War Dance

by Mani De  Osu

 

 

If you lose your pace,

 

Find your rhythm in the ground.

 

The devastation in the shadows

Has dropped down the chain of command

And no one has seen the light.

 

I have heard this voice before.  It shines in the desert like the shining sun betrothed in the light of itself glorifying the beautiful dance of the red.  Since the day we were born, gunshots rang the hailing beat of our fists pounding the air for life.  But we are not bad.  We are not dead, and we long to live in peace.  With a sash of bullets and a purse of M16s soldiers pass my sister, she does not know that there is anything else to see.  But we dance, we dance and bend and our rhythm could shake the stars.  Here we are free and beautifully clear we are in our dance.  Hands moving from arms off of ecclesiastic movement, my dress floats like my voice and war cannot take me from it.

 

One day each month trucks come with food and we are always so hungry.  The line is crowded and something does not feel right.  The boxes of food say USA like hope may take us there one day, but in my heart, I want to stay at my home.  My home where outside of war the mountain is peaceful and calm.  The plains offer our nourishment and it is pure like my eyes.  My father has gone away.  Killed.  Into pieces buried by my mother, and I have seen it all, but my eyes are still pure.  For the horrors I have seen, I do not cry.  I do not cry anymore.  My mother taken, my father cut to pieces, and my brothers and sisters and I seeing ourselves in the flashing light of night gathered in darkness and now I cry.  Remembering I cry because things will never be the same.  We pray and my sister cries because she misses our mom.  We pray and pray that we will be safe.  Our faces in our hands, we are at the mercy of not ourselves.

 

The expanse of desert does not extend endlessly, we have a place to swim and play.  The sounds of bullfrogs call the ever-coming night and back in camp we work to keep ourselves strong.   I am strong, my music cavernous in the depth it carries for in me, I have seen the deeps.  In this I forget the treacherous things I have witnessed.  My brown eyes neared round the bend and at the schoolhouse for us they came.  Woken by a bayonet opening the door my hands groped for a place to hide.  Scurrying with no way out, trapped like bait in a cage, guns pointed and threats flying, my brother was beaten and taken, separated I have no other family left.  The rebels came and took and took and me I saw the most terrifying things.  I have seen the terror, blasphemy under the full lit moon and this is what I escape when I play.  I can beat the rebels to their end in my beat.  Pound them to nothing with my rhythm.

 

No stopping, no slowing, the round huts stand in circles endless in 50,000 homes for us to stay.  The collar on his shirt makes me wonder how we will do in front of a judge.  There is much sorrow and determination in our eyes.  There is wonder in the way that we sing Christian choral music and the rape of the African mind continues.  Always trying to appease the absconding of our culture but we only wish to win.  The blues of uniformed classmates, constant downturned mouths for some, the culture says, you shall not survive the winter.  There is something wrong.  I do not think that I should be living this way and in one mistake I have so much to do.  I am soft spoken because no one wishes the hear what I have to say, but I care so delicately for all in my charge and I sing sweetly to calm myself.  My mother in my dreams comforts me and in the fields we play.  I think of when they came and how she saved us, and we saw them crawling slow and low to the ground.  I cannot open my eyes too wide for fear that what I have seen will come back to my vision once more.  The smoke, the torture.  My eyes are fierce like a lion, my eyes ready to strike down the wicked prey that are the rebels.  But I cannot with force, so I must with my music.  I sing sweetly for the dead and for the living, I sing sweetly to ease my mind and soothe my heart.

 

Music like boats to let us sail away, cans like tin to make the sound of wind to move our musical ships.  The instructor has a rip in the right elbow of his shirt sleeve and we sit foot to foot and play our journey away from here.  Here we are free and our instruments are the vessels with which we move.  Heads bob and shoulders roll in opposing ways to create a random order but the teachers do not realize they are trapped in the white mind leading us all astray away from who we really are.  Who we really are are the origins of all.  We are the organic naturals that have led and given the world all that it is and has.  From us came the style, from us came the rhythm, from us came the resources to fuel all the world.

