We remain silent…

I can be an ignoramus at times; I didn’t know there was a singer named Erykah Badu. That was until the Star published some photos of her sporting some tattoos that upset Muslim sensibilities. Lo and behold the Star has suspended 2 editors indefinitely for this fiasco. The government has duly banned her concert in Malaysia; Muslim groups nationwide are baying for her scalp.
 
It’s all very well that everyone’s getting morally righteous. But I fear this little episode is nothing more than a ploy to distract us all from the larger issues affecting us from day-to-day. We pounce at Miss Badu and we forget our own little troubles.
 
What gets me riled up is that we Muslims seem to have our priorities totally messed up. We have many things plaguing this country of ours which are obviously haram, yet we choose to ignore them. Last month we made a big hoohah about Valentine’s Day, some people even planning anti Valentine patrols to catch the evil doers. In the end we just made utter fools of ourselves.
 
We so proudly say our religion is one of tolerance and moderation to anyone who would listen. But our deeds say otherwise. We remain silent when Muslims commit corruption, and use the proceeds to perform the Umrah in the hope of cleansing away their sins.
 
We remain silent when a Muslim commits incest by raping his daughters or granddaughters. We remain silent when Muslim policemen collect bribes in broad daylight. We remain silent when a Muslim blows up fellow Muslims in Pakistan during Friday prayers, but when the Holy Quran gets burned by Americans we riot for days.
 
We remain silent when Muslim politicians in this country openly spew the venom of racism into the public domain. We remain silent when the Zakat money we pay as part of our religious obligations is misused and not properly accounted for. We remain silent when we see underage Muslim kids smoking cigarettes openly, but heaven forbid if we see them drinking beer.
 
We remain silent when we see poor Muslims, but we create a huge ruckus when non-Muslims help them out. We remain silent a Muslim judges fail to mete out justice fairly in our courts. We remain silent at injustices perpetuated by our fellow Muslims against non-Muslims, but we cry foul when non-Muslims commit injustice.
 
There’s plenty of haram in our society which we have learned to live with and accept. It is about time we started doing some soul-searching within ourselves. Islam is not all about keeping beards, wearing the hijab, not eating pork and abstaining from illicit sex. We keep espousing our fellow brothers to keep their beards long and shiny, but we do not tell them to stop bribing traffic policemen. We do not tell them to stop smoking. Why the hypocrisy?
 
It’s about time we started addressing the real issues affecting us in our daily lives. The state of our country, corruption, racism, wastage of public funds, crime, dereliction of duty by elected officials and the list goes on. Who bonked who, or who had what tattoo is of no consequence to our daily lives. Our silence is our participation in these great injustices.


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Judge for yourself.......................
http://azeemambalam.wordpress.com/2012/03/01/we-remain-silent/