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Regardless of the extent of the monstrosity of the West-Israel axis of evil, Gaza and its valiant people never give up their most valued assets: honour and dignity. They live whatever form and amount of life they are given to the fullest. In terms of fulfilling the obligations of both earthly and celestial realms. They possess their ideals, they abide by them, and, when necessary, they are willing to protect and sacrifice their lives for them.
Unlike the Muslim Leaders, the people of Gaza do exactly what Islam mandates us all to do. As an exemplary community, they are standard-setters. They are inspiration to posterity. People ought to rise above the confines of shallow worldly concerns and live for the draws of a higher plane of existence. No matter what Israel throws at them the people of Gaza stand strong against them.
Gazans are the gem of the whole planet.It is only them - it follows - who are truly enlightened and civilized. The rest of the world are villains, self-deluded wretches, or hypocrites. There is a perfect blueprint for living a perfect life in the ontological sense of the word. A person is to live in order to live more and better, not in order to die and be relegated into oblivion. Time and again, the case of Gaza forced the international community to confront its own sense of guilt and disgrace.
As per a more scathing assessment, Muslims - (mis)guided by their governments and other leaders - gave Palestine away.Now that it is clear that there is yet a chance for atonement, that the present and unprecedentedly vicious tragedy in Gaza is the opportune moment to take action and regain a sense of honour. Muslim Leaders keep displaying that they made no progress whatsoever for the people of Gaza. They are still incompetent, hypocritical and useless when confronted with genuinely challenging situations.
The only thing they can muster is talking, lamenting and accusing. This is embarrassing because, when facing existential crises such as the one in the brotherly Gaza. This is the level of a coward and those who are weak, vanquished and not taken seriously. Muslim leaders need to realize it's not a tragedy but a lesson.
Moreover, that is the behavioural pattern of one who is restrained and fully controlled - above all spiritually and mentally - and dares not go beyond what has been prescribed for him. The effects of the humiliating actions of such a one by no means can exceed the hedges of his mental and spiritual imprisonment.
As a maxim goes to the effect that insanity is to do the same thing over and over again and expect different results. At any rate, if anybody needed a context to understand the profound meaning of the Prophet's supplications to Almighty Allah to guard him against the iniquity of cowardice (al-jubn), apathy (al-kasal) and debilitation (al-'ajz) - he needs not look beyond Gaza and how the Muslim Leaders responds to it.
Nobody can deny that more is needed to set the record straight in Gaza (in Palestine) and liberate the oppressed. Now that the Gaza issue has reached the tipping point, the role of Muslim leaders (governments) will be critical. Without them, extremely little can be done. The scourge of Israel is sophisticatedly institutionalized; hence, dealing with it must be in a manner befitting its character.
The Muslim public has demonstrated, emotionally and to some extent intellectually as well as spiritually, that they are ready to be reborn and led into a better future. They have likewise shown that they have courage and strength of character. A sleeping giant is primed for revival.
Boycott the destructive ideas and inappropriate values of the West. What can be done, we often wonder. The answer is straightforward: stop the rot by ending enslavement, or servitude, to the West. Muslim leaders, work on liberating yourselves and your peoples. It is only you who can legislate adequate reformist policies and implement comprehensive systems of change.
In a nutshell, abolish the paths and means that lead us to enslavement. Some of the most destructive means and paths, certainly, are Western education at home and abroad, Western media, Western values and Western pop-culture. The Muslim world has become one of the safest havens for these alien-to-Islam domains, which nevertheless are loaded with infinite hedonistic, nihilistic and agnostic often filthy tendencies.
Muslim leaders, there is a lot to do if one really wanted to do something. We all agree that military confrontations are the last resort. However, before that, what is needed is liberation of minds, purification of souls and establishing of life patterns whereby Muslim Islamically-inspired identities, value systems, cultures, traditions and histories are placed on the pedestal.
In short, save your sons and daughters. If the West through its proxy, Israel, keeps devouring Gaza, it does the same to the rest of us (our minds and souls) through its destructive ideas and inappropriate values which, at the end of the day, we willingly keep importing and consuming. Work on boycotting these and save, to some extent, your face.
What is special about these two individuals and their seminal books is that they were the first in history to coin and articulate the concept of "civilization". They did so in English and French respectively.
The new concept of "civilization" signified not only the description of an advanced stage of Western one-dimensional material development, but also a direction towards the future. Representing the advancement of Western inclusive social and cultural development as well as organization, civilization became synonymous with the material progress, corresponding state of mind, comfort, convenience and the overall dynamics of the Western standards of living.
To the West, that was the pinnacle of human evolution. It was the threshold of a terrestrial "promised land" of which all visionaries-cum-romanticists have ever dreamed. People stood on the verge of the end of history. Whatever the West did was avant-garde, and whatever it said was a revelation.
Hence, one of Adam Ferguson's epoch-making statements were these words: "Not only the individual advances from infancy to manhood, but the species itself from rudeness to civilization."
