The political system that the Taliban wants to establish is called theocracy in political science. Theocracy means the rule of the gods or the rule of the representatives of God.
The historical roots of such a political term relates back to ancient Egypt and its naming to ancient Greece. In ancient Egypt, rulers called Pharaohs considered themselves gods and sometimes superior to the gods. In ancient Iran, at a time, it was thought that the blood of the gods flowed in the veins of Khosravan or kings and they had the divine bloodline – the divine guardianship. The root of a fabricated narrative in Islamic texts that considers the “Sultan” as the shadow of God, as well as Wilayat-e-Faqih, lies in this ancient culture.
In later periods, when the level of human rationality and knowledge further developed and the people realized that rulers had no other power than earthly power, the claim of divinity was replaced by the claim of representation of God and rule by him. This time, the rulers, with the idea of implementing God’s law, forced the people to obey them and suppressed any opposition and criticism of authoritarian rule in the name of enmity with God.
Theocracy in Arabic term is called the “government of the priesthood” or the rule of priests and religious leaders. Terminologically, the Greek thinker Flavius Josephus first used the term in the first century AD, but during the Enlightenment era in Europe, the features and disadvantages of this style of governing were dealt with more scientifically, and people like the famous German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel used it. In modern times, the theocratic system is considered contrary to the will of the people and contrary to fundamental freedoms and natural human rights, which mocks man under the pretext of God, and earthly realities under the pretext of heavenly commands.
Theocracy, since it derives its legitimacy not from the will of earthly human beings but from the claim of a heavenly abode, is a twin of religious tyranny, and is considered irresponsible in political science. This system seizes all the power and at the same time refers all its shortcomings and inadequacies to the divine destiny.
In theocratic systems, the opinion of experts does not validate any discipline; except, the priests and religious men, unless it is according to the ideology of this class. Centuries ago, people in societies with very firm believe in Gods’ representation by certain human kind, fortune-tellers, magicians in some cases priests in used to make the best use of the people’s acceptance of theocratic rule. In a modern world where the problems of millions of people can only be untied with the help of science and expertise, a theocratic system can be catastrophic.
Moreover, the subject of God’s judgment is always interpretable, and the theocratic apparatus marginalizes other interpretations, which can be more moral and acceptable, by imposing its own interpretation. The system of domination established by the Taliban is one of the most obvious examples of a theocratic system that guarantees all experts and scholars. The slogan of the Great French Revolution of hanging the last king with the intestines of the last priest was rooted in this conflict. Any national consensus in the country requires the overthrow of the theocratic apparatus and the transformation of the Taliban into a political party within the framework of the law. Otherwise, the people will have no choice but to engage in a liberating but bloody war to regain their freedom from the religious tyranny of the alleged religious practitioners of the time.
The post Taliban’s Theocracy Contradicts National Consensus appeared first on Hasht-e Subh Daily.
Source: Hasht-e Subh Daily
