The issue of population extinction of South Korea – that emerged since the beginning of last September – was a shocking concept to the ordinary public. The first question that comes to mind is why the societies with advanced technology, high levels of welfare and the rapid pace of modernization are actually at risk of extinction? This question needs an answer.

Research by the National Assembly Research Service (NARS) in Seoul which was released in late August, suggested alarmingly the potential of the population of South Korea to become extinct, due to the decline in its birth rate to a new low of 1.19 children per woman in 2013. The research’s simulation showed that the population will shrink from 50 million today to 40 million by 2056 and 10 million in 2136. Then the last remaining South Korean people will live until 2750.

The population crisis in South Korea actually reminds us of the same issues that also hit Japan and the Asian tiger countries over the last few decades. The Diplomat even said if the latest forecast is accurate, then the region –not only South Korea- has an even bigger demographic threat: extinction. South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, and Singapore are struggling to finance huge numbers of their old age population. Almost the same as South Korea, approximately 39.6 percent of the Japanese population will be retired by 2050. According to a study released by Tohoku University in 2012, the population of Japan would also be extinct within a thousand years, with the last child born in 3011. It is an irony and paradox that the countries which have been dubbed as the “East Asian miracle” due to their success in transforming to become a high economic growth region, currently face the risk of their own race becoming extinct as a nation.

The Chicago Syndrome: Sick Society and Population Crisis

The phenomenon of an aging population that engulfed East Asian countries cannot be separated from their pioneer in the West that has experienced it first. Successful East Asia in transformation from a passive part of emerging global capitalism during the colonial expansion of the West to an active builder of the globalizing capitalist system – meant that it did not take them a long time to experience the same syndrome experienced and pioneered by Western countries such as France, Italy and others. After only about three decades of capitalization in their countries, the damage and social breakdown caused by this system immediately swept across their societies.

Chicago’s Syndrome is a term coined by a Malaysian professor. The Professor from the International Institute of Islamic Thought and Civilization (ISTAC), Mohd. Kamal Hassan recognized the symptoms of major cities in the United States and other Western countries with “having economic progress but suffering detriment civilization”. And indeed this is the character of many capitalist countries today. In such states, rapid development is often accompanied by a social crisis, the collapse of the family institution, widespread criminality, violence against women and children, and high suicide rates, in addition to falling birth rates which are in large part due to the massive involvement of women in the labor force. South Korea faces a serious problem in the elderly suicide rate; it is over 4000 elderly suicides per year. Likewise in Japan, about 30,000 people die as a result of suicide each year. This equates to around 80-100 Japanese people committing suicide each day. And surprisingly most of them are of a productive age and have a steady income financially. Child abuse has also become a big issue in capitalist East Asian countries. In South Korea the number of confirmed child abuse cases rose to 6,700 in 2013 from 2,100 in 2001, and then up 36% this year to 10,240 cases. Japan is even worse in that it reported a total of 73,765 cases of child abuse in 2013- its highest ever level and the first time the total has surpassed 70,000.

Western societies which are characterized by three things: secularism, pragmatism and hedonism – as described by the eminent scholar Taqiyuddin an-Nabhani (1953) in his book, The System of Islam – have transmitted the same traits in developed East Asian societies, along with the detrimental consequences that extends to their society’s life. When the West continues to propagate their values and ideology to the world in a very arrogant manner through maligning Islam and Muslims, in reality it is an attempt to hide the desperation that they have created in their own societies and also in other regions such as East Asia. Now the West is no longer able to hide the decline and damage of their secular values and way of life.

The so-called ‘advancement and modernity’ supposedly offered by Capitalism in truth was nothing but an effective recipe for mass dehumanization of mankind, for the ideology made communities value material and physical pleasures rather than the wellbeing of their societies. Its values made individuals indifferent to humanity and the preservation of the human race itself. Acutely individualistic minds created by capitalism have spawned generations with damaged mentalities and spiritually empty lives – generations who have failed to understand clearly the reality of life, have no clear purpose in life and who are obsessed with imaginative and inhumane superhero figures from their own capitalist entertainment industry. They are also being transformed into an inhumane generation that is obsessed with materialistic success and a hedonistic lifestyle rather than the happiness that comes from a stable and successful family life. Many also shun the commitment associated with marriage due to pursuing individual pleasures and desires. And others postpone having children till late in life or even decide to remain childless because they see children as a burden that drains their finances. This is because they do not have a belief in the Creator who guarantees the rizq (provision) for every son of Adam. All this is coupled with capitalism’s “Womenomics” policy of coercing women into the workplace – a policy that has created mass exploitation of female workers; and that has caused many women to view being employed as giving them a higher status than being a mother, resulting in them losing their passion to have many children. All this is why the birth rate and marriage rate in many capitalist countries has become very low, for many of their youth did not value marriage and family anymore. So slowly but surely, this flow of modern capitalist dehumanization led to population crises, and even predictions of population extinction! This is a toxic form of success which is offered by secularism – toxic because despite abundance of sciences and tremendous technological advances, such societies have failed to organize the personal lives of individuals to build healthy civilizations.

