THE INTERESTS OF MUSLIMS ARE NOT PROTECTED BY RAILA NOR RUTO, BUT PROTECTED WITH ISLAM ALONE!

Yet again, Muslim politicians in the Coast Province whose residents are primarily Muslims are involved as secondary actors in a tug of war between the key leaders of the ‘ODM' party involving the Prime Minister Raila Odinga and the Agriculture Minister William Ruto.

Muslim politicians have been divided into two groups, one supporting Raila and the other supporting Ruto. This split appeared openly in public meetings namely one that took place in Tononoka grounds, Mombasa that was addressed by Raila and many Coast politicians that supported him on 13/12/2009.

The other took place on Saturday 19/12/2009 at Mvita grounds led by Najib Balala (Minister for Tourism) that was attended by Uhuru Kenyatta (Deputy Prime Minister), Kalonzo Musyoka (Vice President) and William Ruto (Agriculture Minister) and a supporting cast of MPs.

It is important to note that this split within ODM is the first step in forming a new political coalition targeting the 2012 general elections in yet another example of the prevalent shallow democratic politics. The goal of all these coalitions is the interest of leaders not the general public and, based upon these calculations, when these politicians see that their interests are no longer secured by the leader of a specific coalition they hurriedly rush to form a new coalition while brazenly cheating the masses that their interests will be secured with this new coalition.

O Muslims!
These current differences between politicians is nothing but a political circus that serves to divert your attention and waste your time as so-called leaders fail to settle on one firm stance. For many years they have been forming coalitions for example ‘NARC' (National Alliance Rainbow Coalition) of 200s that split and gave birth to ODM (Orange Democratic Movement) and the Party of National Unity (PNU), and you were divided into political sects following those factions. You joined PNU and other ODM, but wherever you turned you failed dismally since all those groups graduated in the school of corrupt democratic politics of securing their material interests at your expense.

Today in Kenya, forming coalitions is the ‘new old' political fashion adopted by politicians as a means to reach power. The truth is that such politicians are least concerned about your problems caused by their misrule but are rather keen to calculate which party, leader or coalition will secure your interests. And because of their fervent desire to rule at any cost, such politicians use violence to reach their goals according to the western viewpoint that ‘might is right'. These same politicians falling out today are the same ones that chanted slogans of unity as one coalition of ‘Orange' in 2007, yet have they fulfilled any of their false campaign slogans? How many of your rights do you see crushed after these politicians stood on your heads to reach power then now they are fighting between themselves like small children?!

O Muslim Ummah!
There is no difference between the current ODM leaders who call themselves ‘Youth' in their newly-formed coalition, and ODM of 2007. Rather all politicians are cut from the same cloth and stand against you, and you will never progress until you understand this profound truth.

O Muslim politicians!
Have you not grown tired of tying your destinies with non-Muslim politicians such that you stand with them as a matter of life and death, then after a short time the same politicians you believed in with short-sighted blind faith turn against you and your followers among the Islamic Ummah such that you incur severe regrets?

Then today again you jump aboard the same coalition train, nay you lead these trains and again incite Muslims to tie their destiny with people who are not among them who know neither Allah, the Messenger صلى الله عليه وسلم, truth or the Hereafter?! Have you still not yet heard the cries of citizens, Muslims and otherwise, that echoes far and wide who are stuck in a deep hole due to endemic democratic crises as you pretend to be deaf while pushing them even further down?!

We in Hizb ut-Tahrir East Africa exhort you to repent from these shallow and evil politics that only cause severe harm to Muslims and others. Recognise that true politics emanated from the Islamic ideology that truly takes care of public interests meaning that you cannot secure public interests-nor even your own permanent interests-by joining partisan coalition politicians and the narrow materialist-driven democratic politics emanating form the kufr capitalist ideology that contradicts your Islamic ideology. Were you truly to commit to Islamic politics the way you commit to democracy, without doubt you would be leading the Ummah on the path of early success in this world and permanent success in the Hereafter; and to this do we call you.

O noble Islamic Ummah!
We conclude this press statement by reminding you that your politics as Muslims is to call the world to the truth, including the ‘leaders' who follow kufr colonial politics either due to ignorance or confusion about the true path that lies in Islam, by enjoining the good and forbidding the evil according to the politics that your Lord commanded you to hold fast to. Commit to and be proud of your Islam since your honour is tied with the true deen revealed and completed to your Messenger صلى الله عليه وسلم: If you hold fast to it, without doubt you shall succeed in this world and the Hereafter, and if you turn away from it you will definitely taste humiliation in this world under corrupt governments and evil politicians then you shall have no shield when you meet your Lord on the Day of Judgement. We promise that we shall never abandon our stance of calling to Islam as a complete ideology and holding fast to its teachings, nor shall we ever blindly follow alternative paths unlike those without a firm stance: Today they stand with this corrupt leader then tomorrow with another and so on in a never ending embarrassing spectacle!

Hizb ut-Tahrir shall persist in binding itself with the method of the Messenger صلى الله عليه وسلم of calling to Islam via intellectual struggle and political struggle without using material force until our Lord rewards us with the Islamic State in this world that establishes truth and justice after the spreading of evil and oppression, and eternal success in the Hereafter. Has the time not yet come for you to abandon shallow democratic politics and support us?

PRESS STATEMENT 9/2009
6 Muharram 1431 Hijra / 23/12/2009

_____________________
Shaban Mwalimu
Hizb ut-Tahrir East Africa
Media Representative
Mob: +254(0737)606667
+254(0717)606667