Road of Truth

Road of Truth

By Ruhudeen Ali

April 4th, 2011

Your truth is the road you know

even though the signs have lied to you

You've traveled it so many times

and those who don't know write the signs

Don't waste your attention on their attempts to explain

the bumps and cracks you feel as your pain

In vain they will predict your track

but your feet are what truly define the course, in fact

Signs only give solace to those who have never ventured

beyond their comfort and gone to the barren desert

It is easier to look outward at the beauty

than it is to look inward at the ugly

So travel your road of truth

your emotions as your forecast

Storms, precipitations, gusts and snow

all places that the mind already knows

Perhaps cloudy skies, sunshine and chirping birds

perhaps unfulfilled desires and false words

Melancholy, tears, frustrations, and apathy

this trek was not meant to be accompanied

But don't take me as your guide

discover your own way, so I will not have lied

For our atlas is the mapping of our experience

we keep on walking regardless, with perseverance

So I walk my road of truth alone

and where I collapse is my home.

So Much Trouble in the World...

Mohamed Bouazizi (RIP) really set the Middle East (and the world) ablaze when he lit himself on fire in rage against all the injustice he faced in his life; ultimately dying from his wounds. It's as if his life's story mirrored the average Middle Eastern Arab living under a despotic regime where it was common to have their voices unheard or neglected. His sacrificial act became the ignition for revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya with protests occurring in a dozen countries, each trying to bring about change from the bottom-up. Currently uprisings in Algeria, Bahrain, Yemen, and Libya are taking news headlines but the situation in Libya in particular is most alarming. Col. Muammar Gaddafi and sons have waged a war against their own people, effectively telling the world and the Libyan people that their position in power is more important than anything to them. How these people can consider themselves public servants is beyond me, but then again -more often than not- rulers have trashed the noble ideal of public service for purely self-gain at the cost of their peoples' prosperity.

What I find most alarming is that these dictators think that if they just take out a few tanks, and deploy some air bombers and raid masses of innocent, peaceful demonstrators everything will be fine and go back to normal, right? Wrong. If anything has been shown through these demonstrations is that once the state uses violence to quell resistance, more people show up in protest and it now becomes an uprising, and when more are killed, jailed, and beat it turns into a revolution and as Malcolm X once said, revolutions are never without blood.

I am hopeful for change in the Middle East. I would like to see new democracies with governments by the people and for the people taking root over there because I believe this is the best thing for both the people there and Americans (& Israelis) since freedom is the core ingredient to a society's prosperity. In fact, one of the contributing factors of the rise of terrorism has been precisely because people didn't have their freedoms to assemble and express dissent in many of these countries. That doesn't make it right -- but it doesn't help it either. My fear is that the powers-that-be would rather drag out the situation in Libya so that this rapid gust of change finally dwindles down and stops spreading these flames of oppressed rage. If you think about it, 2-3 dictators over the course of two months is extremely fast and all this change is not good for the status quo (or rather for the people who benefit from it) so they will play up the 'stability' card and say this is not good for the region. This is exactly what we're seeing as tanks and airplanes shoot and bomb masses of innocent Libyans and the death toll rises well above 1,000, the world mostly sits back and watches, making the token idle threat to Gaddafi every now and then. Afterall, who wants their government to be next, right?

In any case, I sincerely hope the people get what they want and evil dictators meet the justice they deserve and a new understanding and perception of the Middle East is born out of this; one that helps Westerners see that freedom is everyone's right and not something only we "can handle" or the ridiculous notion that the Arabs "hate" our freedoms here when they're literally fighting and dying for it as I type these very words. Freedom is not a Western or Eastern concept, it is a human concept and right, and only when societies have free rights can they make healthy and responsible choices. I hope the world begins to realize this for the sake of one of the world's most oppressed peoples (i.e- the Palestinians) and an act of God brings much needed reform to that region and elsewhere in the world. If the Egyptian revolution proved anything, it proved that every media stereotype about Arabs being disunited, enraged, disorganized, and hateful was utterly a lie, and that the commoner and well-to-do, the majority and minority, the religious and secular, men and women - all can get together to affect change and be civil, and even clean up after themselves! So I hope the world can see that Muslims are peaceful and freedom loving people too, just like the rest of the world. Down with evil despots and viva people power!

