BY A RETIRED ARMY OFFICER — Pakistan and Israel. Two countries of the world founded in the name of religion. Two countries of 1947. Came out of the British Empire. The two have many things in common but let’s not go into that for the time being.
Pakistanis are on social media since this new wave of violence by Israel against Palestinians. Calling the Ummah to stand. Abusing the rulers for not doing anything. Abusing the west. Abusing the east.
Well, the Ummah did stand. And fought. And lost. In 1967. They were not only defeated but crushed within 6 days. It was Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, Lebanon, and other Muslim countries, including Pakistan, who aided against Israel.
But again you cry that the Ummah is doing nothing. The Ummah can’t do anything. The Ummah has nothing. Not even Ummah itself.
Before you jump into the Caliphate, wait. Islam didn’t present a political system comprehensively. It just presented ideas of democracy and secularism – yes democracy and secularism – and nothing much besides that. It gave principles but not a complete system in itself.
The Caliphate was not an Islamic system. It was based on nepotism. Family dynasties flourished. The bloodshed under Caliphates – particularly of Muslims by Muslims is beyond comprehension.
Karbala is one of the finest examples of how corrupt and corruptible – like all other systems – was the system then. It didn’t even leave the House of Prophet Muhammad PBUH.
So, don’t Caliphate here. And don’t Ummah here. One is outdated and the other doesn’t exist.
There was a dialogue in a Lebanese movie “The Insult” that no one has a monopoly on suffering. That was what Lebanese said in court to the Palestinian. No one – neither Jews of WWII nor Palestinians since 1947 – have monopoly on suffering.
But we Pakistanis do have a monopoly on hypocrisy.
We don’t talk about hundreds of thousands of people killed in Yemen because Saudi killed them. So, we don’t talk.
By the way, just to write the figures:
30 were killed in a bomb blast in a guest house in Puli Alam, Afghanistan on April 30th, 2021.
85 were killed – mostly school girls – in a bomb blast in school in Kabul, Afghanistan on May 8th, 2021.
12 were killed in an explosion in a mosque during Friday prayers in Kabul on May 14th, 2021.
Though the violence has decreased in Yemen, yet the basics are denied. Tens of thousands of people will starve to death this year in Yemen. So?
We don’t talk about men, women and kids being killed in Afghanistan. Because we have our own political philosophies. Of good men and bad men. Of snakes. So, we don’t talk.
We don’t talk about ‘education’ camps for Muslims in China. Hundreds of education camps with thousands of Muslims being ‘educated’. We don’t talk about them because we don’t know about anything that happens in Uighur. Or Mainland China.
We talk about Kashmir. That’s business. That’s our philosophy of life. It gives direction to our budget and priorities. It makes us a security state. And we talk about Palestine.
After the Ummah’s failure within 6 days, we want the UN to do something. Why would the UN do something? What interest does the UN have in you? None. You have nothing to offer. No research. No budget. No scientists. Funding to the UN by the entire Ummah doesn’t even count to pennies in comparison. But yes, we want the UN to do something because we failed and our OIC is impotent.
As said earlier, Ummah doesn’t exist. In fact, it never existed on the political platform of the world. Ummah means brotherhood. It’s like alumni of the same university – i.e. Muslims following the same Book and the Prophet PBUH. It’s an affiliation. It is not what is portrayed here in Pakistan.
Ummah: who is killing Yemen; Talibans are killing Afghanis, ISIS is spilling blood in Syria, Uighur is never spoken of, Iran and Saudi play proxy wars in Iraq and Syria; Kurds are fighting for their rights from Turkey, Turkey has its own political preference, Pakistan has its hand in Yemen and Afghanistan. Muslims against Muslims. Is this Ummah? This is Ummah.
This Ummah cannot come together on deciding a unified Eid day.
This Ummah cannot offer Namaz the same way. They don’t even know the exact way the Prophet PBUH offered Namaz. This is the practice the Prophet PBUH maintained 5 times a day.
This Ummah has its own sets of kafirs and momins. A kafir here can be a momin there and vice versa.
And this Ummah has its relations with Israel. Some despise it and some make a trade out of it.
