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Thread: Malaysia, Inspiring Other Muslim Countries?
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Posts:
25
Registered:
9/25/06
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Malaysia, Inspiring Other Muslim Countries?
Posted:
Oct 22, 2007 5:21 AM
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The first Malaysian astronaut in space and two Russian cosmonauts have landed back on Earth after leaving the International Space Station (ISS). Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor left Earth on a Russian Soyuz spaceship 11 days ago, and spent nine days on the space station.Mr Shukor's trip was paid for by the Malaysian government. Do you think the Malaysian experience will inspire other Muslim governments to invest in science?
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Posts:
662
Registered:
11/27/06
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Re: Malaysia, Inspiring Other Muslim Countries?
Posted:
Oct 23, 2007 7:10 PM
in response to:
Ramadan2006
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Perhaps we should be paying attention to what is happening on earth...
American Plan to subvert Islam
--------------------------------
Here is the summary section from the 2005 RAND report by Cheryl Bernard entitled ‘Civil Democratic Islam. Partners Resources and Strategies.’ It articulates the American plan to subvert Islam and in its place create a western friendly ‘American Islam.’
Allah (swt) says in Surah al-Baqara, ayah 120, TMQ:
“Never will the Jews or the Christians be satisfied with you until you follow their religion.”
America is trying to divide the Muslim Ummah into various camps. Bush initiated this plan after 9/11 when he made it clear that ‘you are either with us or with the terrorists.’ The RAND report below divides the Ummah into four camps. They are the: fundamentalists, traditionalists, modernists and secularists. In spite of this we must always remember that the Muslim Ummah is ONE body and we must oppose any such division. The only camp we are in is the camp of the believers.
Muslims at all levels of society in the Muslim world must ensure they work for furthering the cause of Islam and Muslims and not for supporting the western colonial plan. We must always remember that despite the plots and plans of the colonialist kuffar, Allah is the best of planners.
Allah (swt) says in Surah al-Anfal, ayah 30, TMQ:
“They plot and plan, and Allah too plans; but the best of planners is Allah.”
Report:
Civil Democratic Islam. Partners Resources and Strategies.
Cheryl Bernard
RAND Corporation
Download full report here
http://www.rand.org/pubs/monograph_reports/2005/MR1716.pdf
Summary
* Fundamentalists reject democratic values and contemporary Western culture. They want an authoritarian, puritanical state that will implement their extreme view of Islamic law and morality. They are willing to use innovation and modern technology to achieve that goal.
* Traditionalists want a conservative society. They are suspicious of modernity, innovation, and change.
* Modernists want the Islamic world to become part of global modernity. They want to modernize and reform Islam to bring it into line with the age.
* Secularists want the Islamic world to accept a division of church and state in the manner of Western industrial democracies, with religion relegated to the private sphere.
These groups hold distinctly different positions on essential issues that have become contentious in the Islamic world today, including political and individual freedom, education, the status of women, criminal justice, the legitimacy of reform and change, and attitudes toward the West.
The fundamentalists are hostile to the West and to the United States in particular and are intent, to varying degrees, on damaging and destroying democratic modernity. Supporting them is not an option, except for transitory tactical considerations. The traditionalists generally hold more moderate views, but there are significant differences between different groups of traditionalists. Some are close to the fundamentalists. None wholeheartedly embraces modern democracy and the culture and values of modernity and, at best, can only make an uneasy peace with them.
The modernists and secularists are closest to the West in terms of values and policies. However, they are generally in a weaker position than the other groups, lacking powerful backing, financial resources, an effective infrastructure, and a public platform. The secularists, besides sometimes being unacceptable as allies on the basis of their broader ideological affiliation, also have trouble addressing the traditional sector of an Islamic audience.
Traditional orthodox Islam contains democratic elements that can be used to counter the repressive, authoritarian Islam of the fundamentalists, but it is not suited to be the primary vehicle of democratic Islam. That role falls to the Islamic modernists, whose effectiveness, however, has been limited by a number of constraints, which this report will explore.
To encourage positive change in the Islamic world toward greater democracy, modernity, and compatibility with the contemporary international world order, the United States and the West need to consider very carefully which elements, trends, and forces within Islam they intend to strengthen; what the goals and values of their various potential allies and protégés really are; and what the broader consequences of advancing their respective agendas are likely to be. A mixed approach composed of the following elements is likely to be the most effective:
* Support the modernists first:
- Publish and distribute their works at subsidized cost.
- Encourage them to write for mass audiences and for youth.
- Introduce their views into the curriculum of Islamic education.
- Give them a public platform.
- Make their opinions and judgments on fundamental questions of religious interpretation available to a mass audience in competition with those of the fundamentalists and traditionalists, who have Web sites, publishing houses, schools, institutes, and many other vehicles for disseminating their views.
