Values of political sciences~

Responsibilities, justice, equality, freedom, can be said as the values of political sciences. Politics itself has it own values, even though most people claim that if someone involve in politics he or she is a bad person due to the fact that politics is the bad game and politicians are bad. But, however, as human, we also possess some values deep in our own nature. Human beings have the morals values they do because they benefit from them. Moral values are prized not for their own sake but for individual and also social purposes. There are relationship between politics and morality, according to Philippa Foot, he said that:

It seems clear that virtues are, in some general way, beneficial. Human beings do not get on well without them. Nobody can get on well if he lacks courage, and does not have some measure of temperance and wisdom, while communities where justice and charity are lacking are apt to be wretched places to live.

It is to be said that, we possess some moral values for our own good as well as for the others. In addition, for me, involve in politics or study political sciences have developed a self confidence in my own self. It is also teach me on how to be responsible for our own action. Furthermore, the concept of right for example, is very important in the scope of political studies. For us, as a society, we also have to realize our own rights and wisdom so that we will not be oppressing by the others. These concepts actually have directly or indirectly influence us in our daily life that is why political studies really affect our life. In Islam, the ethics principle has been thought. The Quran and Hadith which are the main sources of Islam attach great importance to ethics and ethics is considered as the main objective in Islam. Islam also encourages truth and justice as Allah said in the Quran:
The word of the Lord does find its fulfillment in truth and in justice.

But, however, ethics has been neglected by contemporary Islamic movement as what we can see now. That is why many of them has been astray from the truth and as the result, all the Muslims all over the world has also been affected. These circumstances has actually teach us for not being astray from our religion, Islam and our action must not violate Shariah in order to prevent conflict from happen. In addition to that, whether we like it or not, politics is always been associated with hypocrisy. Hypocrite is a bad term and never a term of praise and for good reason. Politicians are always been labeled as hypocrite and for certain people, politicians are always bad in the eye of them and they also claim that politicians has his own agenda for his own interest. The mentality has been there from the very beginning, involve in politics means that you have enter in a bad game and you should never doubt about it. In the case of hypocrisy for example, Machiavelli is as famous for his advocacy of political hypocrisy. According to Machiavelli, hypocrisy is the necessity in political life. For him hypocrisy tricks that can allow us to outwit an enemy, it make the enemy to believe that we are stronger than we are. Machiavelli also said that another kind of hypocrisy is making promises or contracts you have no intention of honoring when it is no longer in your interest to do that. For him also, there is also hypocrisy in political relationship due to the fact that they are relationship of dependence among people with conflicting interests.

Furthermore, corruption also always has been associated with politics. For them, people who involve in politics always commit corruption, which is what is happening in our current political situation. But, however, in my opinion, sometimes, somehow, we have to be aggressive in order to handle problem that arise and sometimes whether we realize it or not, we need those principles and elements in order to survive in the political arena. I agree with Machiavelli, in his Prince, when we have to be hypocrite sometimes due the fact that, it somehow, can make us be strong when it comes to certain issues that cannot be handling by using the ‘right’ way. I am not saying that being bad is good, as what Islam had thought to practice sincerity and justices in our everyday life, but, we have to realize, we cannot escape from being ‘bad’ when we involve in politics. This is due to the fact that politics itself is the bad game and it is not the right place for the good person to enter it.

But however, politics also bring about the good values that we can adopt it as what I had discussed earlier on. The claim that women cannot involve in politics is totally wrong. This is due to the fact that women nowadays posses the same level of intellectual as man, what man can do women also can do, I am not trying to say that we have to believed in feminism, because, as a Muslims, we should not believed in feminism. But, what I want to emphasize here is that, women should also been given the equal opportunities to involve in politics and the claim that women are not mean to involve in politics is totally cannot be acceptable. For the very simple reason, women also have their rights to be focused on and they have to fight for their rights for example, in terms of gender inequality, occupation and many others.

Moreover, as a Muslim, we should concern with the Shariah law and must not violate the law. This is important in order to secure the Ummah as well as our religion. But as a Muslims, we should not go beyond the teaching of Islam, because it can lead to destruction, as what had happen nowadays in many of Muslims country.

So, to conclude, politics is not always bad and we can also adopt some of the values such for example, self confidence, self-love (Rousseau) and many other positive values that we can adopted and practice it in our daily life. But, however, we must not go beyond that, for example, using certain ideologies and go beyond that ideologies that can lead to destruction. It is not "politics" that is bad... it is the person who involved in politics that makes politics turn bad....

By : Nor Hazwani Bt Mat Rashid