 

I came to the lieutenant to ask for my brother.  The rebel soldier kept must know where he is.  They treat me here like I do not deserve much help.  I hold my fingers and hear the news nonchalantly that due to orders he was killed and sitting face to face with a defected rebel tells me the truth, “When you have more children, you have more power.”  Through thatched roofs I do not know of the rest of the world.  The rest of the world does not know of me.  Yet I will be known.  God is mad, I think, but in reality he is not because it was not by choice I did the things I did.  There was nothing but destruction and absolute fright.  My eyes hold more than most of the world has seen in this time.  I did not want to kill them, but they had guns to us, no time to cry.  They did this to keep us from being children, from being life.  And then they told me I was brave.  No consolation for the act committed, no nothing could be done to save me from that part of myself.  They too, trapped by the white mind that says go and take what is not yours.  Take and take and take and do not leave until you have taken and raped all in your path.  And for what?  For what?  To impress the very people that only wish to cut them and take what they have.

 

With rhythm, we find how to move ourselves in freedom again.  We see ourselves released from the bounds of what we have been forced to see.  We get to be with all our family from many many generations and with big smiles we find the back and forth that has moved our tribe for all of time.

 

My mother is young like me.  We go to the spot where she buried my father and it opposes the luscious green of the field where he lies.   And here I cannot take it anymore.  I have not cried, I have not cried, and here I am where he lies and I wish only to lie with him in the ground.  I have turned into an invalid for my sadness.  It makes my mother sad and my head is stuck to my right shoulder in grievous play and my mother tells me it is not safe to cry this way.  There are rebels still and we sit and the air holds us full.  The clay bricks support our backs as I gather myself.

 

Plumes of white we make to feather our heights we will show to the world that we are not to be forgotten.  We are not to be dismayed because we are strong in ourselves.  For all the tremor, for all the pain, we smile and we smile.  We play and gather water for the real day we see the morning light.  For the real day we prepare for the light of our eyes to shine for the face of the world.  I am going because I must.  I must because this is all we have.  All we have is the rhythm of our sound and we will play and we will play.  A great send off to the wind of freedom.  To the protection of the road, God likes patience.  And in the city we have made our pace, steady with the rhythm of ourselves.  Steady with the heart that beats in all of us as one because we have all seen our own horrors that unite us in what we must overcome.  In our destination we reach our hopeful stance of letting our light be known.

 

Sleeping in our roaming lives, waking in our brightness, we walk and stand as one.  It is the shaking that gives us the courage to carry on.  We are all as one, if we lose our pace we find our rhythm in the ground as we are all together as one.  Our hope is one in our instruments as they are one with us.  They are our only escape from our closed eyes that have seen too many sordid things.

 

Now there is a jacket covering his torn sleeve and we move like we do to show our beauty to the world.  Leaning together in the sound we are bright like the day is light.  In joyous sound you would not know the things we have seen.  In our eyes now we have seen something new.  Now we have seen peace in a life we have not seen before.  We are the very peace we wish to live and in our hearts we are at home.  Our plumage out in white and red, we show that we are greater because of what we have seen in tri-patrios we prepare to show what we are.  We are the very life that was given to all, that has not been extinguished in the name of any malice or spite or trying to prove to the whites that you can be like them.  No, we are the light shining brightly in the betrothal of the day and our marriage call is our dance.  Our freedom song is our heart beat that carries us on and how do we see that we are one in many, and in the many we are one?

 

The drum begins.  The cry sounds the forward march and onward we go.  We find our rhythm in the ground of our sisters’ steps, of our brothers’ marching triumph in overcoming in green, white, red and tanned hide we are our own best friends dancing for what we are as freedom and peace.  We are our salvation as we move beautifully together as one and in our hearts we are the light.  We are free to be the life we deserve in the fresh air we feel our homes.  The homes that were taken from us, our parents that were taken from us, we smile and we smile as fearless happy warriors of dance and now in our eyes you see light, bright and full of the future.  You see us now not as unfortunate, but the brides of the future in glorious hope engaging stance and now you see where we come from and who we are.

 

We are the children of light, we are the children of the world, we are the children who will now not be forgotten for the glory we have shown of championing the wretches of man.  We are the ones who in the spirit of the all the beauty of the creation, in the name of the divine, have given a view of the voice you have heard before but never seen.

 

If you lose your pace,

 

Find your rhythm in the ground.

Punk Muslimah

 Donna Ramone on Islamophobia in the Punk Scene

Graffiti on a wall in Manama, Bahrain. (Photo by Donna Ramone)

“You’re MUSLIM?”

“I guess. I’m an Arab. It happens. So?”

“Nothing… it’s, just that I thought you were Mexican is all.”

And suddenly it all goes one of two ways: Things get crazy awkward while they have to deal with new feelings, or it becomes my one and only defining characteristic. I try not to be offended and try and see things from their perceptive, but it’s really hard sometimes since this has always felt like something I felt alone. I mean, when was the last time you ran into a muslim punk girl? Exactly.

