For over three decades I lived in two Islamic countries while I was a Muslim. I learned that practically speaking self-interest carried more weight than the family interest which carries a secondary weight and what is in the interests of the wider society comes last. Leaders, either amongst extended families or in other circles, speak to one another about their deeper desires and efforts for togetherness and the success of everybody, as if they are angels sent for establishing a harmonious life. But it is all to manipulate, overtake, leave others behind and gain more for themselves. Of course, there are a handful of people who want to have a simple life and stay away from these games as much as they can.
These relational and psychological problems are because the dominant belief has closed the door to humility, servanthood and self-sacrifice becoming the leading factors in leadership. It rather has opened the door wide for the accumulation of power in any possible way and through every means, as the saying goes, “The end justifies the means”. Under the authority of such belief you need to do everything it takes, ethical or unethical, to gain power at any cost and to establish yourself as the most authoritative figure. You need power to occupy the mind and heart of every person and thing, including media to become your political players for silencing others and to ensure the longevity of your rule. Then every truth-lover will be branded as betrayer or threat and all others will be called to rise, like a tribal movement, against the threat and destroy it at its conception. That’s why the Middle East has become the stronghold of bloodshed for centuries.
I also learned that leaders were always perfect and the most gracious ones. They do not need any opinion or advice to reform their leadership since they are faultless. Reformation falls only on the shoulders of followers in order to learn better ways to perform their duties that the new leaders expect from them. The leader is not accountable to anyone, but all are accountable to him. Nobody has the right to speak about the leader’s weaknesses or failure - everybody is obliged to present even the leader’s failures as his victories. The leader twists words and presents circumstances in such a way as to command praise from the people, such as presenting his leadership as extraordinarily good and that the country has never seen such a caring and gracious leader. Recently, I was listening to the comments of a self-established once-for-all-time president of a Muslim country on YouTube. This dictator was talking in a meeting, saying that his close companions were worrying that he had brought his country to a such a level of unimaginable overt freedom that it presented a risk of being confusing to the populace. Imagine that in a country where there is scarcely any freedom everyone is obliged to rejoice and say that they have abundant freedom.
Most contemporary Islamic countries’ laws speak in favour of freedom and equal opportunity, but they remain only inside the legal books just to give leaders a basis for lip service either nationally or internationally. Lip service has always been a practice in Islamic countries right from the establishment of Islam until now. It demonstrates how religious and ideological values and habits override laws in dictatorial ideologies, and how an authoritarian belief trains its adherents, directly or indirectly, to view laws and regulations as secondary to power.
Muslim leaders have always had two kinds of lifestyles, apparent and secret. The secret life is known to the immediate family members only and also to some extent to very close and trustable friends or companions. Whereas the apparent life is a show for demonstrating in a manipulative way that the leader is benevolent and ethical, all for him to pave the way for himself to penetrate and dominate endlessly. This dualistic lifestyle has become the cause of weighty psychological problems in all Islamic countries where people are forced to coat words with niceness and serve the interests of unjust people.
We see how Islam has affected the life of its followers negatively and endangered a harmonious life among its followers. It is impossible for Muslims to be cured of
these psychological and relational illnesses unless they leave Islam and come to faith in Christ.
Our jaws drop anytime we see similar kinds of psychological problems in the west, especially amongst many educated people who have turned their back on Judeo-Christian values. They too, like in Islamic countries, hide their real ideological colors behind talk superficially coated with democracy, freedom and equal rights. They do this in order to reach their goals in a hypocritical way as if it is too hard for them to invest their time, money and energy for the spread of their beliefs openly and with honesty. Not only this, they also react with coercion and intimidation, if a person standing true to his/her community exposes their insincerities.
Why do they do this? Because their ideas and beliefs, like Islam, cannot handle truth and reason. The followers are therefore unable to realize that in a democratic society actions and words need to be filtered for protecting the freedom and rights of all. Since these beliefs and ideas do not stand for the freedom and right of all, they push their followers to receive endorsement or allegiance via dishonesty and manipulation. We are all aware that dishonesty and deception are the two inseparable friends of discrimination, intimidation and war.
Anti-Judeo-Christian values in the west misled people with the notion of “all are true” in order to confuse people, create a cultural war between the national and minority cultures’ adherents for benefiting from these cultural clashes and thereby receive the support of people who fall into their traps. For them the power for domination comes from clashes among various people groups, like the “thesis and anti-thesis” of Socialism or “Muslims against non-Muslims” of Islam. This was the reason for the establishment of multiculturalism so that each cultural group could receive sovereignty for its culture and push its course until domination.
Unfortunately, their politics worked. Many surrendered to them blindly since they were unaware of their agendas and still are. As a result, they dominated and gave further legal power to minority groups to bully those who did not confirm their ways. Even many migrants, who have come to have a better life in the west, have learned from these narcissistic westerners that it is ok to disregard the fundamental values and constitutions in the west and stand for their own cultures, cultures that have failed in their own motherlands.
We can see how these beliefs and ideologies have incapacitated people and turned them to become the enemies of their own lives and the lives of people surrounding them. This is a spiritual war orchestrated by Satan. Otherwise, it wouldn’t encourage people to base their faith in deception, coercion and hostility. Satan has made these people sick from the top of their heads to their toes. They need proper treatment. They need the eye-opening words of Jesus Christ, His brain, reason, compassion, love and reconciliation in order to be able to know the truth and become free. For this reason, we, as the followers of Jesus Christ, need to look at them with the eyes of Christ and speak to them with the mind, heart and mouth of Jesus Christ. That’s why He told us:
You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. (Matthew 5:14-15, ESV)
Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. (Matthew 28:19-20, ESV)
Light makes things visible, reveals their beauties for acceptance but their defects for rejection. We need to shine amongst deceived people so that they can discover the remedy for their lives. We are the adherents of the truthful belief. A truthful belief does not hide its own objects behind deceiving words. That’s why the Gospel of Jesus Christ says:
[We] have renounced the hidden things of dishonesty, not walking in craftiness, nor handling the word of God deceitfully; but by manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God. (2 Corinthians 4:2, KJV).
