World Problems

 

Question:-

It is widely known that the major world problems are poverty, disease and lack of education. What would you say the major world problems are from the religious or Islamic point of view?

Answer:-

A study of the Quran shows that the fundamental values of Islam are Justice, Compassion and Truth. These are the attributes of Allah. Though these are regarded as different aspects of the same thing and are interdependent, there is still an order of priority. Those who do not have the Truth should live by compassion (or love) and those who do not have compassion should live by Justice. Islam, defined as Surrender to Allah, is called the Religion of Truth (Quran 9:29 and 33, 61:9) and Christianity, the Religion of Love, was looking forward to the coming of the Spirit of Truth (John 16:13). Christianity had succeeded Hebrewism, the Religion of Justice.

Religion comes because ordinarily human beings are selfish and self-centred. They seek their own interests ignoring others or at the expense of others. This causes conflict, inequality and suffering and even stops and reverses progress that depends on cooperation and unified action. It can hardly have escaped the notice of even moderately intelligent and conscious human beings that the problems you mention, namely poverty, disease and ignorance are the result of this selfishness that comes from lack of Justice, Compassion and Truth. Not only these but also international exploitation, oppression, conflicts and war by which mass murders, massive destruction and whole nations are devastated. It could hardly have escaped the awareness of people of intelligence that the recent invasions and destruction of nations was based on the desire for resources by already rich nations.

It is a matter of good fortune that a very small proportion of people do exist in a community in whom these qualities exist to some degree. The advance of civilisation depends wholly on these people. Environmental and Social conditions in various places tend to increase or decrease their numbers.

Human beings have more than physical needs. They also have social and psychological or spiritual needs. Certainly, the basic physical needs are more urgent but their fulfilment is a means to the release of attention to the social needs. The fulfilment of these is necessary to allow attention and effort to be directed towards higher values. The order of values is the reverse of the order of urgency. Over indulgence causes malfunctions, disease and degeneration. When psychological energy and effort is concentrated on the increase of material goods beyond need they become obstructions to welfare and development. True, that the concentration of efforts on material production has led to some local advances for a time, but these have been made at the expense of many other people and aspects of life. It is not difficult to calculate that the world does not have the material resources that could sustain the same wealth for all the people of the world. It should also be obvious that construction always requires destruction and that manufacture involves waste products, pollution and disruption of the environment on which we depend. Nature does have a degree of tolerance and ability to adjust and heal itself, but there is a point after which the rate of damage outstrips the rate of adjustment and the rate of degeneration and destruction increases. It is not beyond the capacity of people to understand that if resources and man power is diverted to the production of luxury and unnecessary products then it will be taken away from the production of the necessities required by the poor majority and increase their prices. Nor does it require genius to realise that if profits accumulate in banks and require interest to be paid and cannot be used for consumption, investment or lending out to manufacturers and consumers owing to saturation of the market then the economy will collapse. This is because that money cannot pay workers or buy goods produced by them. Hence there is pressure to lend out money to encourage consumption. But as that is done for profit, it results in further accumulation of money. People are put into debt that forces them to man the industries to earn the money to repay the debt plus interest. The pursuit of the pleasure of ownership has trapped them in stress and drudgery. The Economic system itself has enslaved human beings.

An examination of the state of the world, including the so called advanced or developed nations, shows that there are numerous psychological, social and environmental problems and these are not independent of each other. It is the psychological problems that create social one, which create environmental ones. But environmental also produce social problems which produce psychological ones.  PP >< SP >< EP. It is impossible or difficult to tackle one of these without causing unpredictable, uncontrollable and undesirable effects in the other fields. It is necessary to have an overall unified view and make a coordinated effort to deal with this condition.

A way of life that is a social, economic, political and cultural system devoted almost wholly to the enhancement of profits cannot possibly achieve human self-fulfilment and development and solve world problems. It ignores social and psychological welfare and to increase profits it requires the conditioning of people to materialism and consumerism, enlisting and stimulating all the human vices of greed, envy, lust, pride, vanity and laziness. The leaders, those who have the power, wealth and prestige and have benefited most from this system and are best adapted to these conditions are hardly likely to give up their privileges. They have neither the incentive nor the will, nor do they have the ability or knowledge to do so. A different kind of leadership will have to emerge and take control if progress is to be made. And this requires a different kind of people who will accept them and cease to tolerate the old leadership.

I would say that the primary World Problem is lack of "Surrender to Allah" (when properly understood) and the presence and cultivation of Idolatry - the adoration, self-subordination and service to things other than and less than Allah, including material objects and the ego, the image of self based on ones physical body and sensuality.

The second World Problem is the lack of Truth, unawareness, ignorance, stupidity, illusions, delusions, lying and self-deception. This refers not just to isolated bits of information but to a proper awareness of the function and interconnectedness of things and the position of man in it.