I heard the Ramones when I was 12 and THAT became my religion. I didn’t want to be the weird muslim kid, I wanted to be the weird punk kid. So I was, and didn’t really offer up who I was culturally. Then suddenly I started to encounter weird moments I wasn’t ready for. In high school people would learn I was an arab muslim and try and joke it off with “Don’t blow up my house!”Haha…wait. No, fuck you. That’s not funny. In college, in our post 9/11 America, I ran into people saying a lot of awful things at shows. One guy tried to tell me how he didn’t like arabs since he had friends out there in the military dying, and somehow this was the entire ethnicity’s fault. I let him know I also had friends in the military… on both sides. Another guy, not realizing I was from the Middle East, in a political discussion told me, and I quote, “You have to admit that the world would be a better place if we just paved over the Middle East.” But then Fat Mike came out with the “Not My President” campaign and things 180-ed.

Word gets around and suddenly everyone is extra super saccharine nice to me. My boyfriend and I started a punk venue in Chino, California (that was recently shut down by the city) so I’m getting my ass kissed from every angle. “Yeah, that girl right there owns this place- AND SHE’S MUSLIM.” I got this insane backwards punk cred. And I can’t decide what’s worse: people being truthful but awful, or people being fake and really nice.

I am muslim. I do speak arabic. I don’t wear a hijab. I do drink alcohol. I don’t eat pork. I fast during Ramadan. I don’t pray five times a day.Yeah, confusing I know. Islam is a religion that seems so strict and marginalized, doesn’t it? Even I didn’t believe there was such a thing as a “moderate muslim” and renounced the religion of my birth. But now, thanks in part to the book The Taqwacores by Michael Muhammed Knight, I’m able to come to terms with who I am- and I fucking love who I am. I love my culture, it’s beautiful and amazing and everyone should see that about it.

And if some assholes can’t see that and want to be islamophobes, I exist to prove everything they believe about Islam wrong.

Donna Ramone ran The Warehouse at 12th & G in Chino, CA until the recent clampdown. She likes the Ramones in an unhealthy way. Find her online at facebook.com/TheWarehouseAt12thandG and donnaramone.tumblr.com.

You might also want to check out stfuislamophobes.tumblr.com.

XXXVI

For in the Market-place, one Dusk of Day,

I watch’d the Potter thumping his wet Clay:

And with its obliterated Tongue

It murmur’d- “Gently, Brother, gently, pray!”

From Omar Khayyam’s The Rubaiyat

Islam in Mexico

Islam is the new religion in rebellious Mexican state Chiapas

More and more Mayan and Tzotzil people in the Mexican state Chiapas are becoming Muslims. It’s fifteen years since the Zapatista uprising in Chiapas and the region has undergone some profound changes. One of them is the emergence of Islam as a new religion in the state. The Muslim community, dominated by converted Mayans and Tzotzils , is slowly gaining ground.

By Jan-Albert Hootsen

Molino de los Arcos is one of the poorest neighbourhoods of San Cristóbal de las Casas, the second largest city in Chiapas and popular with tourists for its colonial beauty. The barrio is ethnically almost entirely indigenous, with Tzotzil Mayan as the dominant language. On Fridays, though, you can hear the slow, monotonous Arab chants of Muslim prayer. In a wooden shack, painted with Arab religious phrases, some twenty Tzotzil Muslim families have established a small place of worship.

“This is where we cleanse our spirits and pray to Allah. Not everyone came today, some people have to work,” Imam Salvador Lopez Lopez smiles. “But we are doing well. Our community is still small, we are maybe two hundred, but little by little we’re growing.”

Lopez converted to Islam in 1995 and adopted the Arab name of Muhammad Amin. He was one of the first Tzotzils to embrace the religion. He describes his conversion as a tough, two-year period of soul searching. “There is a lot of ignorance in Chiapas about Islam. Nobody really knew what it was and at first I myself wasn’t sure it was the thing for me. My family didn’t agree with it either at first. It was hard.”

Alternative to capitalism

There have always been Muslims in Mexico, but they were usually immigrants from Muslim countries in Africa and the Middle East. It wasn’t until 1995, when Spanish Muslims led by Aureliano Pérez left for Mexico to spread the word of Allah, that Mexicans themselves started converting to Islam.

