future of the Islamic world has a bearing on world peace and security for it is potentially a serious power. The Islamic world is a great power in terms of its large population. According to The PEW Forum’s mapping of the global Muslim population in its demographic study of more than 200 countries, there are 1.57 billion Muslims of all ages living in the world today, representing the 23% of an estimated 2009 world population of 6.8 billion. Islam is the fastest growing religion around the world. The strategic importance of its lands and rich natural resources from Central Asia to Africa to Fiji, increases as the Islamic world now stretches over a huge area and covers the lands that gave rise to civilizations in history. The regions’ geopolitics, the world’s richest lands, in terms of such strategically important natural resources as oil, gas, gold, and even water located in Muslim countries, as well as the effective use of these resources represent a strategic opportunity for the Muslim world to impact the global world order. Since it must compete with or overshadow democracy to do so, the question again is whether democracy is compatible with Islam and whether Islam is compatible with democracy?
Today the Muslim world has tested democracy. Both Islam and democracy are systems of government or methods of showing people how they can govern themselves and how to live; democracy advocates sovereignty of the people, even though it has so many definitions that it is hard for scholars to devise a single definition of democracy. Whereas, in Islam sovereignty of the people belongs to Allah; in other words, Allah is sovereign and supreme. That’s where the actual problem of disagreement begins because the distinction raises the question of supremacy. Which is supreme? Man or Allah? For Muslims, if you say that men are supreme, then you go back to pre-Islam where the Prophet Mohammed overcame that problem by asking the people to choose between the two. Muslim scholars like Said'i Kurdi, Sayid Kutub, Fethullah Gülen, and others posit that the Western world has gone through several ignorant Jahilayaa periods, the ages of the Enlightenment, the Renaissance, and the French Revolution, as examples of great ignorance that must be overcome. For Said'i Kurdi, the way to overcome this ignorance was for Muslims to advance in every field, especially in science and technology, to prove to the world that Islam and science are compatible.
For Muslims the definition of freedom of expression, social and economic problems, poverty, liberty, human rights, women rights, rights of children, the relationship between wife and husband, and particularly between right and wrong have not been defined by democracy but by the Quran. For Muslims, it is the Quran that gives such definitions. So for Muslims, a man-made system does not have a future and will be short lived. Non-Muslims may argue that Islam is a man-made system since Mohammed was the author, but Muslims dismiss this view saying he was a messenger of Allah. Thus, for them, Islam is an Allah-made system that will live longer because democracy is a recent invention of man, and, consequently, we do not know how long it can last. Historians may point to the Greek democracy in the fourth century BCE, but Muslims associate democracy entirely with the Western world today. Therefore, according to the Muslim view, democracy is not the answer to the current global problems. Further, for Muslims capitalism and communism did not make people happy but instead brought much pain and suffering, so that they believe Islam is the third way to solve human problems, to end suffering, and to bring justice.
Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan rejects that there is moderate Muslim or moderate Islam, claiming, “Islam is Islam; that is it.” Also, the Prime Minister once said, “Democracy is a train so that you can get off when you reach your destination.” Last week the Prime Minister espoused, “Turkey does not want to join the European Union but is willing to join the Shanghai Five Corporations, so the destination for all Muslims supremacists is the implementation of the Islamic way of life and Islamic dominance. What, then, is this the Third Way? The Third Way, embraced by Bill Clinton, Tony Blair, and some European leaders, is a form of benevolent pragmatism, a philosophy that asks of each policy, “Is it good?” The key points of the Third Way are to believe in the values of community, equality of opportunity, and responsibility and accountability. The Third Way sees the state as playing a major role and rejecting a top down approach. It is not merely electoral opportunism but a rational response to new political, social, and economic changes.
Said'i Kurdi, an early twentieth century Islamic scholar who commented extensively on the Quran, thinks for Muslim to be superior to the West, first Muslims must be economically independent from the West; second, they must have military might; third, Muslims must be united to create an Islamic Ummah; and fourth, they must be advanced in science and technology. Furthermore, according to Said’i Kurdi, the more Muslims get away from practicing Islam, the more they become backward and “beggar to West,” because this is the way the West keeps Muslims under colonization by separating them from the Quran, so that the younger generation will not grow spiritually. Now this younger generation is waking up and getting the Quran back into their lives. Yet, what is lacking for Muslims to be the Third Way is unity and a powerful and active Islamic union. That is why Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan wants to have a Turkic Republic Military Union with Central Asian countries. To be sure, we see all the work to move toward Islam being an alternative to a new global world order. The remaining question involves America’s principle of separation church and state, meaning the state is not a religious institution and does not endorse one; and, on the other hand, its principle of religion freedom, allowing individuals to practice a religion according to the dictates of their conscience, a principle protected by the Constitution. In short, the state has no established religion but at the same time encourages freedom for religion that does not denigrate or marginalize a particular religion. The Third Way has already been worked out via Turkey’s Gulenist sect that is supposed to create a Third Way allowing Western style central banking and financial institutions to coexist with Islamic systems, a topic I have addressed in the past. It further is establishing a powerful and unified union based on one ideology. Now this picture becomes clear.
Dr. Aland Mizell is with the University of Mindanao School of Social Science, President of the MCI and a regular contributor to The Kurdistan Tribune, Kurdishaspect.com, Mindanao Times and Kurdish Media.You may email the author at:aland_mizell2@hotmail.com
