News Review 14/11/2020

Trump and the US Transition

The continuing transition issues in America, with US President Donald Trump still refusing to acknowledge that he has lost the general election and that his opponent Joe Biden is now the President Elect, is a consequence not so much of the breakdown of the system itself. The US electoral system has always been like this, deliberately designed with built-in ambiguities, in order to provide ‘fail-safes’ for the establishment to intervene where necessary, such as the electoral college. But the real difference this time is the deep polarization in the American electorate. Donald Trump has received the highest number of votes in American history for a losing candidate. In fact, at more than 70 million votes, he has received more than every President has won before Biden, who received 75 million votes. Political leaders in America are hesitant to criticize Trump for fear of offending the vast numbers of people who voted for him.

Increasing political polarization is not unique to America but is generally witnessed wherever liberal democracy is practiced. This is because rulers must go repeatedly to the polls, and so ensure that they maintain a sizeable voting base. The easiest way to do that is to build a partisan core within the electorate. Trump has exemplified this approach, continuously nurturing his base throughout his four years, but all democratic leaders do this to a degree. Naturally over time the inevitable result is deep partisanship within the electorate. Islam avoids partisanship by having the Khalifah (caliph) elected only once, that too in a simple three-day window that leaves no time to mount a strong partisan endeavour. In fact, a candidate’s strongest chance of winning is by appealing to everyone.

Azerbaijan, Morocco, Libya, Yemen

In news from the Muslim world, Russia has finally arranged a settlement between Armenia and Azerbaijan, after Azerbaijan was able to take back some but not all territory captured by Armenia in 1994. Last week this review stated that the continuation of hostilities indicated that America wanted a change on the ground. With this now complete, the settlement has taken place. In fact, Muslims are more than capable of not only taking the entire of Nagorno-Karabakh but even all of Armenia, which is a non-Muslim state established on Muslim land. But the Azeris stopped after minimal gains because our governments only fight when America permits, and stop fighting when America so instructs.

Morocco has launched a military operation against the Polisario Front, a pro-independence movement that has been fighting Morocco’s annexation of a part of the Western Sahara in 1975. The present Muslim countries, hastily delineated in the aftermath of colonialism, lack political legitimacy or even governance capacity, a Western scheme superimposed onto lands that were previously ruled by Islam.

The warring sides in Libya agreed on Friday to hold elections at the end of 2021. Muslim countries never really achieved independence from colonial control; independence simply opened their countries to Western imperial rivalry, with the Americans coming to dominate more and more countries of the world. North Africa is just across the Mediterranean from Europe and has been more difficult for the Americans to access. But by employing Russia and Turkey in Libya, as it had done previously in Syria, the Americans have managed to dominate all sides of the Libyan conflict, and so it is expected that whatever the results of those elections it is fully American interests that will be served.

American interests in Yemen are slowly advancing also with the capture of strategic locations providing access to the provincial capital of Marib by Houthi forces fighting against the government of Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi. As with Libya, the Americans have refrained from introducing their own forces and are instead using agents on both sides of the conflict to take control from the government, which was loyal to Britain. The Saudis are ostensibly on the side of the government of Yemen, just as Turkey is ostensibly on the side of the Libyan government. But their purpose is only to weaken the government and build a final settlement that favours America alone.

Islam in Europe

According to the Foreign Policy website, it is Austria, not France that is leading the crackdown against Muslims in Europe. Al Jazeera reports that Chancellor Sebastian Kurz told reporters, “we are going to create a criminal offence called ‘political Islam’ in order to move against those who aren’t terrorists but are preparing the ground for it”. A number of other measures are being announced also, including simplifying the procedures for closing mosques and associations, and instituting ‘preventive detentions’ or as Kurz put it “we will make it possible to lock those people in order to protect the public”.

After the fall of Andalus, half a millennium ago, the Christian rulers in contradiction to commitments they had made steadily ramped up their oppression of the Muslim population until Muslims either fled, were forced to convert Christianity, or were killed, many of whom were killed even after conversion under the institution of the Spanish Inquisition. At that time, the leadership in the Muslim world was in transition, and the initial Ottoman rulers were not yet powerful enough to fully come to the defence of Muslims, despite making effort for this.

With Allah’s permission, the Muslim Ummah shall soon arise and re-establish the righteous Islamic Khilafah (Caliphate) State on the method of the Prophet (saw) that shall revive the Islamic way of life, reunify all Muslim lands, liberate our occupied territories and carry the light of Islam to the entire world, ensuring that the malicious disbelievers are unable to harm even a single Muslim living amongst them, so that the Muslims of Europe will have the fate not of Andalus but of Makkah where support built for Islam even before its liberation by the Prophet (saw), enabling a near peaceful transition of power from disbelief to Islam.