The new year is right around the corner, and if something drastic doesn’t happen, we’re going to welcome it with the ongoing genocide of innocent Palestinians. It is unfortunate that this is the reality we live in, but it’s a reminder that a safe, prospering world is the responsibility of every single one of us. If there is nothing else that art can teach us, please know that an important lesson is that we each have a voice. This is a moment of clarity where we’re able to reflect on how powerful our voices really are.
“Whoever among you sees evil, let him change it with his hand. If he cannot do so, then with his tongue. If he cannot do so, then with his heart, which is the weakest level of faith.”
-Prophet Muhammad (ﷺ)
What I know is that only free people speak freely. If we’re scared of being publicly shunned and out of jobs because we’re against occupation and genocide – practices that many of the now silent, self proclaimed anticolonial institutions and individuals claim they’re against – then we’re not truly free. We can’t be free while being intimidated into compliance, we can’t be free when we’re so attached to our material possessions that we abandon our values. Freedom is a universal state of being, and it can’t be divided unequally, otherwise it’s just another tool used to practice further oppression.
The way a materialistic society makes wealth appear to be synonymous with power, respectability and goodness makes us vulnerable to being led on by the ones we idolize. We must detach ourselves from the slavery of capitalism and it’s false promises of more = security, and hold onto our beliefs stronger than ever. One of the deep lessons I learn from fasting every Ramadan is that we don’t need nearly as much as we think we do – our real sustenance and support is from Allah.
You may have heard about this already, but while there have been American activists at the docks blocking military supply vessels carrying weapons from the United States to Israel, Yemen’s Houthis (from the 12th poorest country in the world – yes, I know Iran is involved…) have single handedly made the Red Sea unsafe for warships headed to Israel carrying deadly weapons and poisonous gas which have already been used to kill over 20,000 thousand Palestian people.
-Martin Luther King
“The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”
Injustice needs our silence and compliance to proceed forward. We also know that if people really care to act, they will make oppressors think twice, work harder, and ultimately cause the bend towards justice, bi ithniAllah. Which begs the question of what the silence of many institutions and influential public figures – celebrities in particular, says about their beliefs. Do they not recognize their potential power? If the people most celebrated in our culture truly believe in freedom and justice for all, why are they so easily bought and silenced? And, what about us?