Page 62 - Solution, the values of the Qurʼan

60 SOLUTION THE VALUES OF THE QUR'AN

purpose is to secure a seat for someone in the Senate, someone who will

steer the type of politics the donors favor. In one of its issues, The
Economist dealt with the lavishly funded electoral campaigns in the USA
stressing that in 1992 alone contributions amounted to three billion
4
dollars. Using illegal contributions, lobby groups can even achieve the
power of making sanctions against other governments. Striking indeed is
the scale of the pressure on politicians, when one considers that politicians
never dare to be at variance with the demands of their contributors.
Politicians being "guided" by this fear, adopt policies suiting the best
interests of these interest groups or they create artificial crises. Sometimes
political parties suffer intra-party clashes. On occasion , various insidious
methods are employed to cause unrest within a country, thereby laying
the appropriate ground for interest groups to benefit.
Close links between interest groups and those holding power cause
countries to drift into disorder, most glaringly in the examples of Latin
American dictatorships. For the last five or six decades, leaders of fascist
regimes in Latin American countries have lived in obscene extravagance
while the masses live on or below the poverty line. Still today, power
constantly shifts from dictatorships, to juntas, and vice versa. The military
juntas rule with an iron fist, essentially deriving power from the pressure
they apply to the masses. In these countries, which are frequently the

crossroads of international narcotics trafficking, the clashes of the
interests of those in power and of the drug cartels hinder the development
of stability. These circles, flourishing only in disorder, maintain their
continuity through pressure and terror. Thus, brutality, clashes and civil
wars are interminable. In Colombia, 28 thousand murders occurred in
1992 alone. This figure serves well to depict the form of brutality
occurring there. As we have seen, not living by the Qur'an and the
Sunnah also accounts for the existence of power-holders who shut their
eyes to all forms of violence.
Another striking point in political life is that in some countries
authority and power are granted to those who, by nature and