The issue of population extinction of South Korea - that emerged
since the beginning of last September - was a shocking concept to the
ordinary public. The first question that comes to mind is why the
societies with advanced technology, high levels of welfare and the rapid
pace of modernization are actually at risk of extinction? This question
needs an answer.
Research by the National Assembly Research Service (NARS) in Seoul
which was released in late August, suggested alarmingly the potential of
the population of South Korea to become extinct, due to the decline in
its birth rate to a new low of 1.19 children per woman in 2013. The
research's simulation showed that the population will shrink from 50
million today to 40 million by 2056 and 10 million in 2136. Then the
last remaining South Korean people will live until 2750.
The population crisis in South Korea actually reminds us of the same
issues that also hit Japan and the Asian tiger countries over the last
few decades. The Diplomat even said if the latest forecast is
accurate, then the region -not only South Korea- has an even bigger
demographic threat: extinction. South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, and
Singapore are struggling to finance huge numbers of their old age
population. Almost the same as South Korea, approximately 39.6 percent
of the Japanese population will be retired by 2050. According to a study
released by Tohoku University in 2012, the population of Japan would
also be extinct within a thousand years, with the last child born in
3011. It is an irony and paradox that the countries which have been
dubbed as the "East Asian miracle" due to their success in transforming
to become a high economic growth region, currently face the risk of
their own race becoming extinct as a nation.
The Chicago Syndrome: Sick Society and Population Crisis
The phenomenon of an aging population that engulfed East Asian
countries cannot be separated from their pioneer in the West that has
experienced it first. Successful East Asia in transformation from a
passive part of emerging global capitalism during the colonial expansion
of the West to an active builder of the globalizing capitalist system -
meant that it did not take them a long time to experience the same
syndrome experienced and pioneered by Western countries such as France,
Italy and others. After only about three decades of capitalization in
their countries, the damage and social breakdown caused by this system
immediately swept across their societies.
Chicago's Syndrome is a term coined by a Malaysian professor. The
Professor from the International Institute of Islamic Thought and
Civilization (ISTAC), Mohd. Kamal Hassan recognized the symptoms of major cities in the United States and other Western countries with "having economic progress but suffering detriment civilization".
And indeed this is the character of many capitalist countries today. In
such states, rapid development is often accompanied by a social crisis,
the collapse of the family institution, widespread criminality,
violence against women and children, and high suicide rates, in addition
to falling birth rates which are in large part due to the massive
involvement of women in the labor force. South Korea faces a serious
problem in the elderly suicide rate; it is over 4000 elderly suicides
per year. Likewise in Japan, about 30,000 people die as a result of
suicide each year. This equates to around 80-100 Japanese people
committing suicide each day. And surprisingly most of them are of a
productive age and have a steady income financially. Child abuse has
also become a big issue in capitalist East Asian countries. In South
Korea the number of confirmed child abuse cases rose to 6,700 in 2013
from 2,100 in 2001, and then up 36% this year to 10,240 cases. Japan is
even worse in that it reported a total of 73,765 cases of child abuse in
2013- its highest ever level and the first time the total has surpassed
70,000.
Western societies which are characterized by three things:
secularism, pragmatism and hedonism - as described by the eminent
scholar Taqiyuddin an-Nabhani (1953) in his book, The System of Islam -
have transmitted the same traits in developed East Asian societies,
along with the detrimental consequences that extends to their society's
life. When the West continues to propagate their values and ideology
to the world in a very arrogant manner through maligning Islam and
Muslims, in reality it is an attempt to hide the desperation that they
have created in their own societies and also in other regions such as
East Asia. Now the West is no longer able to hide the decline and damage
of their secular values and way of life.
The so-called ‘advancement and modernity' supposedly offered by
Capitalism in truth was nothing but an effective recipe for mass
dehumanization of mankind, for the ideology made communities value
material and physical pleasures rather than the wellbeing of their
societies. Its values made individuals indifferent to humanity and the
preservation of the human race itself. Acutely individualistic minds
created by capitalism have spawned generations with damaged mentalities
and spiritually empty lives - generations who have failed to understand
clearly the reality of life, have no clear purpose in life and who are
obsessed with imaginative and inhumane superhero figures from their own
capitalist entertainment industry. They are also being transformed into
an inhumane generation that is obsessed with materialistic success and a
hedonistic lifestyle rather than the happiness that comes from a stable
and successful family life. Many also shun the commitment associated
with marriage due to pursuing individual pleasures and desires. And
others postpone having children till late in life or even decide to
remain childless because they see children as a burden that drains their
finances. This is because they do not have a belief in the Creator who
guarantees the rizq (provision) for every son of Adam. All this
is coupled with capitalism's "Womenomics" policy of coercing women into
the workplace - a policy that has created mass exploitation of female
workers; and that has caused many women to view being employed as giving
them a higher status than being a mother, resulting in them losing
their passion to have many children. All this is why the birth rate and
marriage rate in many capitalist countries has become very low, for many
of their youth did not value marriage and family anymore. So slowly but
surely, this flow of modern capitalist dehumanization led to population
crises, and even predictions of population extinction! This is a toxic
form of success which is offered by secularism - toxic because despite
abundance of sciences and tremendous technological advances, such
societies have failed to organize the personal lives of individuals to
build healthy civilizations.