The third World Problem is the lack of compassion or love, indifference, apathy and callousness. Though there are certainly many people who do works of charity relieving much suffering, but they are relatively powerless and ineffective in the face of corporate and political selfishness.

The fourth World Problem is Injustice. This does not apply only to action but also to motive and thought. It includes having biases and prejudices. The cure for this is an educational system that inculcates a proper understanding and motive for Justice.

Justice means that things should be treated in proportion to their similarity and dissimilarities. This is how the mind itself works, otherwise things can neither be recognised nor predicted or controlled. This includes other human beings who are like oneself. In order to create a difference, as in class, race and national divisions, some kid of barrier has to be constructed within the mind creating a difference in fantasy which allows the exploitation of others as objects to be used. By so doing the person damages his own mind. It becomes possible to have double standards - All actions and conditions that are thought to be evil or good when done to ones own group are thought to be the reverse when done to the other group. But obviously the people in the other group think the same about them for the same causes or in retaliation. There cannot then be anything other than conflict, destruction and suffering.

"O you who believe! Be you steadfast in justice, witnesses for Allah, though it is against yourselves, or your parents, or your kindred, be it rich or poor, for Allah is nearer both than either. Follow not, then, lusts (prejudices, superstitions, passions), so as to act unjustly (or with bias); but if you swerve or turn aside, Allah is well Aware of what you do." 4:135

It is a matter of common observation that, apart from injustice in political and economic policies, Politicians and members of a country’s government accuse governments of other nations of crimes that their own government commits. Indeed, their own crimes are often far greater than those of the others. It is also well known that the commercial masters have a great capacity for rationalising their self-interest and even employ managers, scientists, publicity agents and political lobbyists to justify and promote whatever is advantageous to them. And these employees of course owe their living to them or have been tempted by the bribes of high salaries and bonuses. The political masters also if not directors or employees of these national and international firms and corporations usually have shares in them. Can any sane person really think that such people can solve World Problems? How is it that these people are unable to see their errors when many others can? It seems that they are either rather stupid or they are hypocrites or very weak in the face of temptation. True, they are also provoked by each other to act in the same way, but do not see that it is a problem that can be or should be solved. They claim to be civilised to hide their relative primitive and barbaric reactions. In more enlightened times such people would be seen and prosecuted as criminals that do much more damage than ordinary criminal that is prosecuted these days. And the media of mass communication, also controlled by profiteers, give them great publicity, drowning out more rational voices. Rarely do the interviewers have the courage to ask them the right questions or challenge their bias and lies. Instead, these opinion makers weave a fog of fantasy that dulls and traps the mind of the citizens. Information is a matter of biased selection, suppression, distortion, spin and invention.

Conditions are unlikely to change unless nations get rid of all these sources of corruption and disease and there is a radical reformation.

Question:-

The major problem faced by the world today, according to many Western political authorities, particularly those running the U.S Government, is the existence of terrorism.

I am bewildered! Can you explain what is going on in Iraq? But not from the American point of view - obviously that cannot be the only one as they are opposed. They cannot even be right seeing that that the position they have taken appears to be a total failure that makes things worse. What is the conflict really all about? How is one to understand the conflicts in the context of the World condition?

Answer:-

Terrorism is mainly a reaction to injustice and oppression by persons who have no other means of fighting it and have not been completely debilitated by it. They are not usually simply criminals because criminals tend to be incapable of organising themselves in a voluntary manner.

It seems to me that a community has only six alternatives:-

(1)That it is united by a common ideology which gives it a purpose and channels its psychological energies.

(ii) That it is kept together by a rigid organisation, law or tradition that leads to stagnation and maladaptation to the changing world.

(iii) That there is a Power group or a Dictator supported by a power group that controls the community.

(iv) That there is an invasion by a foreign power that takes controls and exploits the community for its own advantages.

(v) That there is chaos, anarchy and conflict between rival groups.

(vi) That increasing chaos generally leads to the arising of one or several groups that present ideologies which they try to impose by force in order to re-establish order. But this intensifies conflict until amalgamations occur or one group wins. But as the leaders tend to be idealists without political experience and still have opponents, this inevitably leads to further deterioration, extreme coercive and tyrannical measures and much suffering before things gradually improve as experience accumulates.

In the past, it was Islam that kept people united in a common purpose. But as they departed from Islam, self-indulgence, fantasies and delusions of various kinds led to progressive degeneration and disintegration of the community. The result is the occurring of the other five alternatives in various combination that also tend to lead to each other.

The degenerate state of the people in Iraq as also in Afghanistan has allowed them to be invaded by the US and its satellites, and puppet governments have been set up there to serve US interests. It is not just the invasion and the attempt to impose Western values on Muslim countries that is resented by many Muslims, but the general degenerate state of Muslim people is also seen as a result of the Western, particularly US influence.