Thus, a new concept, "mission to civilize", was born. It quickly morphed into the pillar of the "legitimacy" of colonization. In many ways, colonization was civilization and civilization colonization. They were virtually indistinguishable, oozing the same essence and performing identical functions. To be more precise, though, colonization facilitated the spread of civilization, which in turn, validated colonization.
One of the fathers of the concept of "civilization", Adam Ferguson, said about this subtle relationship between civilization and colonization: "We are ourselves the supposed standards of politeness and civilization, and where our own features do not appear, we apprehend, that there is nothing which deserves to be known."
Moreover, "And if our rule in measuring degrees of politeness and civilization is to be taken from hence, or from the advancement of commercial arts, we shall be found to have greatly excelled any of the celebrated nations of antiquity."
The lives of the colonized victims had to be shaped in such a way that the colonizers could know everything about them: how and what they thought, what and how much they had of material and immaterial assets, the level of their expertise plus readiness, and generally all their strengths and weaknesses.
The colonizers could not afford to be taken by surprise, or to be outdone, with regard to any aspect of either colonization or civilization. It goes without saying that colonization spelled physical bondage and civilization its psychological and spiritual equivalents.
The West all of a sudden started emerging as not-so-distant or atypical. It soon became an alluring proposition. It was now possible to deal with the West, and be influenced by its progressive thought, without compromising the beliefs and traditions of Islam. This need for the increasingly "attractive" West was generated by the decline of Islamic civilization which had been caused by Muslim disunity and the degeneration of the Muslim mind.
However, with the increasing Westernization and professed empowerment due to the alignments with the West, more intense alienations and deeper divisions were taking place internally, which in turn called for more external influences and even interferences in order to smooth over tensions. The situation resembled a vicious circle, akin to being stuck in a quagmire with no means of escape. The more one strove to improve his condition, the more inextricably entrapped he became.
Undeniably, Islam and Muslim leaders found themselves at a critical juncture. But due to various political and ideological divisions, little were Muslims able to do. The majority of Muslim leaders were busy with themselves, investing everything they had in securing or preserving their own positions and warding off at once internal and external oppositions.
In his book titled "The Emergence of Modern Turkey" Bernard Lewis wrote in the context of the decline of the Ottoman (Osmanli) Empire and its attempt to remain afloat by means of embracing Western civilization, that the whole process started with adopting European weapons, continued with inviting European advisers, and ended with admitting all the new ideas and institutions that underlie the modern state and army.
Either way, civilization and its progress were used as a smokescreen for attacking every positivity associable with Islam and its not only religious, but as well worldly legacies.
As a result, Muslims were some of the fiercest nationalists, fiercest communists, fiercest socialists, fiercest capitalists, fiercest materialists, fiercest consumerists and now fiercest liberalists. However, their overall condition never really improved. They remained alienated from themselves and everything that was truly theirs.
Muslim Leaders were to be found nowhere on the map of the movers and shakers of world orders. They were not even close to any of the global corridors of power, not to mention being taken seriously in any of the global decision-making processes.
This means that by virtue of pursuing "civilization", Muslim Leaders became entrapped in the snares of Western imperialism and its eternal desire to manipulate and also control. The curtailing of the autonomy of Muslims had been established long ago. The vicissitudes in their state of entrapment during the past 150 years or so signified nothing more than the continuous subjugation. Nothing changed except the modes and intensities of the condition.
We pose no problem whatsoever to them. That is because they know how and what we think, for they taught us; what we have and how much of everything, for they gave us; how capable we are, for they enabled us; and how competent we are, for they educated and trained us.
The general arrives in Rome from Libya to explain his failures to subdue the country and to discuss future steps. At one point the general says to Mussolini: "I do not seem to have an enemy to fight, yet their attacks are incessant. They have no form, if they had form I could meet them with form. They have no continuity of movement, no fixed points of position..."
Reading between the lines, as if the general was moaning to Mussolini that their enemy in Libya was unfamiliar, irregular, unpredictable. These factors make them undefeatable nor controllable. They had different mindset, followed different sets of rules and standards, rendering them a moving target. How the general wished that they behaved according to the principles of his (Western) model. How he wished that they were more "cultivated" and more "civilized."
When Harold Macmillan, the British Prime Minister (1957 to 1963), was handing over the prime minister responsibility to Alec Douglas-Home, his advised:
"My dear boy, as long as you do not (try to) invade Afghanistan you will be absolutely fine."Various reasons are for this status of Afghanistan, from geography and landscape to the country's location. Moreover, the prevalence of tribalism and lawlessness are also the contributing factors. However, the real reason that encapsulates these factors, and breaks away from the pack, is that nobody managed to "civilize" Afghanistan.
Indeed, for the same reason does Gaza remain steadfast and perennially free. It refuses to be "civilized."
UAE Withdraws Support for Gaza Mission, Citing “Unclear Plan”