If we want to provide a brief and adequate definition of Political Islam, we find out that it is far away from both Islam and Politics. Religiously speaking, Political Islam is based on a set of selective notions that form its distinctive inspiration, and upon which it relies to achieve its internal agenda. From a political perspective, it neither accepts the principles of political partnership nor does it accept others. When arbitrated by political changes to achieve some political concordances, those concordances will be temporary, and they won’t form a constantly permanent strategy because political Islam whether Sunni or Shiite, demonstrates itself as it bursts as an alternative of what is prominent in the political arena. However, this issue is quite complicated, and it needs an entire research.
Beginning of September, the Secretary General of Ummah Party of Kuwait tweeted a news item revealing that the Kuwaiti authorities had frozen his personal bank balance. This has got indicative implications, especially if we review both political agenda and ideologies the party is disseminating. Hence, what political and ideological attitudes fostered by the party should be debated in audio and video. These attitudes are already fostered and documented on the wholescale either textually or by audio and video through recorded episodes that are successively posted on YouTube and other social medias.
The importance of monitoring what is published by Ummah Party of Kuwait does not stem from the power amount or from its prominence in the Kuwait political scene, as its prominence does not constitute a distinguished presence. However, its importance lies in the amount of disseminating followers via social media. The official accredited page of Dr. Hakim Al Mutairy), the chairman of the party is followed by millions of people which is considered a large number. This theoretically means that there are hundreds of thousands of visitors who follow his agenda. This number trespasses the norms of piety and politics. If we want to outline this agenda, it will be a mere stereotyped version of Al-Qaida that indicates both the core agenda and hazardous impact of the party particularly over the Kuwaiti community. Anyway, for both mother- tongue Arabic speakers and Arabic learner followers, the party is not apparently a stereotyped version of Al-Qaida, but undoubtedly it significantly represents the extreme ideology.
Establishment and Formation
On January 30th 2005, Kuwaiti Al-Qabas Newspaper published a news item about the establishment of Ummah Party of Kuwait. It was a new party at that time, and it was established by a number of academic and political figures. It was established specifically in Dr. Hussein Al-Saidi’s house which is located in Jahraa district. Al-Saedi, former spokesman of the Salafist Movement, was nominated as the official spokesman of the party at that time, and the first press conference of the party was held and was attended by a number of satellite channels correspondents, world news agencies and both local and Arab newspapers as well.
As soon as the party had been introduced to attendants, Hakem Al- Mutairy, according to Al-Qabas, delivered a speech including that the name of the party is twinned applicable to its agenda as it is vastly open gated for all people to join with the least preservations, and the membership would be attainable to all via the Internet. The Gulf region is still experiencing a political backwardness, where the people of the region are dominated by totalitarian regimes, and opportunities should be available to people to practice their right of managing their own life affairs, as political pluralism and peaceful transfer of power is absent in the region, Al- Mutairy added.
Al- Mutairy’s previous speech implies no explicit hazardous indications on, but upon deliberating the constitutive statement delivered during the conference, a crucial indication will be traced, that nobody has traced at the release time of the statement. This is due to the fact that it was not that big event although some well-known Kuwaiti academic and political figures were enrolled.
The constitutional statement says that according to what Allah said in the Holly Quran: “Let there be a nation among you claiming for the good”, and as we realize the key role of the nation’s participation in the achievement social, political, economic and cultural reform, the development of political practice, and to benefit from former human experience that would ensure people’s right of freedom and participation in selecting their governments according to political pluralism and peaceful transfer of power as prescribed to Islamic legislation and approved by international charters. Individuals’ right to participate in political mobility in a communal and peaceful way that through parties, etc.
In 2008, Ummah conference was established as an additional supplement to Ummah Party as the party conference that would populate the party and enhance it from unexclusive narrow range onto a wider scale outside its local geography. The conference, as it was announced, consisted of a group of Islamic parties, and it was held in 2009 for the first time, then conferences were held periodically per trimester as published on the Ummah conference official account that published the following:
“The conference has supported the Tunisian revolution since it broke up, and has supported other revolutions like Egyptian, Yemeni and Syrian through the establishment of Consultation Commission of the Syrian Revolution. The commission played an outstanding role in providing support to the Syrian revolution entities through field training courses and workshops, and leaders qualification and development of their skills and experience”.
Excerption published on Ummah conference website has just been ended.
