What Are We, by the Way?
By Mohammad Ashraf Chaudhry
Pittsburg , CA
“The indictment shall be upon those who oppress people, and those who commit injustice and wrong-doing on earth shall be severely punished”. Ash-Shuura, 42:42
It was Hobbes cynicism about man, and Locke’s theory of three basic human rights, along with that of Rousseau’s provocative views that human society is an aberration of nature because man is born free and everywhere he is in chains; or that society is a perversion of nature, and that it has abrogated the inalienable rights of man, or that of Voltaire’s strong tirade against intolerance, prejudice and superstition that basically colored and influenced the modern political thinkers, especially the Forefathers of the United States of America.
They urged people to think that truth can be found through reason as well besides Revelations. Reason is also a gift from God. People can reason about right and wrong and that there is nothing wrong in doing so; or that what is natural is also good and reasonable. For example, children naturally desire to play and run. It is something good and should not be curbed. Or that people have a right to be happy here in this world. Humans can be proud to be here in this world, not always in the afterlife; or that people and society can always improve; local governments can fail but there is always the hope and room that they can get better; or that people should have the protection of laws, but laws should protect the liberties of freedom of speech, life and religion, and not act to stifle and curtail those liberties. They all emphasized that the power of the government comes from the consent of the people. Any system of government in which there is room to replace the ruler through the consent of the people is good. A dictator, a monarch or a despot can never be good for a country because they assign no role to the people to exercise their consents. They are unacceptable because they leave any chance for the people in case the people decide to replace them.
It were these ideas of the government by popular consent, and the right of people to rebel against any unjust rulers that inspired the people in Europe to struggle for liberty and for their natural rights of life and property. The Muslims rule in Spain did exercise this kind of system of religious tolerance and of natural liberties. The Caliphate could be hereditary, but the “representative role of the Majlis Shura, a strong system of justice and accountability”, all these can be counted as the fore-running voices of what we term today as modern democracies.
An empirical philosophy by definition is about a system, or a way of thinking in which experience instead of logical reasoning per se becomes the source of knowledge. Knowledge without experience remains defective and faulty, according to Locke. Man at his birth is like a blank sheet, a white paper. His sensations and his experience register his goodness or badness in it.
The Forefathers of American Declaration of Independence, 1776, and later, while drafting the Constitution, they carried Locke’s views in as much as they deemed them proper. For example, Thomas Jefferson replaced the right to own Property with the pursuit of happiness, and with the right to have Religious Freedom. Acquisition of Property as a right became a craze and it adversely affected the liberties of other people.
The American Revolution became a success because early on it adopted safeguards, defining clearly the roles of all the three branches of the State, namely, the Executive, the Legislative and the Judicial.
Charles de Montesquieu (1689-1755) is deemed as the Co-Founder of the American Constitution along with John Locke. It is held even today that one reason that America did not descend into any serious bloodshed, except for one in the Civil War, in the last over 200 years is due to the brilliance of Montesquieu, the great French political thinker and philosopher.
Like Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau, and Voltaire, Montesquieu was also a man of practical ideas. He was greatly influenced by the British system of government, and he believed that England was the best governed and most naturally balanced country. The King held the executive powers; the Members of the Parliament made laws and the Judiciary held the judicial powers and interpreted the laws. He strongly believed in the separation of powers that would keep any one individual or group from gaining total control of the government. “ The power should be a check to power” and this idea of his became the basis of the US Constitution. The past and current political turmoil in Pakistan is the direct result of this confusion.
One very controversial topic in all the ideological or religion-based societies is the separation of Church from the State. Locke had asked for the separation of religion from politics. American Forefathers, especially Jefferson and his colleagues, re-interpreted it and re-termed it as separation of Church from State. Locke insisted on toleration of views as the foundation of any good government because as he said, “It is good for the religion, and even better for the society. Religious tolerance without the Liberty of Conscience does not mean much”.
All the ancient philosophers, namely, Plato, Aristotle and Aquinas and others, combined with religious leaders, believed more in the Soul-craft than in the State-craft. Ordinary human needs and wants of bread and butter and shelter remained as “vulgar” pursuits of human life. The aim of life should be noble, often pertaining to the uplift of the soul. They emphasized on virtues and morals without realizing that virtues and vices are closely linked with a person’s mundane economic circumstances. Islam wisely warns that a man’s poverty may endanger his faith. The Qur’an in Sura Al Maun, ties one’s faith with the economic conditions of the people around him. The presence of poverty and economic depravity nullifies the faith of others.
