Followup to Slaves cannot liberate nations Why are we called the Third World anyway? [Archives:2002/22/Focus]
BY BASMAH AWAD
[email protected]
Even though Islam terminated slavery, we, Muslims, still are judged to be slaves. The true meaning of slavery is much worst than what the editor meant. I can see Israel using the term slavery in practice quite more aggressively against our leaders more than that practiced on us by our leaders. Israel is enslaving our Arab leaders in the context of its fight against terrorism.
We, as Arab nations, are slaves in our countries because we are forced to be so. What the editor said is indeed true. We are not free but we are not the ones who chose most of the things that are happening to us. I cannot deny that we may as well be slaves to our own desires.
We seem to admire being called the Third World! I keep wondering who categorized us in this rude way, and where on Earth might the second world be! Is there a huge gap between us and the so called First World?
Accepting the name Third World is in itself an acceptance of being slaves just to be on the safe side. We seem to be peaceful humans who do not want to resist! As a matter of fact, this must have encouraged us to become lazy and accept everything as it is from the very beginning. It took quite a long time for us to find out that we are indeed slaves!
Our leaders first demanded our Palestinian land. Then they demanded peace. We have now arrived to the point where we are begging for peace. At the same time, we demand our leaders to open borders for jihad, to achieve justice, and to boycott Israel. But our leaders never responded positively to their peoples demands. All they did is try to strike deals with the First World to stop the killers from committing further massacres.
Where is the UN, or in other terms the USA-Israel nations? Our leaders are leading us to an imminent dead end. I am confident that if we work together to liberate ourselves and become one strong fist, we can break the wall. But our leaders need to liberate themselves from USA control.
Arab leaders are the ones in continuous fear of possible loss of power that they have been holding on tight for all those years. They want to keep themselves in their glory of the old days! We need to openly tell them: Who cares if you were a king, president or even a minister? You may be using your power against your people, but you are still a slave to your desires.
It is not only our country, Yemen, which is suffering from slavery and deteriorating. All Arab nations are suffering too. We do not have to give up hope, however. I used to say, I can not help others if I cannot help myself; I still believe in this sentence. However, I can not keep on ignoring others whom I can help even with a word.
Palestinians are our brothers, who will not accept our justification of the lack of action by mentioning the weakness of our leaders. We can not deny the Palestinians right to live in dignity and freedom. We can not accept the injustice around us. We can not hide the truth. We can change things once we let others hear our voices. We should be slaves only to Allah.
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