Of course you must have celebrated Eid, maybe even all three Eids if you were so inclined. You even celebrated the end of fasting — although sleeping all day and eating all night hardly equates to the spirit in which fasting was intended to be undertaken. You probably celebrated all of the joys of life in the middle of an Islamic region in which those existing in the ‘real’ world are being ruthlessly murdered all around you and in which millions of your brothers and sisters go hungry to bed every single day of their increasingly desperate lives. And in light of societal mores being what they currently are, this has absolutely nothing to do with you, does it?!
Take a quick look at the Islamic world today. It is riven apart by bloody wars, by exploitative foreign occupations, the perpetrators of which view our religion in the worst possible terms, by increasing economic disparity, by greed and profiteering at every level, by a social fabric rapidly falling apart at the seams and which is inhabited by an escalating number of people who have, if they have anything, almost nothing at all. Many of these people do not even have access to the basic human rights of food and water, let alone a secure roof over their heads. Once we digest the pain and chaos amongst which we live like ostriches by burying our heads in the sand rather than accept the hard facts of life, we need to seriously decide if celebrations were, or are, warranted. And one hopes that even if belated, we realise that there is no way to justify the excesses of Eid.
People should not attack me for stating what should be obvious to all and, by the same measure, do not shrug off their responsibilities as human beings, and as Muslims, who are supposed to have at least a ‘respectable’ level of care and concern for the community. Above all, refusing to accept that the current deplorable situation on our very own doorstep and throughout the Islamic world is partly our fault, too, does not make us better human beings. It is high time that we opened our eyes and realised that change must come and that change must be brought about by us alone!
Published in The Express Tribune, September 1st, 2012.
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