Islam promotes democracy, British minister says
Islam promotes democracy, British minister says
A'an Suryana, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
The common perception in the West that Islam is anti-democratic
was misconceived, visiting British Foreign Office Minister Mike
O'Brien told a discussion here.
"Some in the West have wrongly argued that Islam and democracy
are incompatible, holding the view that Islam fosters a
submissive attitude that puts it at odds with the intrinsically
confrontational nature of democratic politics.
"This is nonsense," O'Brien told participants at a discussion
titled "Islam and Democracy" at the Centre for Strategic and
International Studies (CSIS).
Based on his experience, O'Brien said democratic traditions
were present in Islamic thinking.
"The Prophet Muhammad led the early Muslim community according
to 'shura' or consultation. And the concept of consultation is
compatible with democracy, and is continued today at many levels
in Muslim communities," said O'Brien.
There is no system in the world that is better than democracy,
he said.
"While democracy is not a panacea for all the ills society
faces, it does assist in the attainment of economic prosperity,
tolerance and political progress," said O'Brien.
Despite his assertion that the values of Islam were compatible
with democracy, he said there were still many Muslim countries in
the world which did not practice democracy, especially those in
the Arab region, the place where Islam originated from.
A 2001 survey by the Freedom House New York titled "Freedom in
the World 2002: The Democracy Gap," revealed that a non-Islamic
state is more than three times more likely to be democratic than
an Islamic state.
Another speaker in the discussion, Azyumardi Azra, underlined
that the values of Islam had nothing to do with the crisis of
democracy, which he said was currently plaguing some countries in
the Islamic world.
Azyumardi, a professor of history at the Jakarta-based Syarif
Hidayatullah State Islamic University here, said there were three
factors that contributed to undemocratic tendencies in Muslim
countries, but asserted that these had nothing to do with Islam.
Firstly, most Muslim countries were less developed in terms of
education and economic prosperity. Poverty had deprived them of
the infrastructure and prerequisites instrumental for the
development of democracy.
Secondly, there had been a tendency among Muslims to believe
in unity, and to blend religious and political affairs. This had
led to the demise of democracy, Azyumardi said.
Thirdly, the West, which claimed to be the pioneer of
democracy, supported autocratic regimes in Muslim countries for
its own interests, said Azyumardi.
"This adverse clientele relationship has contributed to the
decline of democracy in the Islamic world," he said. "As a
result, many people in Muslim countries have lost their faith in
democracy and look for an Islamic alternative."
He suggested that the West stop applying double standards.