Editor’s Note
A year has passed.
In many ways, the changes have been dramatic in that they reflect the stage where hard choices must finally be made. Yet, the vagaries of time have afforded many Muslims a confirmation of their faith. The values they have always believed in seem more important and useful now than ever before, not only for their identity as a separate people but also for their survival and growth in a dynamic and concatenated world, which is now fully poised to challenge their commitment to their religion.
Much is needed to meet that challenge -- at the national and international levels.
There is no doubt that Islam has the ideological foundation to face that challenge and to shatter the aura of indomitability that the new orthodoxies of Western politics and economics have about them. But ideology in itself is not enough. Muslims need to show the strength of their commitment by living out the true meaning of their creed. A fortiori, harsh decisions will need to be made. There should be no doubt left in our minds now that there is hardly any place in the New World Order for a stronger and growing Islam; that it will always be seen as a threat by the West, which, for its own reasons, may choose a few Muslim nations as its allies for brief periods of time, but will never be a true friend to the Ummah1 -- at least not in most occasions of need. The response of the world community to Bosnia, Chechnya, Kashmir and Palestine is a clear testimony to this fact.
Muslims must make a stand for their own goals. They must unite together as one Ummah to bear witness to the truth of their religion. For this purpose, they need clear objectives, viable strategies and strong commitment.
At the national level as well, the path is quite craggy. We can no longer afford vague policies which give preponderance to style over substance. With an abnormal debt burden, mounting debt servicing costs, persistent depreciation of the currency and poor capital formation, we now need concrete, structural changes rather than mere financial adjustments as devaluation and deficit financing. More than that, we need a culture: a culture that promotes entrepreneurship and rewards sincere effort. Values as austerity, education, honesty, lesser concentration of wealth, indigenous enterprise and end of corruption are no longer abstract notions. They are the tangible foundation on which we must build the edifice of a new beginning.
But all this requires sacrifice. If we can’t afford luxury cars, let’s settle down, at least for our personal needs, for ordinary ones. Why can’t a minister ‘ride’ a Suzuki? Why can’t accountability once again mean, as it did in the times of another Farooq (raa) about fourteen hundred years ago, that I, a ‘plebeian’, can go to the ‘patrician’ President Farooq Leghari and ask him where the money for his clothes came from? Why can’t a minister or a governor be dismissed once again for living a life of extravagance and ostentation? Why can’t the management of excessive, under-utilised land be taken away from a feudal landlord who is callous enough in this regard to be categorised as a safih2? Why can’t we break away from the schizophrenia and hypocrisy viz-a-viz our social norms, family values and women’s rights?
We need to challenge old conventions and build new ones. We need the likes of Imran Khan to do exactly that. But the Imran Khans of our society must keep in mind the fact that in Islam the leader of a nation begins change with his ownself. Therefore, most of the positive trends must trickle down from the top. The poor can’t make more sacrifices. They have already been ‘sacrificed’ in the last many years. It is the affluent and the elite who must pave the way.
The road to progress and prosperity may be full of obstacles, but with sincerity and sagacity founded upon belief in Allah and in the truth of the Prophet’s message (sws), it will become clearer -- insha‘Allah.
Let’s pray this Ramadan that the year ahead should become a harbinger of effective change in the right direction.
Editor