Liberation's Dare

"Liberation's Dare"

By Ruhudeen Ali

2/11/11

After 30 years of rule a voice grew inside you

Reminding you that you’re not a fool

Depression began to rise

For the oppression they would hide

Some protests came and went

And though they were suppressed

Their will was never bent

Jailed, abused, and beat

They never accepted defeat

When asked about their feats

They’d yell “freedom we seek!”

“For Egypt we bleed, 

We are all Khaled Said!”

And the youths’ motherboards

Attracted other hordes

“Rebellion,” the regime would say

"Voices that didn’t matter anyway"

By uniting they did dismay

All those who said ‘Nay!”

Muslim, Christian, men and women

Protecting each other focused on winning

And by the martyrs' blood

We saw the color was one

The call for more to join came from above

Camped out, they’d shout in Liberation Square

Giving a liberation scare to dictators everywhere

And the pressure grew to oust him out

It was now a revolution when before, there was doubt

The wail of Wael aided the ship to set sail

Their voices united, they had to prevail

No compromise on their goals no matter the toll

Teaching the world the dignity of the courageous and bold

And the oppression of the people forgotten by amnesia

Was recalled to us by the brave youth of Tunisia 

And uprisings began to spread abroad

What better justice than to stop a fraud?

What better joy than to hear the masses’ applaud?

Freedom was your right since you were born

Without it, its no wonder you were torn

Together let’s join in celebration, prayer, and deed

To remind the world everyone deserves to be free!

The Freakin Man...?

I have on occasion been called "the freakin' man." But what I wish to clear up is that this allegation is not at all true. First of all, if anything, I'd be a freakin' man and not the freakin' man since there are over six billion people on this planet; I am only one among multitudes of 'freakin' [the adjective] people. Secondly, "freakin" is a euphemism for f#!@ing [the verb oft-used in profanity] and I am a virgin, alhamdulillah, so this is not true. I am however, able to freak (so-to-speak) [alhamdulillah] so I am not afreakin in the sense that a living organism can be asexual; that is to say "without freaking" (if that makes any sense.) That is to say, I do not reproduce with myself. In other words, I am freak-able (...um, yea.) However, I am not able to freak just yet (see below.) I am also not Afreekan (African) for you Urdu speakers.

I am simply, a man. A single man- that is what I am. I am not plural, I am in the singular and I happen to also be single, (not being redundant.) What I mean is, I'm available for a relationship where I can be "freakin" [the verb] provided its halal [i.e-marriage.]) So the truth of the matter is, it is conditional upon taking a wife whereby I can be eligible to be a freakin man. IF I can do that well enough (just being rational here,) I may be promoted to the freakin man, but then again, how would she know? Is she comparing me to someone or others before me? In that case, I'd consider the possibility of divorce and go back to being just a plain man, possibly an old one (God forbid.) Unless of course, she did tawba of any past mistakes of zina and we loved each other, for no one is perfect and we all have our own baggage of sins, myself included. In anycase, to be the freakin [verb] man, I'd need to have multiple partners (which is not happening) and in Paradise, though it sounds nice, is probably not my aim once I get there - if I even get there in the first place. There is always the possibility that I could remarry or have multiple wives but this too is uncertain and especially in the case of the latter, unlikely.

So you see, to be the freakin man, I'd either have to be a wild playboy in this life or do so in Hell, which is probably -scratch that- certainly not happening, which only leaves this life to decide whether or not it is true. I've already shown that unless I have multiple partners for freakin, (in the event of remarriages) I can only be a freakin not the freakin man. But to be honest, I do not want to be given such a title anyway, since I'd rather not have the subject of sex be attached to my name. I came from the dirt and I will be buried in the dirt, and that is a dry place - no room for anything hot n' steamy (although technically I suppose it can get hot in the summer-time.) Anyways, like I was saying, I am not the freakin man neither am I a freakin man - I am only a man that will one day return to the sands. Therefore, I must be a simple man; pious, loving, caring, responsible, moral, giving very freakin [adjective] much if I am ever to be the freakin man. If that is what makes me the freakin [adj.] man, than I would be very glad, and its okay to call me so. However, I still say that my friends are very confused for insinuating this allegation :P.

Maaya Sakamoto - Kiseki no Umi (Sea of Miracles)