- Position secularism and modernism as a "counterculture" option for disaffected Islamic youth.
- Facilitate and encourage an awareness of their pre- and non-Islamic history and culture, in the media and the curricula of relevant countries.
- Assist in the development of independent civic organizations, to promote civic culture and provide a space for ordinary citizens to educate themselves about the political process and to articulate their views.
* Support the traditionalists against the fundamentalists:
- Publicize traditionalist criticism of fundamentalist violence and extremism; encourage disagreements between traditionalists and fundamentalists.
- Discourage alliances between traditionalists and fundamentalists.
- Encourage cooperation between modernists and the traditionalists who are closer to the modernist end of the spectrum.
- Where appropriate, educate the traditionalists to equip them better for debates against fundamentalists. Fundamentalists are often rhetorically superior, while traditionalists practice a politically inarticulate "folk Islam." In such places as Central Asia, they may need to be educated and trained in orthodox Islam to be able to stand their ground.
- Increase the presence and profile of modernists in traditionalist institutions.
- Discriminate between different sectors of traditionalism. Encourage those with a greater affinity to modernism, such as the Hanafi law school, versus others. Encourage them to issue religious opinions and popularize these to weaken the authority of backward Wahhabi-inspired religious rulings. This relates to funding: Wahhabi money goes to the support of the conservative Hanbali school. It also relates to knowledge: More-backward parts of the Muslim world are not aware of advances in the application and interpretation of Islamic law.
- Encourage the popularity and acceptance of Sufism.
* Confront and oppose the fundamentalists:
- Challenge their interpretation of Islam and expose inaccuracies.
- Reveal their linkages to illegal groups and activities.
- Publicize the consequences of their violent acts.
- Demonstrate their inability to rule, to achieve positive development of their countries and communities.
- Address these messages especially to young people, to pious traditionalist populations, to Muslim minorities in the West, and to women.
- Avoid showing respect or admiration for the violent feats of fundamentalist extremists and terrorists. Cast them as disturbed and cowardly, not as evil heroes.
- Encourage journalists to investigate issues of corruption, hypocrisy, and immorality in fundamentalist and terrorist circles.
- Encourage divisions among fundamentalists.
* Selectively support secularists:
- Encourage recognition of fundamentalism as a shared enemy, discourage secularist alliance with anti-U.S. forces on such grounds as nationalism and leftist ideology.
- Support the idea that religion and the state can be separate in Islam too and that this does not endanger the faith but, in fact, may strengthen it.
Whichever approach or mix of approaches is chosen, we recommend that it be done with careful deliberation, in knowledge of the symbolic weight of certain issues; the meaning likely to be assigned to the alignment of U.S. policymakers with particular positions on these issues; the consequences of these alignments for other Islamic actors, including the risk of endangering or discrediting the very groups and people we are seeking to help; and the opportunity costs and possible unintended consequences of affiliations and postures that may seem appropriate in the short term.
The writer's full report is here:
http://www.rand.org/publications/MR/MR1716/
her husband is Zalmay Khalilzad, America's man in Afghanistan who is now supervising the U.S. occupation in Iraq.
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Posts:
189
Registered:
5/7/07
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Re: Malaysia, Inspiring Other Muslim Countries?
Posted:
Nov 24, 2007 12:33 AM
in response to:
Saladin
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Malaysia no doubt is an inspiration not only to Muslims but also to the Third World. But of course there are more detractors than conformists, not in numbers but in who are imbued with knowledge of and access to IT. Re Saladin's coverage of the Neocon's programme entitled: "Civil Democratic Islam: Partners, Resources and Strategies" assigned to Cheryl Benard, he misses to point out the 'Religion building enterprise of the Neocons. For info, it is an invitation for world powers to reform and reinterpret Islam and restructure Muslim societies, as well as to counter the rise of militancy. Nevertheless, such invitation to reform Islam and restructure Muslim societies is faulty and guilty of misreading Islam and ignoring the sociopolitical reality that gives rise to global 'terrorism.' Religion building is actually perilous, complex, ill-conceived and practically untenable. Benard's recommendations are nothing but a recycling of old foreign policies that have led to a radicalised Middle East. The report is also silent on the effects of America's foreign policy that Muslims frequently characterised as one of insonsistency and double standards, one that supports friendly dictators and corrupt regimes in the Muslim world. Rather than searching for lifestyle criteria to separate friends from foes, the USA should base its opinion on principles amd values.It should support and cooperate with political forces in the M.E. that uphold freedom, equality and tolerance of ethnic and religious diversity, and should welcome those committed to democracy and rule of law, regardless of religion religious doctrines and lifestyle - NOT what Paul Wolfowitz, Lewis 'Scooter' Libby, Bernard Lewis, Cheney, Daniel Pipes, Benard and other Neocons dictate.