The arrival of the Spanish can be seen in direct relation to the uprising of the Zapatista rebels in Chiapas, in 1994. They saw the impoverished state as fertile ground for the principles of Islam. Indigenous Mayans and Tzotzils have led marginalised lives ever since the Spanish conquest in the 16th century. They live in extreme poverty, suffer exploitation by corrupt governments and racism by white and mestizo Mexicans (people with mixed European and Native American racial origin). Alcoholism among indigenous Mexicans is rampant.

The Mayans and Tzotzils belong to the Murabitun movement within Sunni Islam, which upholds a strict ban on the use of alcohol and profits made on money lending. It has proven to be attractive to indigenous Chiapanecos as a viable alternative to capitalism. Yet Muhammad Amin stresses that Islam is not just for indigenous Chiapanecos: “Allah makes no distinction between race. We welcome everyone.”

Zapatist Muslims

The social component in Chiapaneco Islam did present itself in its early days though, when the Muslims under Nafia offered to support the Zapatista rebels of Subcomandante Marcos. Many Zapatista rebels, who fight for indigenous rights and land reform, are Tzotzils. A number of them did convert, even though Marcos was hesitant at first. The Mexican government was alarmed and started monitoring the presence of Islam. Former president Vicente Fox even accused them of having links with Al-Qaeda, although solid proof was never presented.

Muhammad Amin chuckles when he refers to these accusations. “We have no links whatsoever with any foreign group of Muslims, and we have no problem with any other religion here. Islam means peace, we respect everyone around us.”

That doesn’t mean that Christians responded positively to their new competitors. Andrés Ferrer, who now goes by the Arab name of Muyahid, converted to Islam in 1998. He’s had to overcome a lot of prejudice:

“Many people reacted badly, because they have no idea what Islam is. Some of them even called us terrorists. My own family called me crazy!”

Islamic pizza restaurant

Despite the opposition Islam is doing well in Chiapas. The Muslims have opened a madrasah or Qur’an school, an Islamic mission, a carpenter’s shop and a pizza restaurant. They teach Arabic to new converts and even organize the hajj or pilgrimage to Mecca, which many indigenous Muslims have already undertaken. Islam is growing slowly but surely, says Imam Lopez:

“In this particular mosque there are seventeen Islamic families now. Gradually more people are opening themselves up to the word of Allah. Yes, I think we are here to stay.”

Published by Radio Holland, Dec 2009

http://www.rnw.nl/english/article/islam-new-religion-rebellious-mexican-state-chiapas

Faafin: SomaliTalk.com //

Sufism: The Reality of Religion

by Molana Salaheddin Ali Nader Shah Angha 

   Taken from Sufism: The Reality of Religion (p.63-69)

We have all heard that people become like those with whom they mix.  If you associate with a vagabond, you begin behaving and talking like one.  If you associate with a wise person, you begin behaving and talking like one.  If you observe gamblers closely, you will see that all their actions reflect what is of importance to them.  Why?  Because they are totally immersed in gambling.  Influenced by it, they expand themselves into this world.

Researchers are the same; their focus is simply on something else.  They become absorbed in the subject under investigation.  Even sleep does not interrupt this process.  At times, they may even make certain discoveries in their sleep.  Why?  Because the researchers become an extension of what they are interested in and all their energies are directed there.  It is this focus and concentration that allows them to make their discoveries.

Now, what must you do?  First, you must be free and well.  Free from what?  Free from all the things that attract your attention and energies to themselves and take you away from your point of stability and constancy.  How do you become free?  Purification.  And what does this mean?  It means to submit and then act.  When submission is followed by acts of devotion, the self will be drawn from the earth toward its heavenly realm.  When you are emptied of your earthly attributes you will be endowed with your divine attributes.  All acts of devotion must be founded upon love and sincerity.  Islam is a religion of tolerance and freedom, because it is founded on knowledge and love.

Religion that has not been revealed by God is not religion, but a set of cultural, ethnic and family beliefs that are handed down from one generation to another and that people follow without knowing their true meaning or value.  The promulgator of each faith spoke of his own discoveries and laid down certain guidelines for those aspiring to discover the same.  They did not say, “Follow me blindly.”  They had not followed anyone blindly, so how could they ask anyone else to do what they ad not done?  They shared their wisdom and knowledge, because it was their duty to do so.  In the same manner, scientists announce the results of their discoveries for the benefit of humanity.  If you as a believer of each faith about the deity they worship, you will see that it is the image in people’e minds that creates the boundaries between each faith.  The disputes and misunderstandings between the followers of each faith revolve around an image they have formed around a name they are bent on protecting.  If Buddha, Moses, Jesus and Muhammad (peace be upon them) were in the same room, would they fight each other or would they understand each other?  Would there be a common “knowing” among them, or would they dispute one another?  Would their experiences of the ever eternal, Self-Subsisting Existence be one and the same or different?

