Reflections on a mission in life [Archives:2002/21/Focus]
BY SAMIRA ALI BIN DAAIR
FOR THE YEMEN TIMES
As I sit here working on my Computer, struggling to find the right words to fill in the report I am writing so many reportsso many project documentsso many plans of what ought to happen. Hope put into neat little developmental boxes of the future. They say that the road to heaven is paved with good intentions. As I sit here planning for the future, I am at the same time struggling to understand the present.
Quite often, when I switch on the TV, I hear so much about the past with great leaders, great thinkersgreat men and women, I catch the typical refrain of nostalgia that has bedeviled us for so long. Alas, with the lessons of history sometimes escaping us! Ibn Khaldoon had said that when mankind has achieved social organization, and civilization has become a fact, people need a higher restraining influence to keep them apart, for aggressiveness and injustice are in the animal nature of man. They say social change has always been preceded by upheavals that finally lead to a temporary state of equilibrium what Hegel called synthesis in his dialectical process.
Yesterday, I was watching an old documentary on Cuba which featured a lot on Che-Guevarra, the great revolutionary. Images of my school days flashed across my mind when idealism and thoughts of changing the world often brought people like him to mind. I wonder if I had quite understood him then when I memorized words uttered like: We will intone our funeral dung with the Stiletto of machine guns. I wonder if I understand him anymore now as I watch the young Palestinians being killed for their homeland like flowers nipped in the bud before the Spring.
Nothing but the blunt truth
Alas, that was all in the past in days before the Perestoroika and the New World OrderUntil the recent past, there was a universal language within the backdrop of many dialects. People understood what words meant even if they did not mean what they said. There was still the last vestige of respect for words expressed in formal declarations. Now the masks have droppedthe hypocrisy has gone to reveal what? Nobody knows nobody understands. With the blunt truth, alas! The scales are tipping towards Universal Lunacy! It was more comfortable to live with the hypocrisy and the liesthe reassuring words about the sanctity of life spoken in diplomatic circles. Where a Spade was still a Spade even if it was used to pound windows and doors instead of collecting dead leaves to fertilize the dead lands.
They say that Today must sometimes die in order to give birth to the Tree of Life and a better Tomorrow. For so long, we have given up Today waiting for a better tomorrow but tomorrow somehow never comes it always becomes another Today. We always hope mere hope no clear strategiesno plans no clever thoughts for turning hopes into reality. We are our own worst enemy. We rush through the crowded streetsventing our anger on an unknown enemy breaking through the Chains of Silence for the first time Alas! talking to ourselves.
The Satellite Systems are too complex for us to comprehend The Tuning System has changed so must our Tunes. The Equation has long changed yet we still count on our bare fingers biting our nails in sadness and fear waiting still for more uncertain tomorrows. Empty Promises ink on blotting paper words blurred as fast as they are written. Was it Omar Khayyam who said:
The moving finger writes, and having writ, moves on.
Not all your piety nor wit, shall lure it back to cancel half a linenor all your
Tears wash out a word of it.
Shall we blame it all on Destiny? It has been a long a time since I was at University, and the controversy over Free Will and Determinism in my Philosophy class seems like a historical anachronism now. Not quite! History is a product of Cause and Effectbut sometimes it becomes difficult to disentangle the two. Many causes which are responsible for the present effects, we had nothing directly to do with it but still many effects are in our hands to control and rechart our journey into different directions, thus defeating the causes. But I did say before that I dont understand much of this world anymore. The present situation calls for a complete metaphysical overhaul. I try to take comfort in my strong faith in Gods design and what all the religions have defined as the eternal struggle between good and evil.
Changing from our inside
The kids are still out there on the streets struggling to find a place under the Scorching Sun as my neat plans for their future continue on my computer. Somehow reality and life has never fit into neat little boxes but is a rich arabesque of contrary colors and design. How does one capture it? I am afraid I am a direct descendant of Proust and James Joycenot in blood but in literary lineage for I like them, long ago discovered that the path to that understanding is through the Stream of Consciousness technique that they followed in their writingwhere words can then find meaning in the meaningless and hidden harmony beneath the discordance, as Khalil Gibran would tell us Thoughts and feelings from the heart, like life, can never follow a neat sequence. After all I am not on here about writing a scholarly treatise on Economics or Politics or blinding you with Science. Thoughts of what Islam teaches us also crowd my mind. Something about God not changing anything in a Nation lest they change what is in themselves. Or what the Holy Prophet(Peace Be Upon Him ) said after the Muslims victorious return from the Battle of Badr, We have returned from the lesser Jihad( the battle) to the greater JihadJihad AlNafs, which is the Jihad of the self the struggle with the self to become a better human being. The process involves changing oneself from the Nafs Al Amaara( the ruthlessly self-seeking one) to the Nafs AlLawaama)which is a self with a conscience and follows an ethical code ( Makaarim al akhlaaq) and a sense of responsibility towards society. Maybe that journey is after all much longer than most of us imagined.
Well I need to get back to my neat little boxes and fervently hope that in the process I will rediscover my real mission in life before it is over.
The Land of Peace
Salaam to the Land of Peace the weary anchor creaks
In turbulent seas of change where Posterity wears borrowed robes, and
Ancestry walks alone in rags. The tattered heritage unclaimed baggage in
LOST PROPERTY.
An Airport where people rush to and frodestination? Unknown.
Heedless onward unseeing. The Conscience imprisoned in a giant web.
A Colossus holds ransom, our breathwhile we travel in hot air balloons.
Hands unseen from here and therelike puppets we dance to unknown tunes;The Piper paid, from the Fund of the Future
With parched lips, here men jostle each other for a tiny drop of rain.
With empty hands they struggle to catch the falling clouds.
Women sweating in winding alleys of toil. At the Crossroads we stand.
While the Wheel of Fortune turns. Children unborn, yet already late for the QUEUE; In a world of Plenty, but only for a few.
World Summits for Children statements so bold, while bowls of rice
For the dear price of Gold. Third class citizens Casualties of the 21st century
In a world of Adulthood, full of shining parables.
Oh, the childrens hearts have gone so cold with too much fire gunshots of deprivationToo much lossin a world of the Have-nots. They laugh at usthese adults in childrens bodies. Our feet here on firm groundat tea parties; while theirs wobble, on hot, shifting sands walking in the Desert,
Searching for an Oasis… blinded by Miragesand fishing in the DEAD SEA.
Look, says I, to the children on the street Come put your hands in mine these words I write will give you a Future.
With glazed eyes, they look at me ears muted with too much sound too many words. In barely a whisper, to me louder than Thunder I want to eat I need clothes I want to be a CHILD.
Tears blinding me, the books the Agenda fell unheeded to the floor, as
Through the long dark tunnels, I searched, for the distant ray of light;
For the answer to give
To the Children without a CHILDHOOD.
The FUTURE without a future.
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