What the KL Summit should be about

How meaningful is the KL Summit which has only key leaders of Iran, Turkey, Qatar, and Malaysia as key participants, with the other forty over countries not interested in what they see as Malaysia trying to create a new Muslim bloc, stealing the thunder from Saudi Arabia?

Iran and Turkey are troubled democracies, aren’t they? And Qatar is a supporter of Assad’s Syria. Essentially, the issues in the Muslim world are perennial and the word “ummah” is merely a nice thing to utter for religion to be used for global political ends.

Is this summit, the fifth in the series of Muslim-improvement-plan summits, yet another time and money-waster in which the speakers are merely bringing in stale and outdated proposals devoid of an understanding of international affairs, let alone globalization, a process that has been happening for thousands of years – and one that pertains to Islam and its declining influence since the fall of the Ottoman Empire?

I recall the narratives on meaninglessness put forth as a philosophical argument by the Nobel Laureate French-Algerian philosopher Albert Camus whose analysis of the myth of Sisyphus speaks to the modern man, concerning the issue of depthlessness.

In this case, what is the KL Summit about? An ego trip of a few leaders, all guilty of overstaying their welcome and all having major issues with the people they govern, namely the issue of the fear of relinquishing power, while the people are forced to roll the rock up on the hill, daily, like the Camusian hero, Sisyphus.

What is the Muslim Summit about, or rather, what is there to summit about?

Muslim democracy?

Is there a "Muslim country" today worthy of being spoken of as a model democracy?

Real Muslim leaders don't cling on to power as long as they can. That's not democracy in Islam, is it? Today's "Islamic countries" are images of decadence, degeneration, and dictatorialism. So, in the Muslim Summit, what will, for example, Turkey's Erdogan say about Islam, world peace, and torture in his own country?

In Malaysia, there is the issue of ignorance. Malays need not fear the civilizational legacy of Indian and China, of which Southeast Asia benefitted as a crossroads. Malays need not feel small by the monumentalism and ancientness of the Chinese and Indian civilizations. Learn from them.

When there is too much obsession with Arabic and the adoption of the disabling and violent strands of “Wahabbi jihadism”, Malay culture will be destroyed. Reclaim authenticity now.

The problem with the Muslim leaders is that they have created huge problems for their people and the religion. A brand of sane democracy is possible in 'Muslim countries" if religion is separated from the state. Learn from Thomas Jefferson's USA.

In this sense and in the context of the KL summit, what can Malaysia learn from Turkey and Iran what she has not learned from Saudi Arabia and Pakistan? Ayatollahs and dictators won't teach us about true democracy in Islam, would they? Besides, how do you reconcile the Malaysian government’s stand on the Syiahs’ in Malaysia when Iran is invited to the summit?

Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Syria - these are failing Muslim countries Malaysians cannot learn from.

Islamic World Summit in Malaysia seems like a climb of Camus' Sisyphean hill, where we roll the rock of life up, to have it roll down at the end of the day, daily, while dictators and despots use religion to practice the lessons of Machiavelli.

In the summit, would they talk about the so-called “Uyghur concentration camps"? Or will there also be talk about China fighting Uyghur-Muslim poverty and terrorism in Xinjiang.

China is fighting terrorism, not Islam. From the time of Admiral Zheng He (Cheng Ho) Islam is a respected religion. Not Wahabbism. There are "jihadists" amongst the Uyghurs in Xinjiang. In Kashgar, 1990-2016 was a period of attacks. And chaos. China's fighting Uyghur jihadists, not Xinjiang Muslims who are living in peace and prosperity.

Leaders and their well-fed scholars cannot continue to do research with confirmed biases as methodology. There are perspectives to consider.

There are good Palestinians. And then there is Hamas who fires rockets into Israel. There are good Americans. And then there is Donald Trump,

What should be discussed

The Muslim Summit in Malaysia should discuss how to stop leaders from staying in power way too long. These leaders should champion Islam by releasing it from State bondage. Learn from the Lutheran-Protestant Reformation Period and engineer a total philosophical change to stop the religion moving backwards.

The idea of an Islamic "ummah" is never clear nor possible, yet abused as wrong rallying propaganda today. Muslims don't need to belong to an "ummah' of "we vs them". Each Muslim is an individual to flourish naturally. Muslims wans to be free from the fear of Islam-rationalized terrorism. Of jihad as a struggle, marinated with terror and marketed as a global product.

Poverty is the root cause of terrorism. Neo-colonalism and the global-corporate-oligopolic ideology is another one. Lack of education, miseducation and strict theological and indoctrination education are too. In essence, the problem is poverty of basic needs, knowledge, and an understanding of religion.

The KL Muslim Summit should discuss how Muslim leaders terrorize their own people, how to depose them, democratically preferably. But in "Islamic countries" today, you can't get rid of impeachable leaders. Bad democracy installed via abuse of religion. In this respect, I’d say: get the two-term-limit for he prime ministership installed fast, Malaysians.

There is a proposal to buy and trade with Muslims only. Imagine a world with "Muslim-only trading and technology". We'd be camel riders on the Silk Road again. Hello Genghiz Khan!

The KL Summit is like a "Muslim Brexit" for Malays, essentially. It is an exit from reality.

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AZLY RAHMAN is an academician, international columnist and author of seven books available here. He holds a doctorate in international education development and Master’s degrees in six areas: education, international affairs, peace studies, communication, fiction and non-fiction writing. He is a member of the Kappa Delta Pi International Honor Society in Education. Twitter @azlyrahman. More writings here. - Mkini