Generally speaking, if we speculate the constitutional statement of Ummah Party, we will find out important points. The statement included the idea of nation’s participation. The statement notably did not state the Kuwaiti nation that means the party’s gate is widely opened, so it was defined as the “Ummah Conference”. Hence, the party is originally established to trespass the narrow geographical limits. Three years after birth in Kuwait, the party discussed the support of the of the Arab revolutions in Tunis, Libya, Syria and Egypt. However, the following quotations included in its introductory statement published on the official conference website are highly important. A reminding of the Excerption published stating:
The conference has established the Consultation Commission of the Syrian Revolution. The commission played an outstanding role in providing support to the Syrian revolution entities through field training courses and workshops, and leaders’ qualification and development of their skills and experience.
For me, looking into this statement is highly important and worth discussion. This party that has cleft our heads through its discourse on peacefulness, explicitly talks about impactive issues. It talks about field training courses and political and administrative workshops to qualify leadership staff that stimulates inducing questions and doubt like: What type of field training courses are they conducting? What sort of leaders contributed by Ummah party and Ummah conference in Syria? Unfortunately, it is well known that the Salafist movements and Muslim Brothers were the main cause of suffering of the Syrian people, who had launched a peaceful revolution demanding the collapse of the regime then Islamic groups emerged and distorted the peaceful revolution and emptied its core concept out.
Pile of Messages
The ten messages published by Ummah conference so far are still echoing Dr. (Hakem Al Mutairy’s discourse, some other conferences, and party figures’ posts on social media.
Both religious aspect and sharia quotations are obviously presented, denoting that it is a profoundly Islamic party, and all its acts are originally based on sharia. Its political attitudes are not obviously emergent, but it is based on the idea of conflict between the West and the East which was populated by Usama Bin Laden, who regarded the relationship between the West and East as based on an ongoing conflict, denouncing values in the light of which the region has lived for several centuries. He outlined the space between the East and the West by a set of concepts adapted by Ummah Party and conference.
Usama Bin Laden saw the relationship between Islam and the West as an entirely ongoing conflict where the west is labeling the Cross flag to fire up religious wars. The west, to Bin Laden, intends to demolish Islam, and Bin Laden kept his eye closed on an important reality that Islam has been a part of the Western communities for decades. The same approach is adapted by Ummah Party and conference in an ironical way. Moreover, Bin Laden has indulged the entire nation into conflict against the West that was not reasonable even in the western colonial expansion eras, as the Islamic communities were not exposed to genocide or exclusion. These two factors contributed to the formation of ISIS which created the concept of murder performed by individuals residing in the west legislated through fatwas. These individuals are deluded and brainwashed that they are triumphing the nation as it is encountering a ferocious comprehensive battle.
In the first message of Ummah conference dated April 4th , the political agenda considers political issues regarding governing and management of authorities as a post-prophet Rashidi caliphate with its rules, ordinances and fundamentals as an Islamic political discipline. The political agenda shown in the first message also includes a long historical narration focusing light on the end of the Ottoman era, considering that there was a Crusade project encountering the nation. The agenda inclines to portray the Islamic movements that emerged after the collapse of the Ottoman Sultanate, and the agenda considered those movements had failed to crystalize caliphate project as a clear-cut political discipline adapting Islam as a religion and a doctrine.
The conference presents its strategic project through the second message as a comprehensive entity of the Arab Islamic movements in order to make them extend from regional range onto a wider political realm that unites the entire nation according to the message. the ultimate goals are Rashidi government which is to be changed into Rashidi caliphate. The project also denotes to ideas related to comprehensive strategic preparation regarding both leadership and administrative aspects. The third message implies a sort of a basic discipline of the conference. The message defines the principles and aims, and the second article of aims includes the following inclination the conference intends to achieve i.e. liberation of nation and the people from all aspects of occupation and tyranny, and the establishment of Rashidi Islam all over the world.
This article was published on April 25th 2013. Ridiculously, the conference defined the color of the assumed unified nation’s flag. The conference also used media as a means the conference would rely on. It established entities, unions and others organizing societies as well. The conference added the following fact: political participation to take over both legislative and executive authorities. This title needs a halt for some clarifications.
The party exactly reflects Muslim Brothers’ ideological trend in term of unions, associations and other societies to take over authorities. This means that political participation thoroughly aims at taking over legislative authorities, but there is a missing fact we should pay attention to. The conference lacks the religious preaching which is later embedded through messages that reveal an urgent need to restore caliphate, membership obtaining procedures, donations and coverage of financial expenditures and costs together with other organizing procedures. There was a kind of circumlocution in figuring out messages which constituted a Laws of Procedures that defines goals and means adopted to achieve those goals.