The consequence is that there is a group or several groups that endeavour to re-establish Islam by force. But this is impossible because Islam is an inner spiritual state or an ideology whereas compulsion can only affect outer behaviour. In fact, the attempt at compulsion creates fear and opposition that leads to further conflict and to extremism, tyranny, terrorism and oppression.

Criminality and anti-social behaviour are, of course, major problems throughout the world. A criminal can be defined as someone who sacrifices the welfare of others in order to serve his own desires, interests and advantages. He kills, injures, robs, destroys property, deceives, coerces, blackmails, oppresses, manipulates exploits, sabotages, defames, undermines, threatens and terrorises others. It is not difficult to see that all this applies to the power group that runs the United States government on a global scale and not just to those whom they call Terrorists. The US power group is seen as a Criminal Gang that run a terrorist regime using military, economic, political, and cultural methods and above all propaganda and manipulation of information through its control of the media. Opposition movements are, therefore, inevitably created and not only in the Muslim world where the contrast in morality and justice is most acutely felt and resisted. And this opposition is obviously condemned as terrorism by those whose self-interest is threatened. The fact is that these terrorists, though obviously misguided, indiscriminate and also destructive in their actions, do not do it for their own advantages, but either for the sake of their ideology or as a retaliation against the global terrorism of the US government and its puppet regimes. There is little doubt that US military presence worldwide and its economic and political policies coerce many governments to serve US interests, particularly as the interests of the power groups in most countries is connected with that of the US power group. The invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan took place in pursuit of their economic and political interest, though as usual it is presented as a moral and altruistic action to deceive the gullible. They did not care how many people they killed, both foreigners and their own citizens, or how much destruction, chaos and suffering they brought.

There is, therefore, a global conflict between two Terrorist groups from which the rest of mankind also suffers. It is probably impossible for either of them to successfully overcome the other. In fact, it is not desirable for the future welfare and development of the world that either of them should win. The one promises nothing but depravity, commercialism, globalisation and psychological, social and environmental disaster and the other presents a naive, unintelligent understanding and motivation and coercion. We have two extremes, both based on stupidity and both of which lead to mass enslavement. Neither should be allowed to win over the other or to dominate mankind. Both must be vigorously resisted.

Question:-

I note from several reports that people in many Muslim countries are becoming more conservative and religious. Beyond the obvious fact that this just makes things more difficult for the rest of the world, I just don't understand it.  Why, when the quality of life available to people is so much greater than it ever has been, would these Islamic countries choose to be more conservative? Is this just a phase in getting over western imperialism, or is there a deeper problem here?

Comment:-

This is not just a trend in Muslim countries, but people all over the world are returning to religion. You must surely have noticed that even in the United States which is economically the most prosperous of nations and most advanced in Science and technology people are returning to religion and even electing religious based regimes. Unfortunately, the type of religion they return to tend to be naïve and superstitious and full of bigotry. This certainly threatens to increase national and international disputes and conflicts

It is a major problem of the world that Religion is not properly understood by both most religious people and atheists and intellectuals such as scientists. They wish to apply superficial rational arguments for or against it. The fact is that Religion is an inherent feature of human beings and based on the sub-conscious and unconscious interactions between the organism and the world in which it exists by means of all the forces and processes that account for existence. We are conscious only of a very small part of the totality of these processes. But even at this superficial level we can be aware of the fact that we are a small and relatively powerless entity that is dependent on the vastly greater world that is lawful and has a direction of development, and we must adjust ourselves to it for our own welfare and development.  But at the conscious level human beings have formed attachments to limited things, including their own bodies and have become narrowly self-centred, both at the individual and the national level.

Western imperialism has not stopped - it takes an economic, political, ideological and cultural form as well as a military one. Muslims do feel themselves under attack and this concentrates their minds both on Western ideas, values and actions and on those of Islam. Many people in Muslim countries adopt Western ones and others return to Islam.

It is true of course that there is greater economic prosperity in the West and Muslims also want this for themselves. But they, as other deprived, exploited and oppressed people all over the world also see that Western policies and power obstruct or prevent progress in this respect. They also see that the Western prosperity apart from being based on exploiting the rest of the world is also obtained at the expense of a great many psychological, social and environmental problems which are getting worse.

From the Islamic point of view the Primary Aim of life is spiritual development. The social organisation is a Secondary Aim, a means that will facilitate the primary aim. The Economic organisation, which ought to be part of an ecological system, is a Tertiary Aim, a means to the Secondary Aim.

The conditions in the West are the exact reverse of this - spiritual or psychological welfare is sacrificed to social organisation (usually understood as Politics) and that is sacrificed to Economic progress (usually understood as profit, accumulation of material wealth and consumerism). All thoughtful people reject this state of affairs.

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