Bismillahirrahmanirrahim,

I have gone through a few writings and discussion online regarding political issues in Malaysia and some global issues (such as the bombing of the moon by NASA) these few days and I must say that as a student, I am quite disturbed at how words are used whose meanings are not entirely clear. Some people will moan that since I read some philosophy, it is obvious that I will take this stance, but I think that is missing the point.

The problem is that people, myself included, often times forget that a lot of our conceptions, if not studied, analysed and defined first, might not be entirely clear even in our minds. And yet we use those same words and concepts all the time in our arguments without bothering too much about what it actually means.

For example, I often hear people complaining about how ‘politics is dirty’ or that ‘politics is man-made’ and further continue to argue that it is useless to dabble in it. If one wants to care about politics or not is one’s choice, though in a national scale, if one does not partake in the processes that make up democracy, it can be argued that one has no say about how the country is run as the process is really what matter (in simple terms, shut up because you did not do anything). That choice is one’s to make, no one has the right to say otherwise. But to support one’s own position with the statement that ‘politics is dirty’ requires an understanding of what politics means in the first place. If we disagree on the definition of politics, then any further discussion is fruitless, as we use the word to mean different things. This is why definitions are important.

To take the example further, let us see what some dictionaries have defined politics as. Wordnet Princeton defined it as:

• social relations involving intrigue to gain authority or power; “office politics is often counterproductive”
• the study of government of states and other political units
• the profession devoted to governing and to political affairs
• the opinion you hold with respect to political questions
• the activities and affairs involved in managing a state or a government; “unemployment dominated the politics of the inter-war years”; “government agencies multiplied beyond the control of representative politics”

It is a bit long because I wanted to include a lot of definitions to the word politics. Normally in the conversations that talks about politics that I am usually involved in, it means the art or science of government or the profession devoted to governing and to political affairs. Hence, if we take the original sentence, that is, ‘politics is dirty’, it simply means that governance is essentially dirty or at least the profession devoted to it is dirty. Immediately we see the a difficulty - if the profession of governance is dirty, governance is still necessary. So then by saying that, what does one want to say? There are a million other jobs that can be classified as ‘dirty’ and yet it is necessary, so why this particular objection to this particular field?

The answer might be because in politics, back biting happens and most politicians do that. Some might even go so far as to degrade and defame another politician for their own gain. But the playing field where all these politicians operate should, in theory, be a level one; that is, that there should be freedom of expression. So that when one politicians accuse another of something bad, the accused always has the right and the space to defend him or herself in the public space. If this does not happen, it is either because the accusation is true or that the person refuses to use his rights or that the space is not actually open and that there are restrictions on the social space which should in theory be open. The former is the accused own fault while the latter means that democracy isn’t that healthy in that particular society, both cases would mean that blame can actually be appropriated either to people and parties or the conditions surrounding that particular society.

Reality is, of course, not as simple as that. Some parties might have more resources than others so then can afford to spread their manifesto better, but in principle, the space should be open to anyone to exploit and use it as they will. Hence, the reply to the objection that was made regarding the necessity of politics is invalid, or at least, unsustainable because if there is a way out of something as simple as the back biting, then it should be taken as the object in question, namely, politics is a necessity for our well being and even perhaps survival as a human being.

As a side note, it has to be noted that liberal democracy does not only consist of the ballot box, as is popularly thought of back home in Malaysia. That is a fallacy. There are institutions and conditions that are necessary for it to work and if some of these institutions are missing, it will serve as a  stumbling block for an effective and efficient democracy to work. If that happens, if liberal democracy does not work, and that there are no other concrete alternatives that are available at that time, the student should look at the health and well being of the institutions necessary for it, and whether or not the conditions are favourable for democracy to work, not just to lament on the fact that a lot of politicians are corrupt. Another method would be to argue that liberal democracy is not Islamic, but then there is the question of defining what is Islamic which will further lead to the question of when in the history of Muslims were the Muslim kingdoms Islamic. But I digress.

In any case, the objection that ‘politics is dirty’ has been sufficiently shown to be not based on necessity and need, rather on emotions and prejudices. The objection that ‘politics is man-made’ is rather superficial. With the exception of nature, what is not man-made? Every modern convenience is man-made, I rarely hear objections against them. That objection can safely be thrown away.

Therefore, after some simple analysis of what the word actually means, without looking too much into linguistics and etymology, we can clearly see that the word ‘politics’, if defined properly, can show that the statements that are made are more based on emotions that actual need and fact. Hence, by simply looking at what words mean, it is possible to see what statements are reasonable, realistic and pragmatic and what is not. Though that does not mean that the arguments that are made is wrong, it does give a context from which the argument was framed in. And immediately any discussion will be easy since one can either argue on the definition, which might be the source of the disagreement, or argue from the definition, from which the context would be important. But such clarification would simplify the discussion immensely, and I do think that it is beneficial that people start off with definitions. After all, in most great works in Islam, everything starts off with a definition.

Wallahua’lam