CRY OUR BELOVED COUNTRY - SOUTH AFRICA

With all the recent spate of crimes and murders going on in South Africa, walking down the street you can feel the emotions that the world is feeling. The pain, the grief, the fear of who is going to be next. 

None of us wants to live in fear, no one chooses to allow fear into our homes and hearts. But with the lack of security and a non-present goverment it makes us want to take matters into our own hands. Where is our president while all this is happening? Where are our leaders who supposedly fought for the freedom of our country? Where are the comrades who fought for our rights to live fairly and equally as human beings? 

Law and order is non-existent. Security and tranquility is non-existent. Fairness and equality is non-existent. How much more of this do we have to go through to realize that a change is needed. A change in government and a change in leadership. While the whole world has been so focused on the state capture enquiries the rest of the world has been suffering with loss and grief. 

The thing about history is that those who never learn from it are doomed to repeat it. Those who fail to learn from the mistakes of their predecessors

are destined to repeat them.For the past 25 years all the country has been doing is talking and reminding people of the actions of the past without making any viable effort to change. Justifying every act of violence and racism as a stance against apartheid and oppression and most importantly the white man. Reasoning as to why the ANC as corrupt as it is needs to remain in charge of the country to only bring it further down then what it was before. Crime has increased, murders has increased, violence and abuse has increased. 

In the ancient China, the chinese believed and followed the Mandate of Heaven. The Mandate of Heaven being a divine law decreed unto a ruler or state, favouring said ruler or state to run the country and goverment. The ruler however as long as he is in reign lives and follows the decree of Heaven. He is just and fair to his people. 

If a ruler was overthrown, this was interpreted as an indication that the ruler was unworthy, and had lost the mandate.

It was also a common belief among citizens that natural disasters such as famine and flood were signs of heaven's displeasure with the ruler, so there would often be revolts following major disasters as citizens saw these as signs that the Mandate of Heaven had been withdrawn. He has fallen out of favour with God and thus needs to be replaced. 

Has our president fallen out of favour with God? Does our government need to be replaced? 

"A just king is the shadow of God on earth"

Throughout Chinese history , times of poverty and natural disasters were often taken as signs that heaven considered the incumbent ruler unjust and thus in need of replacement.

These times that our country is going through is an indication that a change of leadership is needed. And if we are ever going to be safe and free, we as the people need to take a stance because we have the power. 

Charlie Chaplin quotes in The Great Dictator "The way of life can be free and beautiful, but we have lost the way.

Greed has poisoned men’s souls, has barricaded the world with hate, has goose-stepped us into misery and

bloodshed. We have developed speed, but we have shut ourselves in.

Machinery that gives abundance has left us in want. Our knowledge has

made us cynical. Our cleverness, hard and unkind. We think too much

and feel too little. More than machinery we need humanity. More than cleverness we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life

will be violent and all will be lost."

And he also goes on to quote " In the seventeenth chapter of Saint Luke it is

written:

- "The kingdom of God is within man"

Not one man, nor a group of men, but in all men; in you, the people.

You the people have the power, the power to create machines, the power to create happiness. You the people have the power to make life free and beautiful, to make this life a

wonderful adventure. Then in the name of democracy let's use that power, let us all unite. Let us fight for a new world, a decent world that

will give men a chance to work, that will give you the future and old age and security. By the promise of these things, brutes have risen to power, but they lie. They do not fulfil their promise, they never will. Dictators free themselves but they enslave the people. Now let us fight to fulfil that promise. Let us fight to free the world, to do away with national barriers, do away with greed, with hate and intolerance. Let us fight for a world of reason, a world where science and progress will lead to all

men's happiness."

Last I would like to say " I AM MAD AS HELL AND I AM NOT GOING TO TAKE IT ANYMORE. I AM A HUMAN BEING GOD DAMN IT, MY LIFE HAS VALUE".

WHAT IS MY FAITH?

Everyone has their own personal relationship with their creator, and no relationship can be defined through parables and experiences of another person. It is something we have to experience on our own and for ourselves.

Growing up we were taught a lot about shaytaans plan for man, but what about Allahs plan for man? What was Gods purpose for this divine creation? What was the reason for his gift of free will to us if we are continuosly being told that there is only one way of worshiping God.

The thing that scared me the most about Allah is that knowing he gave us free will we were not allowed to use it. We are not allowed to use it by threading beyond the boundaries of islam or the belief system that we were raised in. That belief made me feel more like a prisoner and less like a creation. Now I know Allah did not create us to be merely prisoners in this world and those beliefs that limits us or restrict us from exploring beyond our boundaries, those beliefs were not set by Allah but rather by men who set out to incite fear in our hearts so we don't tarnish or change or thread away from our religion. But is it worth it though? 

How many people has ran away or shut themselves off of anything that has to do with God or religion?

I know I have. I was one of those people. I  wanted life and to live but I was continuosly told that this world is not real and I was going to die. Now it may just seem like my perspective but regardless of how I viewed things there is still a terrifying way that God and religion is being presented to the people. A severe misconception that truly damages the belief and faith and imaan that the creation of God has in him. 

We as creation may have been created from a clot of flesh but were each designed differently. We think differently, feel differently, heal differently.  And some of us are not strong enough to defend our own beliefs. We are not strong emotionally, mentally, and physically. We beat our own ideologies into people and when they can't hold on to them we say they have weak imaan. 

Allah wants us to know him. To bond with him, to trust him. He made us all into something. To experience ourselves and Him and this world so we can all grow and revere him the way he wants us to revere him.

This world is ever expanding. There are millions of galaxies that we don't even know of. So is it possible that there are millions of different ways that we can communicate and get close to him? 

With all this hoopla and taboos and misconception I sometimes wonder what does God want from me? Who does he expect me to be? Should I as a good muslim woman dress myself only hijaab, pray five times a day, search for a good pious husband. Or can I as a muslim woman express myself in a different way? Can I expose my hair and not be in hijaab and still be called a muslim. Can I choose not to seek for a good pious muslim guy to be my husband but rather live with the hope that my life partner will come directly from Allah even if he himself is not a muslim? Can I choose to look at life and not death? Can I live in this world and still be of this world? Can I openly seek love and to be loved? Can my faith consist of many different beliefs? Can I love and defend and see and accept the messages of other religions or should I reject them because they are of the disbelieving folk? 

What path would Allah have me walk?

There are people in this world that suffer greatly because they are confused or filled with immense fear of opening  up.