More than 3000 kms away from my motherland, tucked in my room as the dust storm grazes my window panes I ponder on the chaos my country is living in. The dark outrage that we are seeing around is heart-breaking.
The same technology that is considered a life-saver is breaking the backbone of the unity of India. In the last couple of weeks, I see that social media is shoved with so much hatred. I wanted to fight it, I did.. I tried. But the hatred is so widespread and deep, that you just need to drown in it or flow with it.
Let me make it clear. I am a Muslim and I want to help fight this deadly virus that has engulfed us. Before I progress towards the gigantic effort of disbanding the religion from this virus, let me say this out loud:
- A human* spitting at another human is wrong.
- A human* pelting stones at another is wrong.
- A human* disrespecting another (in the 1000 possible ways) is wrong.
- A group of humans* getting together INTENTIONALLY to cause the spread of virus is wrong.
- All the people* using religion as an excuse and gathering for prayers in a mosque, church or temples are wrong.
- Any person* advocating the intentional spread of this virus be it in public or via social media is wrong.
- Any person* running away and hiding their infection is wrong.
*= prefix a religion you hate the most or read as is.
Now, lets address the elephant in the room, shall we?
Nizamuddin Markaz: Now, there are different versions of this incident but here is my take on it:
India has a population of 1.3 billion, with a number of people (lacs) travelling in and out of the country and within the country as well.
We have seen how the corona virus has impacted every country in the world. So, it would be extremely naive to believe that India would be safe from it. The first Corona case in India was found on January 30th 2020 and the lock-down was announced on 24th March.
I commend the government of India for taking this difficult step of a lock-down. Yes, there were issues with planning but in a country such big as ours we are bound to see that. More details on this in my next post.
This means there was a period of almost 2 months for the infamous virus to spread and considering the population density of a few areas; this was going to happen. In this span of two months, it is safe to say that there were a lot of events that ignored social distancing. We had events prior to the lock-down, we have had events post the lock-down and we have events in the middle of the lock-down as well. Events as small as 50 people, as average as 3,000 people and events as large as a few lakhs.
The human mind is a beautiful thing, when we are put in a situation as dire as this pandemic our mind looks for reason. India, with its own beautiful mind started to search for reasons as to why this is happening and in the state of panic we found a scapegoat. I would rather be in the comfort of knowing that one and only event is responsible for the spread of the virus vs being in the unknown of "how the f is this spreading"?
It is absolutely amazing, that how almost every Corona case in India is linked to one single event. Scapegoating helps you build a statistic like that and it provides a sense of comfort for you and your religion and everyone else is just a Muslim. The outrage that was built up during the CAA era has beautifully transcended into converting the virus to a Muslim in the present time. The speed at which the number of articles, fake-videos and hatred was shared is astounding.
What we have failed to understand is the that the lock-down is not going to eradicate the virus, it only buys us time to prepare ourselves for a war that we are getting into. The biggest superpowers of the world have failed at it so far. Not to say that we are going to fail as badly too, but we cannot run away from the reality of it.
Need of the hour:
The fundamental change we need today is fight for equality. Treat a violation/crime as a violation/crime. Stop tagging every violation to a religion and maintaining a scorecard. When a person or a group have violated the law, call it out, let it be handled legally. Stop dragging all the 200 million Muslims or the 900 million hindus into your opinions because of the actions of a few.
Let us stop providing fuel to these religious fanatics who are already powered by their fundamentalism. Let us stop sharing the fake news articles and hate-breeding videos and speeches. Educate people. The world needs a lot of positivity as we walk through one of the darkest times for mankind.
Always remember, hate breeds hate. The anti-Muslim sentiment on the social media is maybe what destroys India and not corona. Tomorrow we may look back to see that corona was much smaller a virus compared to the virus we created with this hate.
And lastly, I'm not an expert on Islam, but here are a few rulings of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH):
- “If you hear of an outbreak of plague in a land, do not enter it, but if the plague breaks out in a place while you are in it, do not leave that place".
- He also said: "Those with contagious diseases should be kept away from those who are healthy."
I don't need to go into the details, but with the two lines above - its absolutely crystal clear what is expected from us Muslims. Intentionally harming and spreading the virus to attack innocents is prohibited in Islam.
Stay home. Stay safe. Peace.
