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.