Shying Away and Seeking Forgiveness

There are many times in my life, I 'saw' people trying to avoid interacting with me, often through their body language or other indications. My knee-jerk reaction will be to shy away from them. Before, many of these came from higher-ranked officers or privileged people, and in these cases I consider myself as probably not good enough to be in their company. Others can be 'seen' with looks for despise, for which I would question what have I done wrong; I will make it a point then, of avoiding them as much as I can. In some cases they can also come from students or close acquaintances themselves; probably I have done something wrong or to their dislike or maybe they just want their personal space.

In this blessed month of Ramadhan, I can only hope for forgiveness and try to be better myself. Whatever trials one is going through, they can only be very minor to those who are in Ghazza, and one should be thankful for not being tried beyond our capabilities.

اللَّهُمَّ إِنَّكَ عَفُوٌّ تُحِبُّ الْعَفْوَ فَاعْفُ عَنِّي

“O Allah, You are Forgiving and love forgiveness, so forgive me” or “O Allah, You are Pardoning and love to pardon, so pardon me.”

First Half Ramadhan Reflections

I thought I should update my blog since we have already reached the second half of Ramadhan. We started Ramadhan on Tuesday, 12 March.

Our youngest son has started his industrial training at UniKL Malaysia-France Institute just one day before Ramadhan. He has applied for accommodation there but at the moment (during Ramadhan), we decided that he should stay with us for his own convenience (iftar and sahur meals). He will moved there after Eid, God willing. Currently, me and my other half will send him to UniKL after Fajr and later in the evening, my eldest son will fetch him.

During the first half Ramadhan, I have been reflecting on two recent major events. The first is the Covid-19 pandemic. The disease had many lives loss (over 7 million according to this site). At the time, they were already predicting the forthcoming economic slowdown problems, which are still affecting us to this day. The next event is the horrible Ghazza conflict and genocide, which is going on for more than 170 days. Being a Muslim, I wondered what God is preparing us for.

By now, the death toll is more than 32,000 with unknown number buried under the rubble and more from the extreme famine. Currently the UNSC has demanded a ceasefire (with US abstaining) but with the occupying state's defiance, things are pretty uncertain where will this decision leads to. In any case, the fact that the genocide has gone this far is already mind-boggling. Because of this, I've been watching many videos on the conflict, in an attempt to understand it, more than I would want to. I also wanted to understand the mentality of those committing the genocide and watched some videos, some are too repulsive for me to watch in full. I also wanted to watch the documentary Isra3lism and temporarily it was put on YouTube but it was taken off a few hours later, probably due to copyright (only got to see the first ten minutes, paused it and later realised it was taken off).

There is also the wish to understand the mentality of those who supported the genocide. In a way, the prevailing Islamophobia (often promoted by the mainstream media) lends a platform to justify their support. I remembered having gone to Kentucky and on the day I was flying home, I tried to find a corner spot (out of everyone's way) at the airport, to do my prayers. Thereafter, the airport made the announcement of an orange alert. That was perhaps the first time I was perceived as a (possible) terrorist. At other times, I was probably viewed mostly as an inferior being with some medieval values. To get a glimpse of how some perceive muslims, just read the comments of the video of Timothy Winter (Abdul Hakim Murrad) at the Royal Institute. Of course, such perception is not limited to Muslims. So a broader platform is probably the colonialist mentality. I don't really want to go reading or watching on this subject but the unjust reality demands one to be at least aware of such mentality. In this regard, I would like to point to this video by Dr. Fatima Abdurrahman on 'telescopes' to get an idea on what this is all about (warning: it is about three hours and contain words that would have Steve Rogers say 'language').

Back at home, Islamophobic elements tend to get convoluted also with racial overtones and distrust deeply embedded within our society. The recent socks issue comes to mind. Hopefully this will die down and Ramadhan will get the wiser side of us.

Marching In

Yesterday, we had two weddings to go to. The one realised is the wedding of the youngest son of my eldest step brother in Klang (the other, we could not get back in time). The wedding was held in Laman Mazmida. My third son Izhar, who came back the night before, drove us there. The app he used showed there was a huge jam on the highway due to an accident. We took the Gamuda Cove exit and went through oil palm plantation roads (plenty of high bumps) to get there. Here are some photos that my brother shared late last night.

He also told me that Dato' Mohandass came and asked about me. Dato' Mohandass is my primary school mate in Sekolah Kebangsaan Sultan Yussuf (SYS). 

I was there from Standard 3 (or Year 3) during the time of Pn Machado. Before that, I was in Methodist English School (MES) in Tanjung Malim (I have very little memories of my time there - I have vague memories of friends named Razman and Jamaliyah). For SYS, besides Dato' Mohandass, I remembered Chang Seit Kim (a close friend whose father is also a close friend of my late father), Saiful Yazzan and Rosli Dawam (I think). being a person of lower social intelligence (there, you have it; poke fun if you like), I did not keep in contact many of them. Sometimes I do envy those who are very sociable and kept contact with past friends. Perhaps this is why I get to be easily forgotten too. I'm no snob and I'll be happy to meet friends from the past and recall all the nice memories. I guess I take the attitude of a traveller in a temporary world, taking life as it comes, not much of looking back.

Currently, I take more heed of what is going on right now. My youngest son, in the weeks to come, will go for his industrial training in UniKL. Particular worry now is his place of stay during the training. He has started to practice driving,

Elsewhere on the web, I've been listening to the interview of Kenneth O'Keefe (see here and here). Updating myself with the flour massacre. I still looked into discussions on philosophy in FB but perhaps with less interest. I still think, what we are lacking now are those who are well-proficient in sophisticated maths and perhaps this is where I can help. Much can be said but certainly much more to be done.