Next post: Propaganda in the times of Corona
The same technology that is considered a life-saver is breaking the backbone of the unity of India. In the last couple of weeks, I see that social media is shoved with so much hatred. I wanted to fight it, I did.. I tried. But the hatred is so widespread and deep, that you just need to drown in it or flow with it.
Let me make it clear. I am a Muslim and I want to help fight this deadly virus that has engulfed us. Before I progress towards the gigantic effort of disbanding the religion from this virus, let me say this out loud:
- A human* spitting at another human is wrong.
- A human* pelting stones at another is wrong.
- A human* disrespecting another (in the 1000 possible ways) is wrong.
- A group of humans* getting together INTENTIONALLY to cause the spread of virus is wrong.
- All the people* using religion as an excuse and gathering for prayers in a mosque, church or temples are wrong.
- Any person* advocating the intentional spread of this virus be it in public or via social media is wrong.
- Any person* running away and hiding their infection is wrong.
*= prefix a religion you hate the most or read as is.
Now, lets address the elephant in the room, shall we?
Nizamuddin Markaz: Now, there are different versions of this incident but here is my take on it:
India has a population of 1.3 billion, with a number of people (lacs) travelling in and out of the country and within the country as well.
We have seen how the corona virus has impacted every country in the world. So, it would be extremely naive to believe that India would be safe from it. The first Corona case in India was found on January 30th 2020 and the lock-down was announced on 24th March.
I commend the government of India for taking this difficult step of a lock-down. Yes, there were issues with planning but in a country such big as ours we are bound to see that. More details on this in my next post.
This means there was a period of almost 2 months for the infamous virus to spread and considering the population density of a few areas; this was going to happen. In this span of two months, it is safe to say that there were a lot of events that ignored social distancing. We had events prior to the lock-down, we have had events post the lock-down and we have events in the middle of the lock-down as well. Events as small as 50 people, as average as 3,000 people and events as large as a few lakhs.
The human mind is a beautiful thing, when we are put in a situation as dire as this pandemic our mind looks for reason. India, with its own beautiful mind started to search for reasons as to why this is happening and in the state of panic we found a scapegoat. I would rather be in the comfort of knowing that one and only event is responsible for the spread of the virus vs being in the unknown of "how the f is this spreading"?
It is absolutely amazing, that how almost every Corona case in India is linked to one single event. Scapegoating helps you build a statistic like that and it provides a sense of comfort for you and your religion and everyone else is just a Muslim. The outrage that was built up during the CAA era has beautifully transcended into converting the virus to a Muslim in the present time. The speed at which the number of articles, fake-videos and hatred was shared is astounding.
What we have failed to understand is the that the lock-down is not going to eradicate the virus, it only buys us time to prepare ourselves for a war that we are getting into. The biggest superpowers of the world have failed at it so far. Not to say that we are going to fail as badly too, but we cannot run away from the reality of it.
Need of the hour:
The fundamental change we need today is fight for equality. Treat a violation/crime as a violation/crime. Stop tagging every violation to a religion and maintaining a scorecard. When a person or a group have violated the law, call it out, let it be handled legally. Stop dragging all the 200 million Muslims or the 900 million hindus into your opinions because of the actions of a few.
Let us stop providing fuel to these religious fanatics who are already powered by their fundamentalism. Let us stop sharing the fake news articles and hate-breeding videos and speeches. Educate people. The world needs a lot of positivity as we walk through one of the darkest times for mankind.
Always remember, hate breeds hate. The anti-Muslim sentiment on the social media is maybe what destroys India and not corona. Tomorrow we may look back to see that corona was much smaller a virus compared to the virus we created with this hate.
And lastly, I'm not an expert on Islam, but here are a few rulings of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH):
- “If you hear of an outbreak of plague in a land, do not enter it, but if the plague breaks out in a place while you are in it, do not leave that place".
- He also said: "Those with contagious diseases should be kept away from those who are healthy."
I don't need to go into the details, but with the two lines above - its absolutely crystal clear what is expected from us Muslims. Intentionally harming and spreading the virus to attack innocents is prohibited in Islam.
Stay home. Stay safe. Peace.
Next post: Propaganda in the times of Corona
Nicely said :)
ReplyDeleteNicely explained
ReplyDelete