Wisdom and knowledge cannot be imposed or given to anyone.  It takes a sincere aspirant who makes every effort to discover the ultimate gift of Existence — Self-Knowledge.  As the Holy Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) said, “Whoever knows the true Self, knows God.”

The seeker who undergoes the the various stages of self-discipline and purification and for whom the veils of the unknowns have been lifted, with faith and knowledge, attests to the Oneness of God.  He or she knows that there is no duality nor separation between him or her and Existence, for whatever exists in submission forever glorifies the essence of Existence.

Survival and submission go hand in hand.  The instinct to survive, or to “live,” is innate in each creature.  This is why the date tree roots strive with patience and perseverance until the tree bears its best fruit after 90 years.  The fragrance of the rose is the flower’s declaration f its liberation from containment to formlessness and expansion.  The human being has been given the gift of eternity which is borne of submission to God.  Annihilation in God results in eternal existence.  The ultimate decision belongs to the human being: How much of your share of existence are you willing to work for?

Life is a gift for those who understand and cognize themselves — for those who know who they are.  By “knowing”, I do not mean the various cultural, educational, and environmental factors by which you identify yourself.  The person who truly knows himself or herself, will be in total harmony with all of existence.  The reality of each individual is that which is stable and constant.  Each human being is the center of the universe.  The center has everything in its own power, like the circle and its center.  The center is the cause of the circle, not vice versa.  This center is real and exists in everything.

People think that if the adjust themselves to society, they will have stability.  But, how can anything that is forever changing bring stability?  One must be in harmony with what is stable and constant.  If you want to know about all of existence, you have to be existence.  The essential thing is that you are existence.  But you limit yourself to the dependencies of your senses, which only present a very small aspect of existence.  Life is absolute and is not limited to the senses.  Life is the source of all behavior and all manifestations; therefore it is everlasting.  When you are at the center of your being then you will be able to see everything from all angles—from 360 degrees.  When you reach this point, you are free and no longer limited to the physical boundaries of your body.  This state in Sufism is called annihilation (fana) and permanence (baqa) in God.

People usually blame God for the injustices of the world.  But if you stop and reflect, you will see that it is people who are unjust.  The history of humanity bears testimony to the cruelties and injustices of people against one another.  People rise up and fight against injustice, because the innate nature of humans is to be free.  Yet, we see that each revolution devours its own children.  People who have risen against injustice, in turn become dictators of their societies.  The only way that injustice can cease in the world is for people to know that their true identity is as vast and infinite as Existence itself and is not dependent of the social and cultural dictates of their environment.  If you look into the lives of the wealthiest or most powerful people, you will see that the more they have, the more they want.  Human appetite is essentially insatiable.

When human beings are driven by their natural appetites, they become dependent on them and inflict injustice on themselves and others.  When people come to know their true state of being, their dependencies are transformed and modified.  If people were not driven by their appetites, the face of human history would change from one of violence and injustice to one of freedom and peace.

If each human being’s goal in life would be to gain his or her true state of dignity and divinity, would there be injustice in the world?  If people realized their identities do not depend on how many credentials they have, or how much money or power or what positions they have, but that their true identity is one and the same as God, would such people be greedy for money, power and position?  When all the wealth in the world is yours, do you hoard it or do you share it?  When everything is yours, is there anything left to desire?  This state in Sufism is called faqr (poverty). It is a state where greed and need have been transformed into abundance and fulfillment.  It is a state of total love, because the individual self has dissolved into the very source of love — God.  Sufism is a discipline that transforms people from their base state to their most elevated state.

Just as the un shines for all equally, the grace of God is present equally for everyone.  This is the law.  Just as it is the nature of the sun to give, because it is luminous in its own being, so is God’s abundance and grace.  It is not God who is unjust, because it is in each person’s power to decide how much of that knowledge and abundance he or she wants.

