News & Comment
True independence can only be achieved by freeing our minds from the systems and laws forced upon us by the West

News

Malaysia will be celebrating its 59th year of independence from the British rule on August 31. History records that the colonization of Malaysia (known formerly as Malaya) began in 1511 when the Portuguese attacked Malacca and since then the country was alternately occupied by the Dutch and the British until independence in 1957. After the Portuguese, Malaya fell to the Dutch in 1641. The Dutch and the British alternately ruled Malaya until it finally fell again into the hands of the British in 1824 after the Anglo-Dutch agreement. In 1941, the country fell into the hands of Japan, the Japanese surrendered in 1945.

Malaya was then back into the hands of British colonial rule until independence in 1957. The British colonization had no doubt left deep wounds to the country and to Muslims in particular, whom, until today, have not fully recovered. The British did not only occupy Malaya for the purpose of controlling the wealth of the country. More importantly, the British wished to dominate the people of Malaya by imprinting its way of life and its systems of law into the Malaysian society. They, sadly, have succeeded in doing so.

Comment

Each year Independence Day is celebrated, speeches are most definitely be given by political leaders who criticize the younger generation that they do not understand the meaning of independence, that they have failed to appreciate the meaning and spirit of true independence. What is clear is that with the same old celebration, the masses are fed up with the rhetoric played by the government in this issue. As citizens, celebration means nothing when their lives continue to be strangled by the increasing cost of goods and services and the constant fettering of various taxes, toll, legal injustice, economic imbalances, corruption and malpractices in the government. These are in reality, manifestations of the legacy left by the British colonizers.

The British brought democracy and bequeathed this wretched system to the people of Malaysia. Cunningly, this infidel invader managed to shape the public opinion that democracy is a good system, if not the best, for the people. Not only common people have been taken in by this; even the scholars and intellectuals have spent their lives praising the ‘virtues’ of democracy! In fact, they don’t just simply agree to maintain this Kufr system, they went even further in searching for ‘evidences’ that support their opinion and keeping a blind eye to evidences that go against their opinion. The British may have given independence to Malaysia but the Federal Constitution and the legal system are inherited and still practiced in Malaysia. Colonialism is now carried out through a new style of domination - control over politics, economy, culture, education, technology and thinking.

Nevertheless, whether it is new or old colonialism, the goal remains the same: to exploit the wealth of the region and subjecting it to Western hegemony and to control the minds of the population of the region, particularly the Muslims in their attempt to alienate and contain them. We see how the leaders and most Muslims are still unable to get out of the clutches of democracy. Democracy is unfortunately perceived to be a "religion" that is universally accepted and defended by humanity. In democracy, sovereignty is in the hands of men, rather than in the hands of Sharia. Legislatures create laws and determine what can and cannot be done by people. They prescribe all forms of punishment, economic system, education policy, and foreign policy. They levy taxes at will and allow usury, stocks, insurance, gambling, vice activities and many other haram things. It is they who set the rules on who can and cannot convey Islam and arrest and prosecute da’wah carriers. In short, they have full authority to determine what is halal and what is haram. This is in contradiction to Islam, where the right to make laws is only for Allah (swt).

قُلْ إِنِّي عَلَىٰ بَيِّنَةٍ مِنْ رَبِّي وَكَذَّبْتُمْ بِهِ مَا عِنْدِي مَا تَسْتَعْجِلُونَ بِهِ إِنِ الْحُكْمُ إِلَّا لِلَّهِ يَقُصُّ الْحَقَّ وَهُوَ خَيْرُ الْفَاصِلِينَ

“Say (O Muhammad SAW): ‘I am on clear proof from my Lord (Islamic Monotheism), but you deny (the truth that has come to me from Allah). I have not gotten what you are asking for impatiently (the torment). The decision is only for Allah, He declares the truth, and He is the Best of judges.’” [TMQ Al-An'am (6): 57].

Muslims must emancipate their minds and reject non-Islamic ideas from dominating them. Islam is an ideology based on divine revelation and must not be confused with man-made ideologies. As long as the minds of Muslims are trapped within the framework of Western thoughts, they have yet to achieve independence in the true sense. Independence is essential for Muslims and this can only be realized when Muslims are free from all forms of colonialism, exploitation and slavery to fellow human beings, especially in terms of thinking. This can only be realized if Muslims reject the kufr way of life and thinking and replace them with the way of life and thinking of Islam based on the Quran and al-Sunnah. It is through this independent mind, inshaAllah, that Muslims will achieve true independence. This will lead, inshaAllah, to the freeing of Muslim countries from the clutches of the West, the elimination of the Western systems and re-establishment of Islam under the Daulah al-Khilafah "Caliphate" al-Rashidah ‘ala Minhaj an-Nubuwwah.

Written for the Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir by
Dr. Mohammad – Malaysia