Democracy compatible with Islam, says Chandra

The right to freedom comes with the responsibility required to handle it, he says at public forum.

PETALING JAYA: Democracy is inherently compatible with Islam, argues political scientist and Islamic reformist Chandra Muzaffar, although he acknowleged that “one-to-one” parity between Islam and democracy would leave many Muslims a little uneasy.

Speaking at a public forum here today, he said: “Many Muslims would be able to accept that a democracy rooted in Islam is in line with the religion, but at the same time, Muslims everywhere are very conscious of what they see as the distinctiveness of Islam. In other words, a one-to-one equation between Islam and democracy is something they would be uneasy about.”

The forum, entitled Islam in a Constitutional Democracy, includes civil rights figures and Islamic intellectuals such as Dzulkefly Ahmad, Azmi Sharom and Farouk Musa.

Chandra drew parallels between Islamic thought and the Western concept of democracy, pointing out that both Islamic and Western-derived schools of thought would argue that freedom is a treasure.

“The fourth caliph had said that freedom is one of God’s greatest gifts,” he said. “But if one reflects a little more deeply on what Islam means by freedom, you’ll find that in Islam — unlike post-enlightenment European democratic thought — freedom is not just freedom to express oneself, assemble and associate.”

“Here Islam runs parallel with Greek thought. It is freedom FROM, which is essential to freedom TO. The freedom from greed, hatred, and anger, to be able to exercise said freedom in the public sphere.”

Chandra also linked this with the concept of human rights, saying that Islamic thought also clearly accepted the concept, except with the extra accompanying measure of responsibility.

“Western thought has privileged rights to such an extent that responsibility is somehow sidelined. Responsibility precedes right,” he noted, saying that Islam placed more focus on the responsibility to exercise said right. “For example, in Islam the poor have an automatic right to the wealth of society, i.e. the zakat. Rights are important, but so is responsibility.”