As for the ninth message, the conference presented its agenda to the so-called Jihadists who are still on hold in the blessed land of Palestine and to unfaltering combatants in Iraq, Mesopotamia, patient combatants in Afghanistan and everywhere. Those who are combating for God’s sake, and confronting the armies of aggression and occupation). Upon the content of the message, we find out that it is not different from those messages presented by Bin Laden and his successor Ayman Al-Zawahiri who used to constantly present this message to what they saw as nation’s Jihadists, and the extract below is an excerpt of the real text:
“You are still defending Islam and its followers, and defending the nation. You are still preserving the nation’s dignity and honesty. You are preserving its religion and doctrine, and confronting the greatest military forces all over the world. With the least arms and warfare, and with huge number of opponents and traitors”. The promise of prophet Muhammed (peace be upon him) will be fulfilled and come true.
“A faction of my nation is still defending for the right. This faction has not been yielded by those who traitored and opposed it until God’s command comes” said the prophet.
As for the tenth letter, the conference presents the qualities of the so-called successful political Rashidi. It urges and adopts peacefulness, integrity. It accepts the idea of political pluralism as it puts it (it does not exclude or dismiss any figures even if they are having contrary ideologies. It will confront their ideologies with its own ideologies, and their approaches with its ones as far as they are committed to political peaceful act and to other requirements of the party and the conference. Then it ends with a statement that says that a human being lives amongst a community not alone. This is interpreted through the concept of rights and duties.
The tenth message almost intends to figure out a supposed diagram of the forthcoming state. It talks about necessity to establish political parties, and a Salafist vision, that refuses both establishment and indulgence in parties, is included. The party, henceforth, talks about the idea of political alliances as it is allowed according to Sharia.
The most confusing and outstanding text comes in the conclusion of the tenth message. It came by pervasion item where words were confusingly ordered that needed auditing and revision. It comes as follows:
- Penetration is allowed by recruiting secret agents inside the targeted parties to obtain information about the party and its financial resources. Individuals with strong potentials of accuracy, good memorization abilities are assigned to perform such tasks. This kind od pervasion is practiced by states intelligence agencies against opposing parties to monitor their activities.
- Penetration is intended to change the objectives and goals of a targeted party, and number of talented individuals with high specific skills and capabilities regarding political agenda, thought, eloquence, politics are assigned to do such a sort of pervasion due to their talents and capabilities. They are also employed to gather people and to reach high leadership positions. They have to deviate the targeted party from its route, and this kind of pervasion is practiced in most of international organizations that are having long-term objectives like Zionism and Mason organization whose goals are unlimited by time and place.
- Penetration is also intended to smash and corrode the targeted party. Individuals assigned to perform such tasks should be skillful at gossiping, and they should be concerned with criticizing leadership and to suspect its probabilities. They have to focus on controversial issues, and to denude mistakes and magnify them. They should create racial or sectarian conglomerations inside the targeted party to be used in due time to create defections.
- Penetration is also intended to assassinate important figures. An integrated team is assigned to do such a sort of penetration. The team is well-qualified to constantly pursuit targeted individuals, and their movements and activities should be reported to a specialized committee that will decide on the appropriate mechanism of dealing with each case.
Conclusion
On the formal aspect, Ummah Party and conference agendas and perspectives are just Salafistic, but the ideas of Islamic caliphate, Rashidi government, participation in authority, urging to snap opportunities to take over makes it a Salafistic-Muslim Brothers homogenic combination, and the messages’ aims and other implications aim to change the populist agenda into a factional one, figuring an integrated political and administrative program. Although it creates a Salafistic agenda on the outer side, but it does not serve Muslim Brothers’ project on the long run. Muslim Brothers’ absence from the party and the conference and its political agenda is certainly uncoincidental. However, both Ummah Party and conference intend to hide the core content of Muslim Brothers’ ideology in a way that the Salafistic movement will gather behind, and to make all Salafistic movements take the footsteps of enfolded program of Muslim Brothers.
Finally, if anyone follows Hakem Al Mutairy’s official accounts, the chairman of Ummah party and the main theorizer of Ummah Party conferences will find out how his discourse is purely Salafistic and identical with that of Al Qaeda. The party deals with the West as a Crusade enemy, and it deals with Arab regimes as occupied and subjugated countries. The party also considers foreign military bases as occupation forces as it is identically seen by Usama Bin Laden, leader of Al-Qaeda.
Thus, danger exactly lies here as we are encountering political forces that are negatively using democracy in an extremist populist way that promotes violence. This way tends to reformulate youth’s awareness as Al-Qaeda and ISIS have been doing so far. This has been clearly spotted in the ongoing catastrophic consequences and spillovers in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia and Yemen.
It is ultimately unreasonable that there are academicians publicly presenting and populating such ideologies.
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