News Review 20/03/2021

UK Government Integrated Review: Britain Isolated

This week, the UK government published its “Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy” setting out elements of Britain’s latest international thinking and described by Prime Minister Boris Johnson as “the largest review of its kind since the Cold War”.

Following the Brexit disaster, Britain has been forced to re-evaluate its place in the world and its posture with respect to the world’s other great powers. Always seeking to surround itself with allies and work through manipulating others, not only have Britain’s critical relationships with other European countries been severely weakened but Britain has also become less significant in American eyes as a consequence. Hence, the Integrated Review sets out planning for significantly strengthening Britain’s position as a great power, making it once more attractive and important for its fellow Western powers. Key elements of the review are designed to appeal to other powers, such as the focus on leveraging science and technology for defence purposes or establishing a space command, which plays to traditional British strengths. The emphasis on Russia as the immediate proximate threat accords with standard British policy to balance Europe and Russia as well as positioning Britain to take leadership over Europe in this. Boris Johnson has previously talked of wanting to make Britain “the foremost naval power in Europe”. And the Pacific oriented initiatives are intended both to preserve British influence in south-east Asia as well as make it important to America in its confrontation with China. The review also reverses Britain previous policy of reducing the number of its nuclear missiles, and recommits itself to a strong international ‘aid’ budget.

The never-ending rivalry within the great powers, particularly the Western powers amongst themselves, is a permanent source of political instability in the international arena. With Allah’s permission, the Muslim Ummah shall soon re-establish the righteous Khilafah (Caliphate) State on the method of the Prophet (saw) that shall confront, contain and calm the world’s great powers, as the Khilafah State did before over its long thousand years of history, building peace, harmony and prosperity across the globe.

Pakistan, Turkey

The Pakistani leadership have made statements in this week renewing their interest in peace with India, while neglecting the Indian occupied territory of Kashmir. Prime Minister Imran Khan said, “We are trying, but India would have to take the first step”, while Army Chief Bajwa said, “it is time to bury the past” with India. It was the British that transferred Kashmir to India when they gave India independence and the Americans now are following the same policy in support of their agent, the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The Pakistani leadership are agents of American foreign policy, and it is America that has instructed them to again begin diplomatic moves towards India. America needs to strengthen India in order to use it as a balance against China. And Pakistan’s rulers, as is the case with all Muslim rulers today, serve only the Western agenda and care nothing for the affairs of Muslims. The present Muslim ruling class has capitulated completely to the Western design. They have neither the vision nor the will to build a policy that is independent of their Western masters. But with Allah’s permission, the Muslim Ummah shall soon pledge themselves to sincere, aware, ideological leadership, for it is only such leadership that can provide an alternate to the insidious, malevolent, disbelieving Western imperialist programme.

Turkey has removed itself from a Council of Europe Convention on Women’s Rights that it had itself hosted in Istanbul in 2011 and had been the first to sign. But in recent years Erdogan has come under increased domestic pressure to exit the convention, which is based on the Western notions of women’s rights and stands in complete contradiction to the Islamic view. Originally, the Christian West copied the idea of rights from Islam but the domination of pagan materialists in the West resulted in the idea of rights being reshaped in accordance with materialist notions of determinist individualism. The materialists see no purpose in the family or familial obligations and hence their idea of freedom means cancelling duties and obligations of men and women towards each other. The Christian West, unable to defeat materialism, instead compromised with it by adopting a secular creed; with time the West also adopted the materialist ideas of freedom and democracy that have been continuously eroding religious concepts and values, including the institution of the family. The West is in uproar over Turkey’s decision. Reuters refers to “calls from campaigners who see the pact as key to combating rising domestic violence”. But it is well known that violence against women in Muslim countries is much, much less than it is in the West, and whatever rise has occurred is because of the erosion of Islamic norms in Muslim societies by the influence of Western culture. The adoption of conventions such as that of the Council of Europe will only serve to worsen violence against women. What Muslims need to ask is why Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan hosted and signed the convention in the first place. Clearly, despite the aura of sincerity to Islam that he tries to portray, he is fully committed to secularism in Turkey, unable, as with all other Muslim rulers today, to see any alternative to a world order fully dominated by the West.