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| Voicing a myriad of voicelessness. |
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| Maliha |
| 02/04/03 at 13:18:13 |
| [slm] [i]I know my writings are more suited for the Shahada forum, but please don't move it. It's some reflections on the Ummah and also, a lot of what prompted me to write came from this forum. Jazakumu Allahu Khayran...[/i] Voicing a Myriad of Voicelessness: [i] I have wallowed in the vast stretches of the Sahara for far too long. Nothing lies ahead but stretches of sand dunes as far as the eye can see. I trudge on hoping to find respite in the laps of a hidden oasis. It seems like the mystic wells of the Indian Oceans have dried up, and my heart remains distracted, fragmented, yearning for the sweetness of expression, or maybe something deeper, more meaningful in this blissful abyss of my privileged existence. My mind shelters a myriad of voices, creating a symphony of jarring harmony; and my heart slowly weaves an increasingly poignant tapestry differentiating sense from sejselessness. I am discarding the multiple layers of senselessness along with my slumbering nightmares. I am slowly waking up to the reality that truly little matters in this thing called life. What is the point of attachment? What is the point of loving one person, if my heart is not large enough to contain humanity itself? I am so glued to the analysts droning on about the “The War on Terror”, that I have become deaf to that wailing that has pierced the very heavens with its lamenting. How can I begin to describe that wailing? Millions of voices, begging, pleading, wretched, helpless, originating from the very depths of the earth, heaving it’s sigh, millions of voices rising in the sharpest crescendo, all wrapped up in that single bosom… that single wailing. How can I describe that wailing when it has been muted by all the noises of sensationalism and cheap journalism? How can I begin to describe a wailing that I have never heard before? Comforted in my lavish surroundings, secure in my blankets of spirituality, I tune on to the see the varying shades of smugness oozing from “experts” on “terrorism” justifying their way into yet another war. More bloodshed to fertilize new life incessant to finds its way from the bowels of the earth. Bloody sands, nurturing a raging generation of youth, that can be easily bought by decadence and the sweetest tunes of deathly globalization. What is there to worry about, when the neat packages of sanitized media, are sure to reach vestiges of our desensitized souls arousing the slightest noises of sympathy, before we uncomfortably shuffle in our seats promptly changing the channel to watch another exciting episode of “Cribs” on MTV. The concept of true suffering is not real to us. Dead bodies, starving children, burnt buildings, War planes, destroyed food shelters, amputated men and women, and blood soaked children picking their way through the dust and debris of greed, hate, and malevolent compassion of a heartless creed. An obese empire knows no bounds. How can these images be reconciled within the cocoons of our daily existence, but as flitting moments of sobriety and “intellectual” discussion on how pathetic the propaganda of war is, spewing rhetoric of corruption, globalization, the “new” world order. We restlessly argue on where the blame lies, before we settle back into our routines, relieved that we have now passed the buck. Meanwhile another child is facing the throes of death, while his haggard mother grapples with the numbness she feels, this weight of exhaustion that threatens to explode her very bosom rendering her grief silent no more. These people aren’t real to us. Not that we don’t all share the feelings of pain, loss, exhaustion, and paralyzing insecurity, not that we are not aware of the frailties of human nature itself, but they are simply not close enough. They are not our daughters, mothers, sisters, brothers. They are not us. We are not them. Those suffering people exist somewhere in a country called third world that has no real dimension in the comfort of our sleek postmodern world of relativity, high tech gizmos and the glitzy highways curving their way through constructs of perfect landscapes. They are as real as the trips we take on Hollywood for an immaculate manufacturing of our desires and fantasies, packaged, and sealed with an approved visa for a one way ticket to escapism. We are real though. Our needs, hopes, aspirations, and full lives are as real as the dream in the young girl’s eyes, tucked away safely from our eye sights, of a nice warm meal or may be just a blanket to thaw out her frost bitten toes. We are much too real and our sordid dilemma is that “they” are real too. The sad truth we refuse to acknowledge is that the world is becoming increasingly smaller, and our fates are as delicately intertwined with each other as the thin thread of sheer humanity that runs in all of us. We can not continue turning a blind eye to the rest of the world. And yes, sadly enough, your head can contain all the jargon of what’s going on in the world, but if your heart is not moved to action, then what is the point of spitting out rhetoric that everyone has heard and acknowledged time and time again? You probably expect me to go into a detailed synopsis of an action plan. Religious scholars have long talked about purification of our own selves, activists are busy organizing their next march, while there remains a multitude of voices with varying degrees of enthusiasm asking you to support one cause or another. The opportunities to gear ourselves into action are too numerous to recount. We all know the work that needs to be done, find your niche and simply do it. Alas, even as I write my heart is weighed by the reality that it just doesn’t matter. I am one voice in the jarring symphony of the multitudes, each shrieking just a little bit louder to be heard. I am one voice that yearns to strum your heart strings, with the melody of this senseless pain I feel. Yet, somehow I know, we’ll all return to our routines, and slowly continue dying in a world where death ceases to have meaning, and life is truly lived no more. -Maliha Balala [wlm] [/i] |
