How many times have I sat on a dinner table listening to my Dad debating with an Uncle about the problems in Bangladesh? Loads! And nobody seems to have an answer. My dad ends up with the same question every time: Why don’t Bengalis just follow the law in Bangladesh?

So one day as I sat in the back of a rickshaw in Bangladesh, I asked the driver: “where do the laws come from in this country?” He told me he didn’t know. I then asked him why he followed them. His reply would have made my dad mad with rage. He said: “I don’t follow them”.

This rickshaw driver who probably had an annual income of less than £500 had asked a very good question ““ why should he follow the laws of Bangladesh? People follow laws for different reasons ““ amongst people who don’t think, it’s usually because like sheep they just follow the crowd. Others follow the laws in fear of the possible retribution. Thinkers on the other hand, follow laws either because they are convinced of them (like when my Dad tells me to keep the milk in the fridge) or because they are convinced of the source of the legislation (like when my Mum tells me that if I ever have children inshAllah, it’s better that my wife breast feeds rather than bottle milk ““ I don’t need to know exactly why but I trust my Mum on these issues).

The UK has always relied on people being convinced of the source of legislation with the actual law itself being second priority. It has always spent time and money via the media, support of books, poetry, the national curriculum, etc to ensure that the British people have a love of ideas such as democracy, secularism and freedom. This is because for any nation to progress the Government and the people must be united on certain key ideas. The works of writers like Thomas Carlyle were promoted for the same purpose. It’s impossible to unify everyone on every issue ““ so instead the Governments unify the people on fundamental doctrines (Aqeeda) of Capitalism instead ““ and then the rest follows. The thinking is: “As long as the law was democratically put into place and doesn’t encroach on the majority’s freedom, then it’s fine even if I don’t agree with it.”

This is exactly what the Muslim countries like Bangladesh are missing. The Government and the people are not unified on a system. The Governments implement a mixture of capitalism, socialism and dictatorship even though they themselves don’t understand it. Whereas the people are Muslim and are day by day moving more towards solving their problems with Islam. There’s no reason why they should obey the laws. One of the newer laws in Bangladesh is that frogs and toads must not be killed. Nobody cares about this law since they see no basis for it. For Bangladesh and the other Muslim countries to progress the people need to either leave Islam and unify with the government on capitalism OR the government needs to leave capitalism, democracy (man-made legislation), and secularism and unify with the people on Islam, elections and Shariah. Obviously, we know that the Muslims will never leave Islam completely so I guess the only option is for the rulers to get lost with their 3000 year old Greek system.

The interesting thing is that yesterday, British MPs in Parliament voted by an overwhelming majority that smoking should be banned in all public, enclosed spaces (pubs, bars, restaurants, cafes, etc). The law should take effect in August next year. Try talking to a group of people about this ““ nobody can agree if this was a good move or a bad one. There’s so much confusion on it. Normally, Britons would refer back to their trusted values of freedom, secularism, democracy, tolerance, etc, but in this case the confusion remains. “Where’s my freedom to smoke in a public place?” “Where’s my freedom not to inhale second-hand smoke in a public place?” It’s the same confusion we see with the caricatures of the Prophet (saws), the anti-terror legislation, the compulsory ID cards. Even non-Muslims are confused on the issue.

The ideas and values that the UK have depended on for decades and exported to the Muslim lands are falling apart. The Government is forced to compromise again and again on its core values and the weakness of its ideas become more and more apparent. If the Government doesn’t do something soon, then the UK will fall apart as the people lose faith in their own system. People will start ignoring the smoking ban en masse and then the system will lose further legitimacy in the eyes of the people. The implications will be severe and this isn’t the first or the last law that will contradict their core doctrines (Aqeeda). If you can’t convince the people of the source of legislation of laws like “don’t kill frogs” then is it better not to legislate them at all?

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 15th, 2006 at 5:48 PM and is filed under Islam. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.