Exopse in Cairo, International Conference on IBN KHALDUN

Politics, Religion, Arrogance, State.

By
Fahredin Shehu
fahredin.shehu@gmail.com
oxor@30gigs.com
+377 44 255 091
Executive Director

Center for promotion of intercultural dialogue
Mother Theresa Street- Prishtina- Kosovë


Talking about politics today isn’t that easy from the perspective of normal inhabitant in a specific area. In the Balkan for instance, as many dialogues are running on, one can simply lie down and observe the power of politics dealing with the human lives. In many discussions either you want to stay out of politics or not dealing with it, you realize that although you don’t want to be involved in the politics, the Politics is dealing with you in a most bizarre way.

The existence of many nations (read small nations), who went through the most tiny paths of biological existence, beginning with the lack of understanding and tolerance, consequently born radicalism, xenophobia, radical nationalism, mass expatriation (Kosova case) and genocide, (the case of Bosnia and Herzegovina), made the Politics a real looser for considering it as a tool in conflict resolution. Yet the power, force and arm response, run by the world power countries, proved the efficiency of conflict resolution in single sided solutions without IJMAH (consensus) in Balkan case, disregarding the regional interest of certain Power country.

Now creation of small states is stipulated in setting up a sound environment for co-existence in multi-ethnic, multi- religious, multi-cultural open democratic societies, which is not easy in almost every case.
Does it consider the democratic values like the struggle of majority to release from the oppression of the minority? Does it offer to majority the groundwork for mentality change? It’s difficult to say so. It all depends on human social organization. Because it depends on certain cultural legacy, religious heritage, and cultural level and so on, yet the man is political by nature , as stated by Ibn Khaldun, and there must be the ways in this power struggle.


Ibn Khaldun thinks that no individual dynasty or society can permanently remain at a high level of development. Every individual dynasty, state, civilization has is own life span it has a birth, growth and decay similarly as to plants, animals, or humans .

Witnessing the disintegration of former Yugoslavia whose part were different ethnic groups, and different religious background who were banned to exercise formally their religious rights were and partly their ethnic symbols, one can percept that what Ibn Khaldun have done a centuries ago. Its formation in a typical federation after the Second World War made Tito and later the concept of Self Governance Socialism a kind of matrix of what Europe wants in practice to become.

Theoretically the political system was one of the best in the last 50 years, but practically there were a lot of transgressions and violations of human rights in a contemporary understanding of this concept. With predominantly Slavic ethnical background the federation had also other groups as Albanians, Hungarians, and Italians etc. keeping them in a fake idealism of United Brotherhood.

The process of disintegration of this federation which is still running on was not smooth but manifested many of scenes shown in holocaust, complete devastation of the cities, or what is now happening in the Middle East.

Ibn Khaldun’s concept of ASSABIYAH, a group feeling as a source of power, a state of mind that makes individuals or individual nations to identify with the group, a sense of solidarity in case of Yugoslav federation was the group feeling of predominantly Slavic nations, toward the rest. A solidarity shown from the distant Russian policy makers either by strategic interest in now so- called Western Balkan or by solidarity on Christian orthodox religious background, was so obvious and still is.


Religion throughout the history had shaped the civilizations, states, nations and what is the most obvious the environment. The passion in building sacral buildings, their metaphor, their beauty, their mystery is of divine source that creates beauties over beauties in architecture, painting, music, film, theatre, drama, opera, literature etc. Religion and it’s impact is present in a different forms in many fields of life especially in creative process like in the epic of Gilgamesh, Tibetan book of dead, in Johan Sebastian Bach’s music, European renaissance paining, Turkish Ebru, Stonehenge, Egyptian pyramids, Notre dame, in Wassily Kandinsky’s paintings, Wagner’s work, Cubrick’s work, in dervish’s Sama dance, in Johan Wolfgang Goethe’s work, in Isaac Newton’s work, Einstein’s work and many… many more.

Diverse religions fulfilled live of mankind throughout history making a tapestry of orientations, philosophies, material and spiritual goods, and many wars. Specifically the wars are run with a diverse aims but led with religious creed and showed in every case its radicalism, loss of ratio, and killing passion in the name of God. History has witnessed many wars which produced clashes having religion as groundwork with consequences on the long run.

An attempt of the form of life without religion was very artificial in few countries. In Albania for instance during communist regime the country was among the first countries to publicly declare its atheism completely banning every religious performance. Many of Muslim, Catholic and Christian orthodox clerics were persecuted, detained and killed just because of their affiliation and belief. The religious tolerance among Albanians was always the strongest side of this small nation and thanks to the tolerance and language this nation still exists. It was very odd to exclude religion in a society were the tolerance is at that high level.

Considering that many wars in the past and now were done in the name of the God. Almost all of them beside territory tendencies, and different material goods like in colonialism, misused religion for the benefit of the interest groups, state apparatus Pan- nationalistic tendencies or other human organization.

In the work of Ibn Khaldun royal authority is natural to all human groups and the monarchy is the normal form of government not based on ethical/philosophical benevolence, but on the animal part of human nature. Thus the religion plays that role; the religious base is used as a tool to achieve the goal for fulfilling this element of human nature, its animal element.

Religion still influences not only the groups but also the group of countries. Turkey although the secular country has to have several standards fulfilled to enter a European Union and among many standards the one what underlie is Muslim background. Please compare the Cyprus case or better said only the Greek part of Cyprus, whereas Greece have over 600. 000 assimilated Albanians, where no Minority rights are respected is part of European Union. The justification is that when the Greece entered the European Union was not identified as a problem, but now we have only a Greek part of Cyprus a member in EU not the Turkish one.

The war in Kosova 1998-1999 known as Kosovo War: a conflict between "Islamic" Kosovo, supported by "Western" NATO, and "Orthodox" Serbia, was a typical case of misbalance and misunderstanding of Kosova case by the West in the beginning. The majority Muslim population was oppressed by regime strongly supported from Christian Orthodox autocephaly Church with the motto of protecting Europe from Muslim fundamentalism. The facts in the ground were scrutinized by many experts that Albanians have three confessions, Muslims, Catholics, and Orthodox Christians, that it was a Pan- Serbian tendency for territory as the wars commenced first in Slovenia (majority protestant), Croatia (majority Catholics), Bosnia (Majority Muslim, then Croat Catholics and Serb Orthodox) then in Kosova, that the mass-exodus and forced expatriation of Albanians was seen from many world organizations as that in the time of Pharaoh and Moses. Thus NATO Alliance took over bombarding of Serbian targets after spending all negotiation and diplomacy options by International Community, like Rambouillet and later Paris Conference , on 7th February 1999 in order to protect innocent civilians, (the Muslim Albanian Majority and Christian Albanian minority).

Yet Serbia continues to protect the Europe and the West from Albanian Muslim Fundamentalism, and again (this year) the religious leader Archbishop Artemije, meeting with Christian clerics in USA puts a lot of efforts to show this fake picture to the West (to Europe and United States, particularly).


Arrogance is a psychological drive of humans with its spreading role into governance in a higher collective level. Either by its natural drive for domination or by inherited cultural attitude like all what was not Athenian was Barbarian, or in A. Toynbee’s theory that there is only on civilization and that is Western, is arrogance itself.

A non democratic states i.e. dictatorial regime, usually led by their arrogance violates the many of human rights, like freedom of speech, minority rights, freedom of religion etc.

In civilizational level the arrogance is playing the role of gap of communication creating a plot for miscommunication, cleavages and clashes. It bans all opportunities for cross- fertilizations for a global civilization or promotion of concept of Unity in Diversity and developing the culture of dialogue and consultation among different cultures, nations, and civilizations etc.

Many states exercised and now are exercising the power in a most arrogant ways. Dictatorial regime of Sadam Hussein in Iraq, of Nikolai Ceausescu in Romania, Enver Hoxha in Albania, of Fidel Castro in Cuba, Slobodan Milosevic in Yugoslavia and some others in Arab countries, are just examples for the future political leaders on how should not behave, thus leaving the population in poverty and on the winds of destiny.

