Political Islam and its experts [Archives:2006/1009/Community]

By: Kamel Radman
[email protected]
Islam is a religion of more than one billion believers. Its adherents are called Muslims. It is one of the most widespread religions due to its high ethical teachings, which call for peace, justice, and of course, its lack of race prejudice.

But, as in other religions, there are some followers who try to spoil it, and work against its values and principles. And the worst of these followers are the extremists who pervert Islamic principles to gain personal advantage. Thus, they have presented Islam as a religion of terror.

The Muslim shall ask himself: Are these extremists Muslims? Absolutely, they are. But do they represent Islam in the right way? Never! Because what they really do is to propagandize campaigns of the radical views/ideas, the fatwa. The ironic thing is that they claim that they have complete plenipotentiary powers to give a verdict of infidelity to Muslims who do not follow their courses. They believe in religious and authoritive resources which hardly try to decorate their positions in society.

We, in Yemen, do not talk about the Christian clergymen nor the Jewish extremists. We are talking about some radical Islamic groups that recently existed in our country. And they use their own militants to have a major political force in Yemen.

Now, and after they have defeated the moderate Muslims, they have started to fight against what they call the non-Muslim regimes. They presented themselves as the guardians of the true Islam. Amazingly, they argue that corruption and poverty exist in the Muslim countries as God's punishment for not following their direction. They feel happy when they see someone who condemns both cultural activity and press campaigns that call for openness. And they have no shame when they vote for the assassination of those who oppose their ideas, even, if they are Muslims. Consequently, the radicals' campaigns against the intellectual Islamists have gathered thousands of Muslims who were not used yet as political instruments to fight the other Islam.

In fact, the radical Islamic groups have not found a system to deal with the principle of democracy. They reject the liberal (western) concept of democracy due to the fear of the decadence of morals in the community. They are very clear in denying that Western democracy but they do not present a kind of democracy that may agree with the Muslim society.

In spite of this, the radicals have their own political party. They run for elections, and they have members in the parliament. This situation reminds me of their demands for freedom while they are strongly and reasonably opposed to social or political change.

So, the issue is neither this horrible perversion of the true Islamic teachings nor the exploitation of Islam for political purposes. But the worst thing is that this danger is increasing in our society and we are just watching. We will not be far of it. And our shy condemnation will not work unless there are effective actions. Action speaks louder than words.

Waiting for that day, may God save our people, and most individuals who need to be protected are women. Because the extremists still deny the right of women to have a social and political role in society. They still look at women as a shame!
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