Blood Lines Know No Bounds or Borders

As the world has woken up to the fact that President of the United States, Barack Obama, has Irish in his blood, the blarney stone has been tickled and we see now that blood lines know no bounds.  Here is a man who against all odds (sad, but true) rose to the highest office in a country that has struggled with its undeniably racist history.  There was even talk from the African American community that he wasn’t “black enough,” a terrifying testament to the deep seeded psychological effect of slavery turning Africans and African Americans against themselves all in the name of a “superior” race.  Superior is a subjective term depending on your perspective and vantage point.  In many ways you would have to say that Africans are the superior race in physiology, beauty, stature, natural talent, but again, it all depends on your perspective.  One might say that Caucasians are superior in their ability to conquer and control, to find ways to distribute labor so they do not have to do the work themselves which led to the industrial revolution, which was extremely necessary for our historical development; but when you look objectively at the difference between the “lights” and the “darks”, (I say darks because it is not just Africans included in this category) the lighter skinned races have always been seeking to gain more than their needs required, and the darks have been generally satisfied with what they need and little more.  These are the composite opposites of the human endeavor, one which will always be present as there is always an opposing side to anything in existence.  There will always be those who seek more than they need, and those who are happy with filling their bellies and having love and shelter, but these days it is harder and harder to say that it can be stated on purely racial boundaries.  These days we see more and more mixes from further and farther borders, dismantling the very bounds we thought would always keep us separate in our socio-racial cultural habits, and alhumdulillah, we now see those invisible lines fading back into our recessive imagination becoming a thing of the past getting us ready for the Brotherhood of the Global Citizens.  We no longer need to be only this, or only that, because we are all of it.  If we all trace our lineage back the farthest we can, we would all end up in Africa.  There is a great documentary on this subject called “The Journey of Man” starring Spencer Wells and directed by Clive Maltby that traces human bloodlines to match the earliest known human DNA.  The oldest tribe and closest link to the first known humans are the San Bushman that inhabit from the southern tip of the African continent up into Zimbabwe.  In them, you can see the faces of the world.  You can see how the genes split and developed all of the different races we see today.  It tracks the human migration and denotes where we went and why depending on climate which drove accessibility to food and other resources and how geographical conditions dictated appearance.  And now in the 21st Century we are seeing a return to once more a universal face due to the wonderful ability of travel, the slow but steady denigration of racial stereotypes and all kinds of curious mixes like President Obama that has the world in him.  From Irish to Kenyan, to even Chinese, this influential figure is the beautiful portrayal of overcoming racial bounds and conventional borders.  Mixed races have always been present, but now we see more and more, happy to share their buxom lineage in their unique beauty that is truly the face of the world.  Thanks to the times, blood lines now know no bounds or borders.

~Bismillah~

The Carving Up of the Last Frontier

Al Jazeera reports on the race for the resources, the oil beneath the arctic, yes, has sprung a long endeavored quest for claim of the northern tundra and the riches it holds within.  Carving as they do, countries with means are going about the unrelenting and ultimately fleeting accomplishment of holding moonlight in your hand by claiming with paper and flags territory previously un-usable to grasp the last dying breaths of the fossil fuels that have started the fires for our Industrial Revolution.  The revolution that besought the division of labor, that brought the individualized and depersonalized de-evolution of the social community and the breakdown of the healthy family model and that taught the insatiable oil-lust thirst has paved the road for the new revolution; the Technological and Spiritual Revolution.  From the trenches of the factory jobs, endless hours pulling a lever, pushing a button, and staring at a never resolving cycle of momentary lapsing products, to the depth of the desert of spiritual bereftity, life being devoid of most reality and filled with abundant superficiality, the 17th, 18th, 19th & 20th Centuries have seen all the debts and costs these machines have come to bear and called us all to define what is truly valuable and what is an honest profit. The human cost of the IR alone is unfathomable, lest we not forget the environmental and ecological depredation that has proven to be largely irreparable and are things we cannot change now, but what we can do is look very seriously into new ways to change our habits. The oil is eventually going to run out, sooner than we’ll know it, and if we don’t change the way we are thinking about creating energy as opposed to just sucking it, there will be no other choice but to have the lack of it hit us like a ton of bricks and we will see a massive global conflict (if one has not started before). As for now, the oil hasn’t been accessed. The trade routes haven’t been claimed yet and we all of a sudden are faced with an uncharted frontier, something that hasn’t happened in six centuries. Now rearing its terrifyingly beautiful head in attempt to pick itself up in redeeming mid-reprisal of our dignity, the resource offering itself as an olive branch, neither of the east nor west, will either bring us all together or rip us further apart. The new revolution of spiritus humanitas is the way we can renew our faith in ourselves and each other. As we have seen all over in the Arab Spring, we are challenging the old ways and the old ideas. We are as one might say, growing into the awareness that we are all in this together, all united in our task to save the world that is ourselves. This is exactly the time that we might stand together as one and help and share our knowledge, technology and resources so that we all are able to live a little better, to bring a brighter light to human existence. These things we know to be true – we have the technology that every human mouth could have the nourishment required. We have the ability to focus our attention on higher levels of ideals that would make everyone’s lives fuller enabling individuals to reach the highest of themselves thereby offering more to their communities and the world at large. We have the knowledge of how to resolve conflicts, if we wished them not to continue. Yes, the history of many of these ills are far reaching and deeply imbedded in the psyche of their constituents, but the true reasons of the conflicts themselves have been lost in the generations away from the initial spark, the fire now raging indignantly almost two millennia later. We look at the news and must think, what is the fundamental problem being addressed in this particular situation? How does this story relate to what is happening in the rest of the world, has something like this happened before, how does it effect myself personally, and what are the primary causes and secondary causes arising from it? When all of these things have been ascertained, our vision of the world will become much clearer and our space in it much more precious. We who wish for brighter days and the true humanity to be revealed, we stand strong together in Peace and Glory’s name. Together, we shall not perish. Oil was the fuel for the 20th Century. Light is the fuel for the 21st Century. Let us keep this in mind as we make our way in our fields that the new age is run on light, not dark. The race for the oil will undoubtedly proceed in destruction’s wake, but we will see the flowers blooming from want and need of the luminance of the new age. The age of technology, the age of spirit, and the age of light. Bismillah ar Rahman ir Rahim.