The Sublime Vision of the Islamic Civilization
"If the U.S. spends hundreds of millions of dollars for
scientific researches in addressing social problems in their society,
then Islam eliminates ingrained habits in jahiliyah societies only by a
few sheets of the Quran." - Sayyid Qutb
The above quote is true. Islam has rooted solutions to create a
healthy society. Medina is the best model of a healthy and civilized
society as Islam, since its birth in the Arabian Peninsula, has incised
remarkable achievement in bringing dignity to the community. Under the
shade of Allah's Revelation, Islam also managed to fuse thoughts and
feelings in the community within the purity of the Islamic Aqeedah and
Laws. Not surprisingly, the predominance of Medina is illustrated by the
words of the Prophet (saw) who described it like a blacksmith furnace
that is able to get rid of iron rust. Rasulullah (saw) has stated:
«أُمِرْتُ
بِقَرْيَةٍ تَأْكُلُ الْقُرَى يَقُولُونَ يَثْرِبُ، وَهِيَ الْمَدِينَةُ
تَنْفِي النَّاسَ كَمَا يَنْفِي الْكِيرُ خَبَثَ الْحَدِيدِ»
"I was ordered to a town which will eat up towns. They
used to say, 'Yathrib,' but it is Madina. It removes the bad people like
the blacksmith's furnace removes impurities from the iron." (Muwatta Malik / Book-45 / Hadith-1605)
The Shariah as a body of laws has particular maqasids
(intents) that are aimed at preserving five things that exist in human
civilization, namely: belief, life, mind, honour and property. These
Islamic aims ensure that economic prosperity, modernity and advancement
will not cause a social breakdown in the society. So the advancement of
technology in Islam does not need social costs. This is because Islam
does not recognize a dichotomy between knowledge and faith as the
Western civilization does. The church doctrines in the Dark Middle-Ages
often conflicted with the sciences, so it forced the birth of secularism
which became the main reason of social breakdown today despite the fact
that such states reached prosperity and technological advances.
The Prophet (saw) also described the life of the Islamic community as
a group of people who sailed the seas within a ship that contained
specific laws of behavior to protect all on board. It symbolized the
nature of a society whose constituents have a collective responsibility
to prevent wrongdoing inorder to protect the rights and welfare of all;
مثل المدهن في
حدود الله والواقع فيها مثل قوم استهموا سفينة فصار بعضهم في أسفلها وصار
بعضهم في أعلاها فكان الذي في أسفلها يمرون بالماء على الذين في أعلاها
فتأذوا به فأخذ فأسا فجعل ينقر أسفل السفينة فأتوه فقالوا ما لك قال تأذيتم
بي ولا بد لي من الماء فإن أخذوا على يديه أنجوه ونجوا أنفسهم وإن تركوه
أهلكوه وأهلكوا أنفسهم
"The example of the one who stands for the Hudood of
Allah and the one who compromises the Hudood of Allah are like the
people in a boat, some of whom occupy the upper deck and some occupy the
lower deck. Whenever those in the lower deck need water, they have to
go to the upper deck to retrieve it. So some of them said, ‘why don't we
make a hole in our deck so we do not harm the people of the upper
deck?' If the people do not stop them, they will all fall and be
failures, but if they stop them they will all be saved." (Bukhari)
This ship analogy highlights the importance of the collective
responsibility in a society which functions as an effective protector of
the wellbeing of the people. Islam strongly recognizes this principle,
and the obligation of amar ma'roof nahee munkar (enjoining the
good and forbidding the evil) that it prescribes upon all believers
functions as a strong immune system within the society to prevent the
spreading of social diseases.
Muslim Women as the Guards of Civilization
As members of society, women are in the center of the cultural wars
in many Muslim countries today. They are seen as "bearers of culture",
the manager of tradition and family values, as well as the last bulwark
against the penetration and domination of Western culture.
Islam views women as having a central position within a civilization.
Muslim women play an important role within the family to maintain the
Islamic identity of the Muslim society. A healthy Muslim community can
therefore only be achieved if Muslim women realize where their exact
position within a society lies and regain that position. The main
position of women is as educators of the future generations. An
intelligent and righteous mother should be aware of her main role which
is to create the best children of this Ummah who will improve the
condition of Muslims. In the West, this main role of women has been
devalued and undermined. The result has been the rampant spread of
social diseases and crimes within their societies.
Therefore Islam prescribes a set of noble laws to maintain the
dignity of women. Islam also ordered women to have extraordinary roles
in motherhood - where in a larger scope the accumulation of this role
will guard the civilization, so that the population crisis and sick
society will be prevented from emerging even in the smallest measure.
Islam for example recommends having many children, defines the primary
role of women as wife and mother rather than as employers feeding the
economy, and it shuns the individualistic, hedonistic culture of just
pursuing physical pleasures that leads to individuals rejecting marriage
or remaining childless. In addition, Islam has also provided the one
and only comprehensive system which will provide the cure for a sick
society. This system is nothing but the Islamic Khilafah. As Uthman ibn
Affan (ra), the companion of the Prophet (saw) once said, "Verily Allah gives authority to the ruler to remove anything that cannot be eliminated by the Quran."
The Khilafah - as the global leadership for the Muslims - with its new political, economic and social vision for human civilization - will implement a system that embodies comprehensive social-economic policies which couple modernity and prosperity with moral preservation as well as noble civilization, at the same time rejects liberal freedoms and rather promotes taqwa (God-consciousness) within society that nurtures a mentality of collective responsibility to eliminate various diseases within the community. All this is implemented under the umbrella of the Islamic ruling system that obliges an efficient judicial system to deal with crimes and social diseases swiftly. Thus a healthy society will materialize, and the sustainability of the human race and its lineage will always be preserved.
Written for the Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir by
Fika Komara
Member of Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir
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