You can praise Mia Khalifah and Bella Hadid; and curse Malala (I’m neither a fan nor a hater). As you are misguided about history, your love and hatred is also misguided. Doesn’t matter. Why Malala said it that way is not going to solve issues. She is not your PM. Or anyone’s PM. She is not COAS. She does not hold any political office. Yet, you blame her for her tweets. It’s only your hatred. And that’s ok; you hate her. Fine. But this is not the way toward any resolution.
FORESEEABLE FUTURE
There were people who fought even when they couldn’t achieve their target. Imam Hussain. Che Guevara. Bhagat Singh. Nelson Mandela. Maximillian Robespierre. Malcolm X. Jinnah. And many others.
They all were different on different stages against different fascists but they didn’t wait for others. They didn’t beg. They planned. They stood. And they fought. With whatever means necessary. With or without a victory.
The solution is long-term. And it is evolutionary.
First, make yourself better. Grow economically. Enhance educational standards. Improve your healthcare system. Research more. Nurture scientists, philosophers, ideologists, thinkers, and rationalists. Follow religion but excel in it with Ijtihad. End these dogmas and orthodox ideas. Get your funding priorities straight. Get out of all the wars of the world and focus on yourself until you are someone with influence.
Get out of ghosts. Get out of graves. Get out of tombs. Get out of how a cucumber must be cut. Get out of these people who sell and make a living out of religion.
Read. Unlearn. Re-learn. Evolve.
Revolution and wars are not your way. Evolution is your way. It took 23 years for the religion to be bestowed upon you; evolution. The Holy Book was completed in over two decades; evolution. Evolve. Learn. Grow. Become someone so that you don’t have to beg others to stand for your causes. Become someone to become an impactful voice.
End this hypocrisy. Empathize above religion and ethnicity. I feel for Palestinians not because they are Muslims but because they are humans. Like there are humans suffering in Burma, China, Kashmir, Yemen, Egypt, Africa, India, Syria, Iraq, and Pakistan.
We just got rice from Saudi. An agricultural country getting donations of rice from a desert peninsula. Shame! We are succumbing to new downfalls every year. We are falling, yet we want the world to behave according to our wishes.
Caliph Umar RA declined to offer Namaz in a church in Palestine. Remember that? And what were the nurses doing in a church in Lahore? Wasn’t that blasphemy? Or do we have monopoly on blasphemy too?
Voice must be raised no doubt. But it must be raised without hypocrisy. And one must remain realistic too.
And before asking our neighbors and the world to mend their ways, we need to mend our ways. A kid of a missing father lost his mother recently. Did we offer him his father back? Did we give him justice? No.
There are people suffering in our country. Are we offering them justice? Did we offer justice to the brutally killed family in the Sahiwal massacre? Did we give justice to the families who suffered by the bullets of Raymond Davis? Did we give justice to the parents of the APS incident? Did we give justice to the 444 murders of Rao Anwar? Everyday kids are raped and killed here. Everyday people are dumped here. People go missing here on a routine basis. People are dying of hunger. There are severe discriminations in different parts of this country. There are grave human rights violations in our own home.
We need to get our house in order before we point fingers at the rest of the world.
Till then, your hypocrisy is at your disposal. The choice is yours: to become someone. Or to remain nothing.
Shahbaz Sharif speech in the Parliament… crocodile tears for the Palestinians was a good and laudable affair.
However, seeing Shahbaz Sharif talking of Ummah and sacrifices is like a thief feeling sorry for the victims he has robbed.
Sir, it is these very people: Shahbaz Sharif types in the Muslim Ummah who brought the Ummah down to it’s knees and subject to slavery of the other half of the world. Had these very leeches not looted, plundered their people and nations and money-laundered their stolen wealth, maybe the world would have had stood with the Ummah and resolved the tragedy of Palestine.
These robber-barons did not bother to invest in the human resources of their countries; neither put up industries and create jobs and food security; instead they let their people sink in poverty, deprivation and obscurantism resulting in extremism and violence exploitation by enemies of the State.
Today they are standing in Parliament and shedding crocodile tears on the plight of the Palestinians. He does not even know the location of Palestine. Neither he knows who is Al-Fateh. Al-Hamas.
These are the real agents of our enemies. Hypocrites.
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