Thursday, June 29, 2006


Prioritas?

Assalamualaikum wrh. wbt.

You know what is wrong with Malaysia?

It's not the things I love so dearly about it (my huge and ever-loving-in-their-own-way family, the abundance of halal food and goods, the peace, the way I never get stared at for being a hijabi). It's the things that are just so prevalently hideous about it.

Honestly. The saying goes that a people are judged by their leaders.

So. What can I say about the country of mine, who call themselves Muslims and regard themselves as part of the Muslim creed, but can squabble over something irreverently idiotic and misconstrued and unimportant, when the people they call 'brothers and sisters' are facing another bleak day of shunned propaganda and sonic booms?

Honestly. The worst profanity would not do this ridiculous scenario any justice.

For months, I have been trying my best to contain my anger. I've been trying to teach myself to be patient and to control my tone and my tongue. It's very difficult. But it is as the Prophet (pbuh) once said, "Patience is from the beginning". Patience is not what you call calm after an abrupt storm. It's refraining from doing something that would displease your Lord and His Apostle, fillah. But astaghfirullah, such incompetence just makes me furious.

I admit, I have been rather sedentary these past few weeks. I can easily blame it on the exam season, I know I can. But I would rather not, because keeping the fire of indignance and the want for justice requires no excuse. It has to be a constant fight.

However, the past few days and its exposure to just how deep into squalor we've let ourselves sink + yesterday's personal screening of The Motorcycle Diaries (which was... inspired) + a rough perusal of the day's headlines, inevitably = CURRENT OUTRAGE.

I was actually in a Nike factory outlet store on Smith Street thisavo (Ozzie-speak for 'this afternoon'). Believe me when I say, the desire to grab a pair of sneakers was far too tempting. It was much cheaper than the shoes at the Adidas outlet a few warehouses away, at only AUD 30.00 a pop, and there were so many more options. However, I found myself feeling disgusted by even being in the store.

I looked at all those racks of shoes and found that I thought of my brothers and sisters in Palestine and Gaza who were dying and starving and being shot point blank, simply for existing on this earth. And I simply couldn't - not for a pair of shoes. I could not keep a pair of shoes and know that the money I paid for them would inevitably be used for the ammunition used to shoot down my brothers and sisters in al-Quds, one after the other.

Regardless of what people want to believe, that is the plain truth.

The money given to certain huge conglomerates (who have even been awarded and treasured by the 'Israeli' government with certificates) go directly to the Zionists armies who behead young children and shoot them as they crouch and hide away (take Allahyarham Muhammad Dhurra, for example), and torture my sisters and club them in the faces with machetes, and shoot down my brothers who stand to pray at the Masjidil Aqsa as if they were hunting game.

Graphic, isn't it? But those are only the famous examples - the ones that are a bit too hard to forget. Yet it is too human a tendency to push such thoughts away in the hidden crevices of our minds. Until even the most enthusiastic of us in speech (note the verb used) make a big deal about not eating at a certain fast food outlet, for the sake of the survival of a few Palestinian children.

It's an unfair comparison. Yet why do we sigh and moan so, over the loss of a source of enjoyment? Why do we not instead, moan and cry alongside Houda Ghalil over the lost of her father and young siblings, who merely went for a cautious picnic at the beach?

Che Guevara became 'Che' because he wanted to create a different future for his people. Sure, he was doomed. Sure, his adopted ideals were a failure in practise. But a quote from one of the movie's cast hit me hard: "He had principles, but he also lived by them."

So, my friends of like mind. It is time. We have to start creating OUR future, because the old geezers squabbling over childish, outgrown insults will not dictate our lives for long. Remember that there is no power greater than that of Allah; our Lord, Creator, and ultimately, the One who Loves us most, and Loves us best. MasyaAllah.

Shall we not even try to repay that Love? Shall we not even try to help those who He also Loves? Shall we not break free from the thoughts, so hedonistic and vile, that try to bind us to our seats and locked into our couches and try to stagnate our minds into utter oblivion? Is it not becoming more and more clear?

It is far time that we, the youth, rise and be counted for. Otherwise, we shall soon have nothing to lose.

Merely a reminder for myself, that I wanted to share with everyone else. Remind me where I go astray, and remind yourselves as well: a fight here is only a quarter of the job done.

Wassalamualaikum.

this has been a rant by Syazwina Saw at 5:38 pm

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