Prof. William Chittick

A man who has brought much light to the West, Professor William Chittick has been practicing Taqwacore since a young age.  Moving to Iran and staying to study Sufism, his unique love of Allah, his Taqwacore, led him to manifest himself as an extension of the Prophet’s life (pbuh) by translating and sharing the teachings of Muhammad (pbuh) and his followers into a spiritually barren land.  Mash’allah for the gifts Allah bestowed upon him, and do read his works if you have not already, Sufism: A Short Introduction, The Sufi Path of Love: The Spiritual Teachings of Rumi and The Heart of Islamic Philosophy: The Quest for Self-Knowledge in the Teachings of Afdal al-Din Kashani to name a few.

Insha’allah you have found some beauty in your day~

Allahu Akbar

In Response:::

France will drop charges against Iranian dissidents

– By David Jolly The New York Times, Paris,  May 12, 2011 — The French authorities are dropping a terrorism investigation into 24 members of an Iranian dissident group for lack of evidence, court documents show, nearly eight years after a sensational raid on the organization’s headquarters amid charges that the group was planning attacks on targets in Europe. Marc Trévidic and Edmond Brunaud, the judges investigating the case for the Paris Tribunal de Grande Instance, a superior court, found that there were no grounds for proceeding with indictments for terrorism or terrorism-related finance, according to the documents, which were dated Wednesday. The inquiry grew out of one of France’s largest anti-terrorist operations, when 1,300 police officers and intelligence officials descended on June 17, 2003, on the offices of the Mujahedeen Khalq, or People’s Mujahedeen Organization of Iran, which wants to overthrow the Tehran government. Acting under Nicolas Sarkozy when he was interior minister, the police arrested 120 people at the group’s headquarters in Auvers-sur-Oise, near Paris. According to classified French documents that were leaked in 2003, the People’s Mujahedeen had been plotting to attack Iranian embassies and assassinate former members working with Iranian intelligence services in Europe. The People’s Mujahedeen maintains that the French state carried out the raid in the hope of winning friends in the Iranian government. Maryam Rajavi, head of the group’s political arm, said Thursday in a telephone interview, “This ruling demonstrates the Iranian people’s right to struggle for their freedom.” A version of this article appeared in print on May 13, 2011, on page A8, in The International Herald Tribune with the headline: France: Terrorism Charges Dropped Against Iranian Group.