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Posts:
662
Registered:
11/27/06
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Re: Malaysia, Inspiring Other Muslim Countries?
Posted:
Oct 23, 2007 7:30 PM
in response to:
Ramadan2006
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regarding: "Do you think the Malaysian experience will inspire other Muslim governments to invest in science?"
Science is wonderful.
But Muslims don't even have FOOD to eat and here is a discussion on investing in a space program?
Priorities.
* Iran is being threatened with World War 3
* Pakistan is at civil war
* Iraq has been invaded by the Corporate Terrorists
* Somalia has been sent back 20 years for daring to base its government on Islam
* Lebanon is in ruins
* Palestine is occupied and sanctioned
* Afganistan has been invaded by the Corporate Terrorists
* All over the Muslim world, Our enemies in the White House have built military bases
and here we are discussing a space program.
Well done 
Perhaps there are more important things to be discussing:
Like how we Muslims are going to stop the Corporate Terrorists in America from DIVING AND
CONQUERING every Muslim group, civil society institution, government, army, and population.
How?
Are we standing United?
Unity first, then science as well insha-Allah.
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Posts:
4
Registered:
2/10/07
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Re: Malaysia, Inspiring Other Muslim Countries?
Posted:
Oct 24, 2007 1:20 AM
in response to:
Ramadan2006
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Well, you can buy everything with money. Malaysian govt paid a lot of money to send this astronout out to space. Just like a saudian sheikh or prince flown to space by NASA. But what's the point? Why don't they spend the money paid to the Russians space agency to help poor people around the world? Is prestige so much valued? I think it's not inspiring at all. Too symbolic, isn't it? It would be different if the austronout was sent by Malaysian space agency, using Malaysian owned and built space shuttle, launched from Malaysian satellite launching pad, with muslim Malaysian engineers controlling everything, working on a project for the wellfare of muslims and humanity, at least in Malaysia. That would be something nice, wouldn't you think so?
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Posts:
41
Registered:
8/1/06
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Re: Malaysia, Inspiring Other Muslim Countries?
Posted:
Oct 29, 2007 5:13 AM
in response to:
catfish
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I disagree with catfish, even if Malaysia did that with the help of Russians, it's ok for the first step, and it is better than nothing.
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Posts:
189
Registered:
5/7/07
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Re: Malaysia, Inspiring Other Muslim Countries?
Posted:
Oct 28, 2007 5:26 AM
in response to:
Ramadan2006
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Undoubtedly, Malaysia's achievements is an inspiration to a greater number of Muslims the world over. At least, it was not a mere tourists attempt to frolic in space, but there was really a scientific program to be proven. On the other hand, there are as many Muslims and non-Muslims who are critical of Malaysia for spending a fortune while there are starving Muslims on the face of the earth that need assistance to bail out of their miserable tendencies. But as no one can satisfy everybody on eveything all the time, the rests of the world can only have their say of what is their rights to say so. For one, the Saudi monarch has come up with a nobel idea of investing a fortune on Science and Technology even in defiance of established norms of national taboos. This is something of the extraordinary from the Desert Kingdom, hosts of the two holiest Muslim Shrines, and so far the most conservative of Muslim states.It may be a little late than expected, but it is much better than never. These feat of a Malaysian Muslim should be a welcome phenomenon not only in Islamic circles, but among the Third World nations as well. Moreover, the number of non-Muslim intellectuals bent on making their own researches about Islam could be expected to double with the recent turn of events. It wouldn't be a surprise if more intellectuals would embrace Islam in the next few months. For once a person gets to learn the truth about Islam, one cannot resist the tempting invitation of a world of good peculiar only in Islam.
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Posts:
1
Registered:
10/29/07
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Re: Malaysia, Inspiring Other Muslim Countries?
Posted:
Oct 30, 2007 9:37 AM
in response to:
Ramadan2006
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We can go on and on with this kind of debate.
The bottomline, I guess is, the "niyat" in the heart, or the intention. If the intention is wholly for Allah, and the act is warranted in Sunnah or Quran, the results will be good, insya Allah. Otherwise, it constitutes a sin. And sin comes with punishment. Period.
This may be a suspicion on my part, forgive me - and Allah knows best. I feel The whole space show is stemmed from wanting to be seen/heard a little too much more than inspire and Truth. Malaysia has always envisioned themselves as the leader of the Islamic World - but unfortunately, they can't manage their own internal Syariah Court. Like their own people renouncing Islam to other religions, while mismanaging those who converted to Islam - Astaghfirullah.
Talking about inspirations - just let Quran do that job.
We need to see more courageous Ulama leaders practising the faith and leading the Ummah right than gazing at astronauts.
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