Administrative bureaucracy in Islam The term “bureaucracy” is derived from the French “bureau,” meaning office, and “kratus” from Greek, meaning government. Bureaucracy is a term known from the management of social, economic and ideological affairs. Bureaucracy has a variety of definitions. Sometimes it refers to the running of governmental offices in their entirety. It is in this case that all governmental office workers (regardless of their specific postings) are called “bureaucrats.” In these circumstances, the bureaucrat is equivalent to the “manager” (director). As a phenomenon, “management” is considered to be very useful and positive. But it should not be forgotten that, in a given society, management must specifically serve the needs of that society. Therefore, it would be considered positive if management served the public, and it would be negative and intolerable if “management” attempted to bring the public under its influence. Sometimes bureaucracy applies to those subordinate and executive forces in change of government, military, political and economical offices. But in general, bureaucracy refers to the bureaucratic method of running the country, in which the personnel of higher positions do not answer to those below them, which would in fact be anarchy. Within bureaucracy there is no sign of control on behalf of management towards people’s initiatives; it is evident that, through bureaucracy, the general public are not taken seriously. One feature of bureaucracy is the red tape through the offices, along with a lack of motive for a prompt resolution of a case. The other feature of bureaucracy is that the underdogs take orders blindly from their supervisors. In a bureaucracy, the officer does not take notice of deprived sectors of society, only his own interests. Often the officer himself belongs to the same social class. A bureaucrat has no interest in the progress of work; his entire attention is focused on obtaining promotion and strengthening his position in his workplace and ensuring he scores credits with his supervisors. This is why bureaucrats do not pay respect towards the improvement of public services. A bureaucrat does his best to gain superiority over others and takes decisions single-handedly to avoid criticism. This is why bureaucrats aim to be in complete control of all situations. Bureaucrats also avoid accepting any responsibilities so that they are not answerable to any mistakes made by supporting old-style management. At some stage in historical developments, certain policies need updating, but bureaucracy still regards the old and outdated values as suiting them better; therefore, they do their best to uphold and validate such values in the system. At times, some laws for whatever reason seem acceptable, but bureaucrats try to expand on these laws in ways that suit them best. In this way, relationships that would gradually be phased out in the process of historical developments gain more footing within the political structure and behave as though they are immortal and irremovable laws. In the former Soviet Union, from the start people were confronted with bureaucratic phenomena, and at the time it was thought that a new form of comprehensive democracy would replace the old one. However, this was all proved to be just a theory. Following Khomeini’s appearances, the old bureaucracy penetrated into Iran with an astonishing speed. After a while, the Islamic leaders announced that the Islamic party must challenge bureaucracy head on and eradicate it from social life. Khomeini, who could not in those days avoid conceding the influence of bureaucracy in all ranks, said: “Bureaucracy is our greatest enemy” (1). At the time, Khomeini understood the dangers of bureaucracy and also knew that its emergence was due to Islamic followers, who needed a long time to deal with it properly (2). Despite all this, did not the bureaucracy with its eight feet, spread across the Islamic state in a short space of time? One leader of the Islamic party wrote in a letter: “Bureaucracy has emerged within our system… with all my existence, I detest it. Here, I do not mean to identify this or that individual bureaucrat … but I express my hate for the general bureaucratic system. Bureaucracy will destroy the fabric of our society.” Bureaucracy has penetrated into every aspect of Islam. To cover the truth, some Islamites are of the opinion that the Islamic state has inherited bureaucracy from the past. The Islamic leader in his letter above not only addressed this problem on numerous occasions but claims also that Islam has been contaminated with bureaucracy. He refers to the signs of bureaucracy within the constitution and even within Islam itself, and he writes: “Bureaucracy has not only penetrated within our governmental system, but also it is within our Islamic party.” Individualism in Islam, which expanded to an unprecedented scale, was the product of bureaucracy. The unlimited Islamic leadership came about along with methods of terror and imposition and force. The public would not have been involved in this. In the absence of public control, or in other words, in the absence of democracy, suitable grounds for bureaucracy will emerge. The unprecedented excessive power of leaders in Islamic societies caused their isolation from the public. Unanswerable to the public, the Islamic leaders took advantage of their unlimited power. In this case, they could not truly represent the public, and their distance from the public was constantly increasing until the time came when they were finally turned into the most-wanted enemies of freedom and democracy. In Iran, Khomeini not only applied force and aggression against his opponents but used force and aggression to implement his ill way of thinking. He imposed his thoughts on others and denounced complete obedience from the rest; whoever attempted to defy Khomeini was faced with exclusion from the party and ended up physically and spiritually dissolute. While the “group of leadership” has no security, freedom and democracy has no meaning, and while the leaders of Islam concede to bureaucracy within the system, who can deny it? It is true that some attempts were made to eliminate bureaucracy, but for the following reasons these proved fruitless: 1It was not a coordinated effort, i.e., the public was not given the chance of participation in the campaign. 2To eradicate bureaucracy, there should have necessarily been an improvement in democracy. This did not take hold. 3Bureaucratic measures were applied for the elimination of bureaucracy itself. 4After all the effort, the outcome was such that only the ruling class gained more relative security. To start off with, in Islamic societies, these issues received extensive publicity, but because of internal contradictions, they failed to bear any results. The reason for failure was twofold. Firstly, the war against bureaucracy was initiated by the bureaucrats themselves.
Posted on: Tue, 19 Nov 2013 03:22:20 +0000
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