The Sublime Vision of the Islamic Civilization

“If the U.S. spends hundreds of millions of dollars for scientific researches in addressing social problems in their society, then Islam eliminates ingrained habits in jahiliyah societies only by a few sheets of the Quran.” – Sayyid Qutb

The above quote is true. Islam has rooted solutions to create a healthy society. Medina is the best model of a healthy and civilized society as Islam, since its birth in the Arabian Peninsula, has incised remarkable achievement in bringing dignity to the community. Under the shade of Allah’s Revelation, Islam also managed to fuse thoughts and feelings in the community within the purity of the Islamic Aqeedah and Laws. Not surprisingly, the predominance of Medina is illustrated by the words of the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم who described it like a blacksmith furnace that is able to get rid of iron rust. Rasulullah صلى الله عليه وسلم has stated:

«أُمِرْتُ بِقَرْيَةٍ تَأْكُلُ الْقُرَى يَقُولُونَ يَثْرِبُ، وَهِيَ الْمَدِينَةُ تَنْفِي النَّاسَ كَمَا يَنْفِي الْكِيرُ خَبَثَ الْحَدِيدِ»

“I was ordered to a town which will eat up towns. They used to say, ‘Yathrib,’ but it is Madina. It removes the bad people like the blacksmith’s furnace removes impurities from the iron.” (Muwatta Malik / Book-45 / Hadith-1605)

The Shariah as a body of laws has particular maqasids (intents) that are aimed at preserving five things that exist in human civilization, namely: belief, life, mind, honour and property. These Islamic aims ensure that economic prosperity, modernity and advancement will not cause a social breakdown in the society. So the advancement of technology in Islam does not need social costs. This is because Islam does not recognize a dichotomy between knowledge and faith as the Western civilization does. The church doctrines in the Dark Middle-Ages often conflicted with the sciences, so it forced the birth of secularism which became the main reason of social breakdown today despite the fact that such states reached prosperity and technological advances.

The Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم also described the life of the Islamic community as a group of people who sailed the seas within a ship that contained specific laws of behavior to protect all on board. It symbolized the nature of a society whose constituents have a collective responsibility to prevent wrongdoing inorder to protect the rights and welfare of all;

«مثل المدهن في حدود الله والواقع فيها مثل قوم استهموا سفينة فصار بعضهم في أسفلها وصار بعضهم في أعلاها فكان الذي في أسفلها يمرون بالماء على الذين في أعلاها فتأذوا به فأخذ فأسا فجعل ينقر أسفل السفينة فأتوه فقالوا ما لك قال تأذيتم بي ولا بد لي من الماء فإن أخذوا على يديه أنجوه ونجوا أنفسهم وإن تركوه أهلكوه وأهلكوا أنفسهم»

“The example of the one who stands for the Hudood of Allah and the one who compromises the Hudood of Allah are like the people in a boat, some of whom occupy the upper deck and some occupy the lower deck. Whenever those in the lower deck need water, they have to go to the upper deck to retrieve it. So some of them said, ‘why don’t we make a hole in our deck so we do not harm the people of the upper deck?’ If the people do not stop them, they will all fall and be failures, but if they stop them they will all be saved.” (Bukhari)

This ship analogy highlights the importance of the collective responsibility in a society which functions as an effective protector of the wellbeing of the people. Islam strongly recognizes this principle, and the obligation of amar ma’roof nahee munkar (enjoining the good and forbidding the evil) that it prescribes upon all believers functions as a strong immune system within the society to prevent the spreading of social diseases.

Muslim Women as the Guards of Civilization

As members of society, women are in the center of the cultural wars in many Muslim countries today. They are seen as “bearers of culture”, the manager of tradition and family values, as well as the last bulwark against the penetration and domination of Western culture.

Islam views women as having a central position within a civilization. Muslim women play an important role within the family to maintain the Islamic identity of the Muslim society. A healthy Muslim community can therefore only be achieved if Muslim women realize where their exact position within a society lies and regain that position. The main position of women is as educators of the future generations. An intelligent and righteous mother should be aware of her main role which is to create the best children of this Ummah who will improve the condition of Muslims. In the West, this main role of women has been devalued and undermined. The result has been the rampant spread of social diseases and crimes within their societies.

Therefore Islam prescribes a set of noble laws to maintain the dignity of women. Islam also ordered women to have extraordinary roles in motherhood – where in a larger scope the accumulation of this role will guard the civilization, so that the population crisis and sick society will be prevented from emerging even in the smallest measure. Islam for example recommends having many children, defines the primary role of women as wife and mother rather than as employers feeding the economy, and it shuns the individualistic, hedonistic culture of just pursuing physical pleasures that leads to individuals rejecting marriage or remaining childless. In addition, Islam has also provided the one and only comprehensive system which will provide the cure for a sick society. This system is nothing but the Islamic Khilafah. As Uthman ibn Affan (ra), the companion of the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم once said, “Verily Allah gives authority to the ruler to remove anything that cannot be eliminated by the Quran.”

The Khilafah – as the global leadership for the Muslims – with its new political, economic and social vision for human civilization – will implement a system that embodies comprehensive social-economic policies which couple modernity and prosperity with moral preservation as well as noble civilization, at the same time rejects liberal freedoms and rather promotes taqwa (God-consciousness) within society that nurtures a mentality of collective responsibility to eliminate various diseases within the community. All this is implemented under the umbrella of the Islamic ruling system that obliges an efficient judicial system to deal with crimes and social diseases swiftly. Thus a healthy society will materialize, and the sustainability of the human race and its lineage will always be preserved.

Written for the Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir by

Fika Komara

Member of Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir