Why are Muslim countries backward? - Turkish Daily News Jun 25, 2008
Why are Muslim countries backward?
Unfortunately, Muslims have not produced their own innovative alternatives, but they have always blamed the Western world or America for their failure
Ali GÜNE?A few weeks ago I went to the Hollywood Hotel in the Illidza district of Sarajevo to see my friends who were on a visit to Bosnia and Herzegovina. While our conversation was in progress, an old lady called upon me. Turning back, I saw that three ladies were sitting at a nearby table and speaking Turkish. First, I welcomed them to Sarajevo and then offered them tea and Bosnian coffee to form a better and friendly ground for our further conversation. I asked them why they were in Sarajevo, and they told me that they were on a tour of the Balkans. Later they asked me the same question, and I told them that I was teaching at the International University of Sarajevo.
Turkey on the brink?:
One of the ladies, with a furious, angry and perturbed face, said to: “Look, my son. Do not go back to Turkey. You are safe and free here. Turkey is moving to an unknown future. The minds of people are confused.” Upon my short question of why, she continued to state: “Economy is going bad. The rate of unemployment is on the rise. What is the worst is that Turkey is becoming like an Arab country, since the headscarf is permitted in Turkish universities; some secondary and high schools allow students to enter school with the headscarf, yet the Ministry of Education does not do anything. Moreover, the government is putting its own people into key posts to transform Turkey gradually into the form of an Arab country or into a Shariah country. I do not feel happy, but worried, in my country.” Then I asked her if there was any pressure upon her way of life, and she answered: “there is nothing at the moment, yet the ruling Justice and Development Party, or AKP, is doing it gradually and clandestinely.
Once the convenient time comes, it will do it.” Finally, she told me that if the AKP’s perception of life or its going back to Islamic roots or tradition is viewed as a true solution, could I tell her “why Muslim or Arab countries are backward and undeveloped?” Like many other radical secularists in Turkey, this lady was not only unhappy with Islam, but also blamed Islam as the sole reason behind backwardness, lack of development and improvement, lack of democracy and freedom. But it is not Islam as a religion which keeps Muslim countries backward and undeveloped. The Islam I know and the Holy Koran I read severely disparages laziness, sluggishness, disorder, muddiness, indifference to and alienation from social life but all the time encourages people to read, learn and think critically. Moreover, there are many hadiths - sayings and teachings of the Prophet Mohammed (PBUH) - in which the Prophet Mohammed (PBUP) strongly heartens Muslims to seek knowledge wherever it is, emphasizes at all times the superiority of knowledge and scholars and tells that “knowledge or wisdom is the lost property of Muslims, and they can get it wherever they find it” and that “the death of a true scholar is the death of the university”. One can find many other hadiths related to the encouragement and pursuit of science, knowledge, teaching and wisdom in unanimously accepted hadith books, and one of them is Riyazu’s – Salihin. Thus, the Islam I believe in is not the Islam the old lady talked about.
Islamization or liberalization?:
As for the Islamization of life in Turkey, moreover, the lady above, like many others in Turkey, is unaware of the reality of Islam in Anatolia when she thinks that Turkey is moving towards a kind of Islamization under the AKP’s rule. The overwhelming majority of the people in Turkey have been already practicing for centuries an Islamic life one way or another which she is now afraid of. Islam has divinely, sociologically and culturally become a reality and entered every strata of Turkish society; it has constructed the whole way of life – it has shaped the way they eat, the way they greet each other, the way they marry, the way they welcome and host their guests, the way they send their sons to the army, the way they wish each other good luck and success, the way they bury their dead and so on. Even when we listen to an atheist in Turkey for a while, we can easily witness her/his uses of many religious words such in?allah (God willing), ma?allah (may God preserve her/him from evil), elhamdulillah (thank God) and so on. Within centuries, this Islamic way of life as well as its discourse has become reality and part of life whether we accept it or not, as in Christianity and Judaism. I think what secularists miss in Turkey is that when the scope of freedom expands under the AKP rule, the people in Turkey – Muslims, non-Muslims and others – have found the chance to express themselves, express their views and display their identities in the way they wish. What has happened so far is that a certain view of identity has been imposed upon the masses by the state ideology, and those who have attempted to act in a different way have been intimidated, frightened, regarded as marginal or fundamentalists on the right and left and eventually accommodated to the official state ideology. It should not be the duty of the state to assign a view of identity to its citizens but help them develop and express their diverse identities by respecting each other.However, when the lady said that Muslim countries are backward and undeveloped, she was also right, and thus Muslim people should make self-criticism about the backwardness of their own countries and analyze carefully the reasons behind it. Those people who regularly listen to news and read newspapers can easily notice that many of Muslim countries, except Turkey, are ruled by authoritarian rulers, monarchies and tribal leaders, who keep their countries under control to sustain their own authority intact. Backwardness, ignorance, tribal conflicts, the imbalance of power and wealth between the ruling elite and the rest of the people, lack of education, corrupt tyrannies and indoctrinations are visibly widespread in Muslim countries.
What goes wrong?:
Backwardness in a sense becomes a strong means for Muslim leaders not only to keep their extensive authoritarian power as absolute but also to silence the people in a desperate way. As the experts of international relations and historians will tell much in detail, Muslims, from the 19th century to the present time, have been unable to accommodate themselves to new perspectives, conditions and developments, which have enabled particularly Western countries to improve profoundly in science, economy, and technology and so on; they have refused to accept these new perspectives and developments because of their western origins, rather than taking what is useful for them to advance their countries as well as the life-standard of their people. Unfortunately, Muslims have not produced their own innovative alternatives, either, but they have always blamed the Western world or America for their failure. In a sense, it has worked out well so far for some tyrannical Muslim rulers to suppress their people; As a result of backwardness, failure and accusation, therefore, there has been constructed among Muslims a sense of inferiority or a psychological complex of incapability of achieving success in their countries.How can Muslim countries do away with backwardness? First, Muslim countries should get rid of certain cultural dogmas, monarchic, oligarchic, tyrannical and tribal rules, which obviously prevent Muslim countries not only from developing economy and science but also from creating an intellectual atmosphere and culture, in which Muslims become able to discuss, analyze certain issues, produce new perspectives and innovations and accomplish mental broadness in accord with the realities of the contemporary world.
Modernization is key:
Secondly, Muslim intellectuals and scholars are not free, self-confident and peaceful in their views, but are afraid of writing against what is going wrong in their countries; they are also afraid of suggesting ground-breaking views for the improvement of their countries. Thirdly, Muslim countries should allow modernization to go ahead and create a peaceful free environment for life. In addition, a highly qualified education system, equipped with high technology, should be implemented in Muslim countries in a way that it should compete with the rest of world in its quality in terms of scientific research, critical and analytical thinking. In parallel to this, some research centers should be established not only to increase research activities but also to produce science and technology. Finally, the wealth should not be accumulated in the hands of small number of people, but the rest of society should make use of it as much as possible.
………
Dr. Ali Güne? teaches English literature at the International University of Sarajevo.
Why are Muslim countries backward? - Turkish Daily News Jun 25, 2008