| Re: Voicing a myriad of voicelessness. |
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| UmmWafi |
| 02/05/03 at 09:00:00 |
| [slm] SubhanAllah......indeed my beautiful rainbow have found her colours... Just a lil gift to you Maliha..love yaz always :) [color=green]The sound of Purity[/color] [i]The raindrops beat hard against my windows, making the hypnotic sound to rival the primitive drummings deep within the Amazon. Nothing primitive about this sound however, since it is a chanting of homage to the Creator. I was lulled by the rythm and my mind floated back to a place and a time where I was so sure I knew what life was all about and what I will get out of it. June 1979 It's gonna be my birthday very very soon. Imagine that !!! I will be 9 years old. I am gonna be all grown up. I will have my own bus card and I can officially tell my mum that I don't need to have someone send me to school anymore cos I can take the bus all by myself. I am gonna be the envy of those parent-driven kids heh heh. Not only that, I am gonna be big enough to buy my own clothes for Eid. God, I will scream if mom buys me another pink frilly stuff. Yucks. Who wanna dress like a girl tell me ? I want that cool new pair of Dessins Jeans with the picture of Machineblasters on the pockets. Mannn I can jump, climb trees and beat the daylights out of that big braggart across the block. And I am gonna win. Since I am 9, I am gonna demand that dad allows me to choose which show to watch on TV every Saturday mornings. I wont allow my big brother dictate. Ni sirreee...if I say we watch Sesame Street, we watch that. You'll see. By December, I still have to go to school with big bro, the jeans remained firmly displayed in the shop and I still watch batman and robin on Saturdays. Life is just soo very unfair.. February 2000 I raced the car as fast as I could, silently biting my lips from crying out in pain. Behind me I hear the soft weepings of my mom. My children are confused, my son wondering why we were making this night journey, my daughter just 10months old. My dad can be heard softly comforting my mom. It was the second day of Eid al-Fitri. My grandpa died few hours ago. My wise and loving grandpa is no more. As we passed the trees and the lands, my mind flashed to all those times I spent with grandpa. He was born in a small village, grew in a small village and died in a small village. But he had a big mind and a bigger heart. My mom gave birth to me, but he taught me to be human. I remember once, I was always running after my older cousins and never catching up, I slipped and I fell, face down onto earth. I stayed there panting, hating myself for my weaknesses and not wanting to see where the boys were. Slowly, my grandpa shouted at me, "Get up...no matter how sweet the smell of earth, get up. If you don't you will never see how blue the sky still is. If you don't get up, you will never see how far they have gone to, and you can never catch up. If you dont get up, you cant see how badly I want you to beat them for once." And I got up. I ran and I ran and I ran....and I caught up.[/i] You see Maliha, all those years ago, when grandpa told a lil girl to get up, he is actually telling her never to give up. He is telling her that no matter how comfortable you are in retreating when something bad happens, that doesnt mean you are going places. He is saying that I can do it. He may not be with me any longer but InshaAllah his ruh is with Allah SWT. Despite the seeming hopelessness of everything at this point in time when people build the case for war instead of peace, I know and I believe that there more voices of purity like his. And you know what ? The voices will grow strong and they will move people and they will effect change. Just like a soft withery beautiful voice changed me all those years ago. Wassalam. |
| Re: Voicing a myriad of voicelessness. |
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| sofia |
| 02/05/03 at 17:07:41 |
| Mashaa'Allah, jazaakum Allahu khair for the reminders. I think I need a moment. :'( Kind of reminds me of the narration of the Prophet, saws, when he said that the worst of people will be those that become preoccupied with everyone else's "business" (can't think of the right wording). Listening, watching, commentating. [ie, not *doing* anything to correct a wrong action. Our attention is owed most to our own actions]. And how the Prophet, saws, advised his followers to continue planting a seed if they've started to, even if Yawmal-Qiyyaamah comes (literally, the Day of Standing, ie the Day of Resurrection - although I can't recall if that's the wording he used. Basically, don't stop toiling towards good, even on the Last Day). If that's not hope and action, I don't know what else is. As significant as the warning is, the work we need to do is, as well. Allahu A'lim. May Allah include us amongst the doers of good, aameen. |
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