It is at the base of the living organism to protect their own best self interest in means of surviving in a world that is often harsh and cold.  We, as living organisms, and the most complex of them, still operate under this very fundamental functioning policy but we have confused the notion of ‘best’ into meaning something of the sorts of greed and pulpit declaring misdeed, turning best self interest into harm of others.  We are not meant to go out of our way to hurt others, in fact it is quite the opposite, that we are meant to go out of our way to help others which gives us a pure sense of gratification and reward, acting towards our own best self interest of surviving as healthy units.  That means to use greed, violence, maliciousness, cowardliness, nigardliness, anxiety, grief, laziness, lack of strength, oppression and debt as a justification for your best self interest are truly, simply that, justifications to mollify your mind and heart into thinking you are doing what is right and best for you.  Without severe provocation, we should not react with anger and hate, violence and force, to overcome adversity and to put it lightly, disagreements.  However, when you have governments attacking their own unarmed people who are peacefully asking for change, it is not right, acceptable or healthy in anyone’s best self interest to do nothing.  It has been said that the most horrific thing is for good men to stand by and do nothing when innocents are being slaughtered, and slaughtered they are being.  How can we in the West stand ultimately idly by when there are people screaming, praying and dying for democracy?  Is that not the one thing we should like to see best?  In our own collective best self interest?  So where do the decisions lie and who is falsifying their aims to counterfeit the best interest of humanity?  We know that the people’s voices have begun being heard, and they are singing the sweet song of freedom of choice of life, alhumdulillah.  To the usurpers of power, do what is being implored of you and vacate their dishonorable seats of force which you have so covetously held for long enough.  To the West, let us not forget our honor as the leading decisive force in the world, we must deploy our highest form of courtesy to our neighbors, near, far and wide, to ensure their true health (their inalienable human rights) which ensures our own health, and best self interest.

Allahu Akbar

The Changing Tides and Times

After watching a film called The Baader Meinhof Complex about the RAF (Red Army Faction) in West Berlin during the 70’s, I realized how much has changed in 40 years.  From seeing the earth for the first time from space, coming to the indefinite understanding that we are all one on this planet, to being connected as one by the internet, 40 years has yielded more change than people give credit.  The power has shifted from the barrel of a gun to the keyboard of a laptop, from a hand grenade to a cell phone, and now the way is more set in the way of peace as long as it may be sustained, not egocentric mindless killing like the people demanding change in The Baader Meinhof Complex.  Those frustrated young individuals did not look at what they were doing as reality.  They were playing a game thinking they were free of the world, but you see in their reckless behavior an incessant need of the world, in the end being trapped by the very institutions they were fighting to make pay.  These days however, the revolutionary spirit is standing in peaceful organized gaze free from the sociopathic leaders of the terror inflicting resistance fighters of the past, enabling them to operate in a manner of pure intent to demand their inalienable human rights in a humane way.  The things that have not changed are the force with which they are met.  Unarmed, peaceful protesters are greeted with soldiers of their own countrymen, hired mercenaries shipped in when kin refuses to fight kin, shots aimed to kill, maim and dismember the peoples that are needed for the rulers to rule, unfortunately displaying how long they have been misled in thinking they were needed.  Libya, Bahrain, Syria, Yemen, Iran, Iraq, Algeria, Morocco, Jordan and Oman have all seen violent reprisals for the people demanding politely that they be given the right to have their voice heard in the word of Democracy.  Of course, Democracy is not the perfect system, but it at least gives people the opportunity to have a say and put checks and balances in place for those making the decisions that at the end of the day, effect the people and not the leader.  The people who have a right to say they wish for an equal opportunity to make money to support themselves and a family, the people who have a right to live their lives in a way suited for the 21st Century, the Age of Unity.  This is what they realized when Mohammad Bouazizi lit himself on fire in unimaginable sorrow and frustration, that coming together in the name of humanity with peace as long as able as the voice is the answer, not initiating violence on juvenile and selfish whims like the RAF and so many other resistance groups.  No, these protestors of the Arab Awakening are first through the door of the new age, using unity as their power, communication as their arms, and love and want of freedom as their drive.  These dear brothers and sisters suffering the wrath of the “wicked, the man who invents a falsehood about God or denies His revelations?  The wrongdoers shall never prosper.” ~ Quran 6:22  Amin and let it be so that those who use deadly force on peaceful protestors not prosper or stay in their positions of inflated power.  True power comes from within and can command a country with words.  Usurped power comes from the barrel of a gun, or the bowels of a tank that must be used to assert control.  There is a clear difference and those that cannot distinguish whether or not they have usurped the power that they hold should look at their people and what they are asking of them.  Now is always the right time to make the best choice for yourself and those around you, and we beseech you who are terrorizing the innocent, choose the right way and give the people what they want.  Step down and let them decide for themselves how their lives deserve to be lived.  The same 40 years has seen these men in power with no change reflecting the new ideas and knowledge, ruling and fooling their constituents that there is no other way.  What they failed to comprehend is the overwhelming desire of the oppressed to be free, and the unifying bond accessible through the internet. May they be protected and guided to their safety and freedom, championing the action of peaceful resistance through protest.

Alhumdulillah~

Stay strong.