The search for a "just global order" in Pakistan

Together with international participants numbering close to a hundred who attended the Congress of Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) in Pakistan as invited guests, the JI leadership held a one-day round-table meeting under the title "In Search of a Just Global Order."

Undoubtedly, JI's claim to and pursuit of a "Just Order" inside Pakistan is the country's own internal matter, one it will have to deal with itself. On this front there are strong signs that the new JI leadership will wage the country's struggle for a more democratic and more just order more actively. We can see these signs in the light of the analyses we have made of the new leader's person, his discourse and his sociological base. But it is also very clear that JI is seeking to share experience and take a tour of the horizon together with international actors, especially with the politicians and intellectuals of the Islamic world who have all seen, defined and accepted Islam as their primary concern. Nothing could be more natural for an Islamist party. Islamism means, above all, being able to think together with the world's Muslims and having common concerns and goals. But it also requires, in practice, sharing a common political horizon with the world's Muslims and opening up and widening the field of vision of the existing horizon as far as possible.

The round-table meeting titled In search of a just global order, held under the moderation of JI's Director of External Relations Asim Luqman Qazi, had three sub-headings. The most pressing questions of the first panel, titled "Restructuring Global Governance – A Democratic International Order," were these: Should developing countries form stronger regional coalitions in order to increase their collective bargaining power? What might be the pros and cons of this? What incentives (economic, political or security-related) could motivate powerful states to accept a more just system of global governance?

I am only writing down the titles of the other two panels: "The Moral and Spiritual Foundations of a Just Global System" and "A New Social Contract for Humanity."

From Turkey, Fatih Erbakan, Chairman of the New Welfare Party (Yeniden Refah Partisi), who had also spoken at earlier meetings, Mahmut Arıkan, Chairman of the Felicity Party (Saadet Partisi), and AK Party Member of Parliament Burhan Kayatürk spoke about the importance of all these discussions now being held at such a level, and about Turkey's efforts and emphases for a more just world under the leadership of President Erdoğan.

In my view, the emphasis made by Hemmam Said, former leader of the Jordanian Islamic Action Front Party, who took the floor at the meeting, on 1- the country and place where the meeting was held and 2- the timing of the meeting framed the meaning of the meeting very well. According to Said, the fact that the meeting was being held in Pakistan was very important because, among all the countries of the world today, Pakistan is a country whose reason for founding was Islam. This was at the same time a sorrowful reference to the fact that, at present, including all Islamic countries, there is no country whose fundamental purpose of founding is Islam. As we have mentioned before, none of the many states established on Ottoman lands after the Ottomans were defeated in the war in 1918 had Islam as its reason for founding. And none of them has Islam as its reason and purpose for existence now. After the Caliphate was abolished, no country was left in the Muslim world whose reason for existence was Islam. Pakistan, however, constitutes an exception to this history. Pakistan was founded as an Islamic country, so that Muslims might have a homeland. Therefore, in light of this situation that burns for all Muslims, Pakistan is a great consolation, at least as an officially stated reason for founding, and it also places a far greater responsibility upon itself.

Second, the timing of the meeting. This meeting is being held after the Al-Aqsa Flood. Of course, it is not the first meeting held under this title after the Al-Aqsa Flood.

Among its many consequences, the Al-Aqsa Flood had an effect on this subject too, one that changed, or forced a change in, the balances of the entire world. In the face of world balances that are changing, being shaken and being scattered, entirely new searches for balance have been set in motion, at the interstate or societal level. Everyone, in one way or another, is looking for a secure alliance and course of action against the present system, which produces nothing but genocide, instability, insecurity and injustice. Personally, I have taken part in a large number of meetings under this heading recently. Just a month ago in Gaziantep there was a symposium at the Islamic University of Science and Technology under roughly the same title. Again, a great many Muslim men of thought and action from many countries took part in the meeting. They sought, and tried to find, formulas for a more just world.

There is a point that needs to be noted here:

The people of Gaza did not sit and wait for world balances to turn in their favor, nor did they hold conferences and propose alternatives to the existing world order. They knew very well that such activities had never been of any use so far. The world order today is built upon power and has no mercy at all; it does not look after the weak and does not protect the powerless. It produces no remedy against the countless injustices, acts of oppression, human rights violations, genocides, massacres and poverty taking place in the world. The very way the UN order was established allows no room for such interventions. The veto rights held by 5 powerful countries not only leave no possibility of establishing justice within the system but also leave no possibility of stopping massacres and injustices. We saw a very clear example of this in Syria. We see it in Myanmar. We see it in the Apartheid practices to which Muslims in India are subjected today. We saw it in the issue of Nagorno-Karabakh, which was held under occupation in Azerbaijan for years. We saw it in Libya.

In the face of all these problems, President Erdoğan has for years been saying that the UN order must change. By saying "The world is bigger than five," he draws attention to the bankrupt nature of this system, which produces no solution. So should we wait for this system to change on its own? Of course not. Erdoğan has in fact shown very clearly, several times through his own practice, what must be done in the face of this order: in Libya, in Somalia and most recently in Azerbaijan, Turkey took the initiative with its own hands to correct the distorted situation there, acted, and changed the situation in favor of those peoples.

The Syrians did the same in Syria. For 14 years they waited for help and support from the international community. That support did not come. They took action on their own and changed the situation. The Afghan people, too, stood patiently and resolutely against the occupation and changed the situation in their own favor. They did not expect justice from the world order. Our brothers and sisters in Gaza expected nothing from the general world order, nor, unfortunately, from the Islamic world. Or rather, they did expect, but when what they expected did not come, they set about determining their own fate with their own hands. They proved their freedom, and as everyone has witnessed today, they are the freest people in this world. In fact, what we must know in the face of the present world order is that we should be preparing power against the enemies as much as we are able: "Prepare against them whatever force you are able."

With this breakthrough, and with the will and initiative it displayed, the people of Gaza changed the entire paradigm of international relations in the world. They toppled the existing paradigm. They exposed the racist, discriminatory elements underlying all of modernity's claims about values such as human rights, democracy, progress, reason and science.

Now, on the horizon opened by Gaza, in Pakistan, in Turkey and in many parts of the world, such searches are moving somewhat more systematically toward giving concrete form to a "spirit of the age."