Francis Bacon in the 17 th century changed the tone and direction of this kind of thinking. He held that human needs and wants are attainable targets because they are related to our life in this world. How should we live together and what is good life is what should concern philosophers.
The philosophers of ancient times have had much to do with the needs of the soul rather than with the needs of the body. They tell us that our soul yearns for happiness, for friends, for salvation, for justice. Yes, human happiness lies in human growth, and not in oppression.
Macaulay tauntingly tells them, “The Ancient Philosophy began in words and ended in words- noble words… the New Philosophy, on the other hand, made it possible to build steam engines, to span great rivers, to conquer disease, to mitigate pain, to increase the fertility of the soil, and to light up the night, within the splendor of the day… and even it met with the soul’s demands by promoting the causes of liberty, by devising economies that liberated people of hunger; by giving political systems that enabled people to avoid civil wars and bloodshed etc.” In the words of famous Scottish philosopher, Adam Smith, “Material wealth not only was needed to supply the goods of the body but was a necessary condition of achieving and maintaining that liberty”. And it is all proving true in countries like Pakistan.
When General Lee after the defeat in the American Civil War that cost close to 650,000 human lives, finally surrendered, he desired “rest, quiet, solicitude… I am looking for some little, quiet home in the woods, where I can procure shelter and my daily bread, if permitted by the victor”. Only once he applied for amnesty which was never formally granted. But he acted in every way as if he considered himself a citizen of the United country… he absolutely refused to take any part in practical politics… I was for the Constitution and the Union established by our forefathers.” An English Nobleman once offered him a country-seat in England and an annuity of 3,000 Sterling Pounds. Lee answered, “I must abide the fortunes and share the fate of my people”.
He was urged to emigrate with a Southern Colony to Mexico, he answered, ‘The thought of abandoning the country and all that must be left in it is abhorrent to my feelings, and I prefer to struggle for its restoration and share its fate, rather than to give up all at lost”, writes writer Jones in Life, pg. 389. Compare him to our leaders in Pakistan. Failures after failures even fail to deter them from jumping in the arena.
Apply this to all the retired generals, to politicians in exile, and to General Pervez Musharrif. Does anyone see any tinge of magnanimity or character in them?
Nations that respect the laws of the country prosper. The New Supreme Court Justice of America, Justice Elena Kagan will be missing much action because she has decided to step down from participating in nearly half of the 51 cases the court has agreed to review this term just because of the potential conflicts of interest. The current government is likely to lose everything just to defend the corruption of a few. General Musharraf in the year 2007 put the chief justice of Pakistan in house arrest. Acting as if he were a Roman Emperor, Musharraf, made him sit like a criminal in front of him. Now he has the audacity to tell us new stories of what he did and what he did not mean.
Montesquieu, “saw despotism, in particular, as a standing danger for any government not already despotic, and argued that it could best be prevented by a system in which different bodies exercised legislative, executive, and judicial power, and in which all those bodies were bound by the rule of law”. This theory of the separation of powers had an enormous impact on liberal political thinking and on the framers of the Constitution of the United States of America”. Writes a Note, first published on July 18, 2003. Any body can see the results.
To Hobbes three main causes of human debasement (humans are wicked/aggressive; human are distrustful; and humans have great thirst for self-aggrandizement); Islam also offers three of its own causes. People lose their souls when they let themselves become slaves of three kinds of powers: the power of intellect; the power of anger; and the power of passion. All these three kinds of powers man humans unjust and unfair in their treatment of others. Human indiscrimination of the worst kind begins to take place.
Unlike Hobbes, Islam does not regard humans as basically wicked and aggressive or even quarrelsome, but it does clearly consider them as forgetful and neglectful. Man needs to be reminded constantly about the laws of right and wrong, be those of the State or of Morality.
God Himself in Sura Al-Asr, declares that generally man would be in loss. He did not ordain man as a loser. Man becomes a loser when he loses his Faith ( stops taking care of the poor; becomes unjust, cruel and resorts to lying etc.); his ability to speak the truth; his stopping to do the right things and finally his losing patience in the hours of trial and tribulations.
The politicians in Pakistan are like the man in our first story who insisted that he was being put in the jail for just ‘picking up a rope lying on the ground”, or like the child who insisted that what he said was not a lie, “I got a hundred in math and history”. 55 millions lying in the Swiss Banks is just a lie. No politician ever in Pakistan tells a lie. They just parse with words. But the report card eventually establishes the truth.
