What political power plus wealth can do

By DR MOHD ZAIDI ISMAIL (IKIM)

POWER for its own sake. Budaya “kuasa” untuk “kuasa” kerana “kuasa.”

Such is the Malay maxim uttered by Regent of Perak Raja Dr Nazrin Shah Sultan Azlan Shah in his closing address to the third Islamic Economic Congress on Jan 15 to describe the epidemic besieging the Muslims in Malaysia, particularly the Malays, in the second phase of post-independent Malaysia.

Despite power ultimately resting with God as He alone is the all-powerful, power has so often been perceived with suspicion.

“Every man invested with power is apt to abuse it,” remarked Montesquieu (1689-1755) in The Spirit of the Laws.

Perhaps, no statement is as apt in capturing the negative reality of power as the famous Lord Acton’s (1834-1902) dictum: “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

Many, if not all of us now, may easily entertain the idea that political power and wealth combined and unbridled are sure enough to create hell on this earth.

Mikhail Bakunin (1814-1876) recorded an interesting observation in his Science and the Urgent Revolutionary Task.

“Political power and wealth,” he remarked, “are inseparable.

Those who have power have the means to gain wealth and must centre all their efforts upon acquiring it, for without it they will not be able to retain power.

“Those who are wealthy must become strong, for, lacking power, they run the risk of being deprived of their wealth.”

Power has never failed to mesmerise a lot of people.

So old indeed is the spellbinding nature of power that one can find good testimonies concerning it in the ancient texts.

“The lust for power never dies – men cannot have enough.”

Such was the observation of the Argive elders of the Agamemnon of Aeschylus, the Greek tragedy of 6th/5th century BC.

And to many, power tends to be tantalising.

Yet, attempts have also been made to cast power in a somewhat more balanced manner.

One such effort may be observed in Jacques Maritain’s (1882-1973) Man and the State: “Power is the force by means of which you can oblige others to obey you.

“Authority is the right to direct and command, to be listened to or obeyed by others. Authority requests power. Power without authority is tyranny.”

“Power is neither angel nor brute, but, like man himself, a composite creature, uniting in itself two contradictory natures.”

So was Bertrand de Jouvenel’s (1903-1987) perception of it in On Power: Its Nature and the History of its Growth.

Similarly, Nietzsche (1844-1900) once stated that “the concept of power, whether of a god or of a man, always includes both the ability to help and the ability to harm”.

In fact, one finds it rather hard to disagree with such views as expressed by Robert G. Ingersoll (1833-1899): “Nothing discloses real character like the use of power.

“It is easy for the weak to be gentle. Most people can bear adversity. But if you wish to know what a man really is, give him power. This is the supreme test.”

Paradoxically, however, in order to prevent the abuse of power, some, like Montesquieu, thought it necessary that power should be a check to power.

With all the foregoing observations and many others by leading thinkers and renowned figures of the West, whatever one may think, one cannot help wonder what view, or views, concerning power the present-day Muslims have, and are able to articulate.

In this regard, some of them may want to begin with what the Quran itself has revealed about Adam and Eve, vis-à-vis their nemesis, in the two intimately-related groups of verses: al-Baqarah (2): 30-39; and Ta-Ha (20): 115-124.