by Yusufbile Abdi
Sunday, July 18, 2010
“Blessed is He who sent down the Criterion upon His Servant that he may be to the worlds a Warner!” Al-Furqan (1)
In my humble opinion, only this Qur’anic verse, is more than ENOUGH for an answer to the late article titled: Secularism for Somalia Forever…
However, allow me to go further to present ( in SHORT and CONCISE) a logic human argument based on implemented experiment of secularism for nearly three generations. Of course, most of us know the history of Turkey, at least, from the downfall of the Ottoman Empire through Mustafa Kemal Atatürk’s political, economic, and cultural reforms based on secularism to the current Turkey’s political trends and atmosphere. Then we can simply find an answer to the need or the cry for secularism, if there is any...
But before we discuss the secularism, I prefer to share with you wisdoms that I learnt from scholars whom I, once scholastically, sit with and listen to them.
A scholar once told me that the human-being needs to grow (up) in three parts simultaneously (the body, the brain, and the soul) to get supremacy over the other existing animals. Therefore, the body needs food to grow. The brain needs continued/renewed education- enrichment to think, invent and discover. And the soul needs Heavenly Revelations to guide the body and the brain to the right bath.
Therefore, I can personally reach a consolation based on the scholars’ words. If the Mankind do not grow (up) simultaneously with the above mentioned three parties, there may be possibilities of seeing:
- Aggressive and regrettable physical behaviors from the headless hearts: those who do not get the opportunity of learning but get the opportunity of eating to survive.
- Spiritually-myopic learners and infatuated armatures reflecting/mimicking their pure secular education: those who miss or divert the light and the guidance of the Heavenly Revelations from the Almighty.
- And angry, ill-fated, provocative, and speedy semi-religious youngsters: those who get wrong religious teachings and unaware of the life of outside world, from the pen on Earth to the spaceship to Mars.
Dear reader, let me come back to the main point of my writing; may be, I am tantalizingly going far.
Firs let us define the secularism in short and then present the Turkey case concisely.
According to Wikipedia encyclopedia “Secularism is the concept that government or other entities should exist separately from religion and/or religious beliefs.”
“It is the state of being separate from religion. For instance, eating and bathing may be regarded as examples of secular activities, because there may not be anything inherently religious about them.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secularity)
To the contrary, Islam and also Christianity, eating is considered religious activities and it is blessings from God, that is why we pray before and after eating. Of course, this can be the smallest example that one can understand the religious gravity is in every aspect of life. In other words, secularism means: Allah has no place in ruling/managing this world, which is SUBAXANALLAH an aggression.
However, Turkey has been under direct secular leadership nearly three decades from 1928 and it is a live experiment and example for every Muslim/ non Muslim who has a dream of imposing on a community an imported leadership system.
There is no any Islamic nation, let alone the current slaughtered Somalia or the future hopeful & healthily Somalia, that can apply secularism more than what Turkey had done in it: Latinizing the alphabet, banning the Hijab and traditional hat (Tarboush), banning prayers, mosques, Azan, Qur’an, and implementing a complete westernized agenda: militarily, politically, culturally, and economically...
In fact, despite all these efforts, today there is no need of choosing between the prayers and the business in Turkey i.e. they can go together. This is the reality that secular advocates admit and realize today.
According to Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs:
“The occasion for Islam's re-entry into the political arena came, ironically, as a result of one of the aspects of modernization. After the end of World War II, a multi-party era started due to public pressure in Turkey and to inducement by its great ally, the United States. The first parliamentary multi-party elections were held in 1946. At the next ones, in 1950, the People's Party (now called the Republican People's Party) lost its parliamentary majority and its rival (the Democratic Party) governed for a whole decade. Its opening towards Islamically-oriented voters maintained it in power, a lesson not lost on any of Turkey's major political parties, then or later...” (http://www.jcpa.org/jl/vp352.htm)
Finally, we, Somalis, need NOT Headless hearts, Spiritually-myopic learners, and of course, Ill-fated speedy semi-religious youth who explosions are their only wisdom. What we need is that: scholars with policy that preserves our Spiritual and National Identity who can lead us to the MOSQUES and OFFICES simultaneously and, of course, capable of creating peaceful, harmony, and mutual relation with the neighbors and outside world!
Yusufbile Abdi
Faculty of Humanities
Language Centre (Student)
University of Leiden, The Netherlands
[email protected]
You can reach Yusufbile’s profile: http://www.trcb.com/author/yusufbile.htm