Also the imposing of a certain political power country and certain civilization’s lifestyle, culture, art, media, values and type of leadership, is arrogance par excellence.

The wealth is almost in every case a strong stimulation for arrogance as beautifully stated by Ibn Khaldun in his Al Muqaddimah :

“This is because a sedentary person who has a great deal of capital and has acquired a great number of estates and farms and become one of the wealthiest inhabitants of a particular city, who is looked upon as such and lives in great luxury and is accustomed to luxury, competes in this respect with amirs and rulers”.

This competition in wealth, in power and ruling made many people, dynasties and civilizations to decline and from being just and fair they become arrogant royal, dictatorial, imperialistic regime. Mohammed said: "The caliphate after me will last thirty years; then, it will revert to being tyrannical royal authority."

The State from ancient to present have born and decline in a various ways, but very little has been changed regarding the drive for domination, expanding authority, borders and wealth from tribe socio-organization through monarchies/dynasties, to democracy.

The State according to Ibn Khaldun comes to manifest through tribal force or Assabiyah and has different forms depends on who rules it. The State has a monopole on glory, luxury, comfort and tranquility; the qualities if rooted bring the State into old age and downfall. The States has a natural life as Humans, its rise to youth, old age and downfall, and its normal lifespan is three generations and generation is estimated forty years. Generally the life of a State is one hundred and twenty years. He speaks about the phases from nomadic to civilized State, through sovereignty and its varieties, the Imamah and the Caliphate.

Ibn Khaldun mentions two major types of regime:

“(a) rational regimes in which the appetites are ordered by the agency of human reason for the sake of a more peaceful and permanent enjoyment of worldly things, and

(b) regimes of divine Law in which prophet-legislators, through the power of their souls to communicate with the "unseen" posit laws which order the affairs of men and the enjoyment of both worldly things and things of the soul useful for man's welfare in the world to come.”


Muslim civilization in the time of Ibn Khaldun dominated in a multitude of areas; in culture, arts, science and technological advancements etc. It prepared the Faustian Civilization according to Oswald Spangler or Western civilization that prepared modern American civilization that is developing the concept of globalism i.e. the New World order through different policy, lifestyle, culture, arts, science, technology etc.

Democracy was known in ancient civilizations. Now it’s seen as evolutionary, very Darvinistic; the stronger wins in the abundance of difficulties and it depends on the capabilities to adapt and cope with these hindrances, with the varieties of methods of transformation.

The concept of making the world a new Global Village is substantial stream of many democratic countries who struggle for a new era of modern mankind. It can be achieved through enormous expansion of science and communications, free market, liberal policies, cultural exchange etc.

Yet the humanity has to learn from its mistakes in order to apply the best of man could ever invent and it’s the Ethics, which was always suppressed by almost every regime/State.
The leadership based on ethical values must be the aim for a modern civilization sooner or later in order to coexist with the diversity of cultures, values, legacies etc. We do believe that the time of muscles have gone now should be the time for service , dialogue and consultation.

Not only the meaning of consultation, but its performance must take place as soon as possible in order to have first benchmark and groundwork creation for new Civilization. There are many things that can not be solved by dialogue particularly although the dialogue must begin immediately through series of consultations beginning from the kin nations/races to a broader scope of human civilization.

“No reward do I ask of you for this except the love of those near to (my) kin.”
Conclusion______________________________________________________________

Ibn Khaldun is distinguished by articulated originality on topic selection, study results and its display. He touched the issues of society, state and civilization with specific delicacy and sensitivity in a very original manner. His observations are still fresh and give many options to a researcher on pondering on nowadays turbulences.
It’s almost impossible to find any book referring to social and historical issues without mentioning his name and particularly his work.

This paper herein exposed touched very sensitive issues of politics, state and specifically the religion always referring to Ibn Khaldun’s work in relation to nowadays observation of civilization, politics, religion and its impact in a modern life. It’s so apparent that religion still plays a large role in different societies nowadays and leading to an extreme performance of hatred in very sophisticated ways and very frequently in a very obvious ways of harm, devastation and passionate genocide in the name of God. In which God the extremist forces do believe yet have to be researched.





















Bibliography

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