A scathing critique of the general Muslim apathy towards issues.
By Dr Asma Anjum Khan for TwoCircles.net,
[Aunt Sadiya speaks, is in her mid forties, BA pass in second class, English literature, healthy at 88 Kgs, her NGO does the important work of saving the dying arts of mehendi and match making]
My Dear Rohingyas,
Heard you are on a cruise these days?
How is it feeling? Isn’t it exciting to go out full sail on the dark blue oceans? How enchantingly beautiful it must feel to you! Lucky!
A full family vacation?
Cruise smooth dahlings, seas can be rough. Allow me to play a little with the definition.
A cruise is a voyage on a ship or boat taken for pleasure or as a holiday and usually calling in at several places.
So you chose to go to many ports but they said no to you? Hmm … Perhaps you were being a bit adventurous and chose the bad tourist guys, and not so good a time and the rough seas instead of a cruise down Nile or river Thames.
Whatever, your cruise thing has become big news these days. It was a good change, whatever with Falasteen, Gaza, Syria Yemen, Iraq.
Yawn….
So tell me how come you started? Thomas Cook?
It’s cool to be in the cruise. Last time I went and I thought they were a catering company! Then my husband told me to take my mind out of the kitchen and informed how they arrange big travels around the world. [Wonder do they arrange kid’s b’day parties too? Must ask, this time I don’t want to slog in the kitchen for hours and obey hubby dear and keep not just my mind but also my body out of the kitchen.]
Giggles
But why do you look so distraught in those pics? You know you should smile on such occasions and why give those dirty looks? No no, you don’t post these to your Facebook page. A smiling happy pic will get you more likes. When I posted my selfie last, after a long gap, 22 hours to be precise, I was coming out of the fund raising dinner at the Taj.
I got 149 likes!
Not happy? Okay.
Come on now, what is it I am hearing?
Were you wanting to join the #ilmfest in Malaysia? Festival of knowledge?
No?
You ran away from your homes?
Not done. You don’t have a Mummy Papa to tell you not to do so?
Oh, now I read these headlines, haan, you were driven out of your homes by …. by the Buddhists? But how could they? I am no fool, I know Dalai Lama, he is a Hollywood prophet of peace and I am a Richard Gere fan, I can tell you, he can never be wrong. Aunt Aung San Suu Kyi. [What a name! Seems her parents had watched too many of Karan Johar’s long titled films! He he he!] Look here aunty Aung has a majboori to become president or prime minister of Burma, so how can she talk about you? We should be understanding of other people’s majbooris, and act like good humans.
Shame on Suu Kyi?
Haaye mere Allah!
I really feel you are either out of your minds or have no minds. Now I know that starvation has got to your brains.
But sad to hear your story. You were ripped off your citizenship as well? Umm … there are worse cases than you, there are people who actually are citizens with passports but it’s said they are like second class citizens; whatever that means. Now, coming to the point how can anyone give you a shelter if you don’t have a passport?
Itni si baat, you not understanding.
Now why should any country help you? Fifty eight Muslim countries have better things to do; building tallest shopping malls, bowling alleys, and businesses etc. Where is the time for cruise cries? We are already at the lowest end of our empathy sympathy levels. All stocks exhausted. Already you know how difficult it is to deal with the constant pain of Falasteen and Yemen, now adding a new headache. Why when in CAR they burned and ate the Muslims for lunch dinner breakfast, we carried on with our usual menus, we showed them our grit and our resilience. After all that was our farz to do for our pyari ummah. We were occupied with our normal appetites and menus with Hummus. After all we also have a life, we have children who need to be brought up and bought all the latest gadgets and sent to big universities. We love our children you know.
And your suggestion that our scholars should have boycotted the annual Malaysian Festival of Knowledge, the #ilmfest, is too silly. Are you insinuating that it’s all about money? Oh, how harsh! Allah reham! You don’t understand politics, and also no knowledge of socio politico economics or economico politico socialistic; anyway, what I am trying to say is cancelling tours, boycotting Malaysia Indonesia that give us our bread and also glamorize us and who for their own internal/national majboories refuse to give refuge to the stranded boatwallahs; is just out of the question.
Malaysia and Indonesia with their GDPs at 314 and 868 billion US dollars respectively, welcome only tourist influx and not refugee influx, for obvious reasons. So what if we are signatories to the UN charter which makes it illegal for us to turn off the refugees. Go and ask Israel first how many UN thingies it follows and then come to us.
You see our scholars like Abu Easa, Yasir Qadhi, Yasmin Mogahed, Nouman Ali Khan, at the #ilmfest did their bit, they asked their local population to protest locally. From now onwards, whenever Israel commits hara-kiri with those bechare Filistinees, the protests should be local and not otherwise. Ditto!
But no! We need to protest against Israel? Nah? it is our habit and habits die hard. Don’t confuse the two things here, you sillies.
But please, please, don’t think that I don’t care for you, for my ummah, I feel like going emotional whenever I see the Muslims suffering. When Salman Khan was arrested, I prayed whole two rakahs of prayers for him, his fans are all Bhaizade. When that teenager Falasteeni boy was burnt alive, I was at the party of Aunt Naghma [and I had not yet observed Fariha’s new jewelry and had not yet criticized Ayman’s secret affair with God knows who, but when so many people talk about it, it must be true nah? But ignoring all these important assignments, I posted on Facebook, and slammed it in strong, balke strongest words. Soon after I got 12 likes. Within 12 hours.
And oh these activists! Don’t ask! Instead of sitting cold at home watching the crucial IPL matches, like we all do ritually, they go hunting to UN and demand sanctions against Burma. Waise bhi what will be happening if we sanction vanction? And no, I think its plain rumor that it is Malaysia and Indonesia who lobby against sanctions against Burma.
Look at this post from one of the founders of Burma Task Force, Dr Shaik M Ubaid, New York.
These same countries [Indonesia, Malaysia] have been lobbying against our efforts to get the US and UN to put sanctions on Burma. Surely punishing Burma will or may force it; not to force out Rohingyas into neighboring countries.
What an irresponsible statement! Kuch toh khayal kiya hota of ummah ki izzat waghaireh ka. But no these activist types, want to fight with someone for something, all the time. Why don’t we send them to cruise with you, O My Dear Rohingyas?
Hey I got a rhyme for you, Rip Rip Rohnigyas!
Kiasa laga?
Yours lovingly
Aunt Sadiya
p.s. It’s not the Rohingyas’ boat that is at sea; it is ours that is sinking. Only that we don’t have those eyes to see and hearts to perceive.
(Dr Asma Anjum Khan is Assistant Professor of English in Maharashtra. You can follow her on Twitter at @saysanjum )