Begin with how
Imagine a fire burning, before we investigate the cause of the flames, we must first extinguish them. There are always questions that will be raised like what and why, and we always seem to tackle the why and what with many reasons like victimization, poverty or unemployment. And then there is politics. The want for political power, the want for control.
In order to truly establish what and why we must begin with how. How do we extinguish those flames? How do we deal with those who pour fuel on fire. How are we going to take up the challenges in order to thoroughly investigate the what and why and act upon it justly.
Ignorance won’t make it disappear, neither will arrogance or pride…we need to deal with it. We need to deal with it together, everyone should be involved.
In the words of James Baldwin; “The man that needs to be feared most in society is the man who has nothing to lose”… So give people something to lose. Install meaning in meaningless lives. Give society a purpose because if we don’t have a purpose, we don’t have a life.
Since the onset of the Arab spring, we have had nothing to show except violence. Violence and vengeance a repetitive cycle that has no end. And because of that, we have been labelled with every negative term from brutal to barbaric.
If we look at the underlying facts, the terrorist groups around the globe that we have today are for political reasons not religious reasons, so why is it that religion is placed in the forefront? One of the answers is because we allow it. We allow labels, we even label ourselves. In order to deal with how, we need to erase these terms.
Religion is always immediately condemned (especially in the case of Islam) and labels are placed on this and that where in fact religion is not responsible for wars. Religion is not responsible for crime. Religion is not responsible for hatred.
From a religious perspective, most of violence stems from religious ignorance and a shallow understanding.
We only need to thoroughly study history to know that the crusades occurred because of the economic bankruptcy of Europe. And then look at the Marxist revolutions, the Tamil tigers and the Japanese kamikazes. What did they have to do with religion? There are also many places across the world that oppress people under a secular regime.
It is human nature, not religion. Human greed, human envy, human lust for power. Stop the labeling.. If we give people their dignity, they would reciprocate with respect. Is it too hard? It’s a far better choice than destructive chaos.
We cannot lay the blame elsewhere, “you can take a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink”, because these things would not occur if it wasn’t already installed in us. Societies have hatred placed in their hearts about people they disagree with from their very first breath.
This is not just about the Arab Spring or the Arab world. This has become a global phenomena. Violence, is at the roots of the human condition. Civilization has become sick, and Islam has become the victim. As Muslims, we are being portrayed at the forefront of this condition despite the fact that Muslims are not more violent than people of other religions.
We have only ourselves to blame as we have lowered ourselves to extreme extents that we have become a modern coliseum. We are aired live around the world as a bloody battlefield, into the homes of billions of people across the globe. The spectators only understanding of who we really are, is what they see in their living rooms. We need to put an end to this, we need to change people’s perceptions.
But first, we need to change ourselves.
We all should make an effort to incline towards reconciliation. If people incline towards reconciliation, then incline with them and Tawakal al Allah(place our trust in God), if they want to deceive you, God is enough for you.
Peace is precious, peace over pride, and whoever reaches out for peace, the other should reciprocate.
Immediate circumstances is how we address this. We should all be part of the solution not part of the problem. One can guide those who are innocently ignorant but it should be done before it becomes arrogant ignorance.
We don’t need to blow things up for independence. We don’t need to demonstrate. We need to sit down and discuss, with an open mind and an open heart. Peace is the appropriate environment to address our issues, and this cannot be done with violence around you.
Civil unrest will not solve the grievances. While we can’t have complete peace, we must first attempt to establish peace in order to address the issues. The whole community should be involved in this discussion in order to examine the alternatives to civil unrest which could escalate to civil war and spread into a regional war.
War and destruction is the failure of civilization.
This is a long process, not a short term plan, but if we start now, we can gradually end the crisis. We should use our energy to improve ourselves not destroy ourselves. People that carry religion are responsible for how they use this energy. Respond to those using energy negatively and forward a valid response to change them to positive energy.
Stop for a second and think. Where is the sense in all of this? Where is our compassion towards one another? Where is our morality? Where are our ethics? What happened to our faith? Where is our mercy towards one another?
We are fighting one another for something that did not and will not bring us any dignity, but brings with it disgrace. Something that never gave us any strength, but is making us weak. Something that is dividing us, instead of uniting us.
Something that will bring about no good.
