LISTENING TO THE DEVIL
Everyone has the propensity to be evil, and most have committed evil deeds.
But most don’t commit or encounter true evil that sickens and horrifies and makes your blood run cold. The type of evil that’s irrevocable, that stains your soul and deadens it.
Unfortunately, this is no longer true for most. Apartheid Israel has bequeathed a live genocide and premiered to the world Close Encounters of the Worst Kind. They have visited upon the Palestinians and us humans things that can not be unseen, wicked and unspeakable, and flung billions into a looping nightmare from which there’s no escape. We cannot exit the horror because the West wilfully endows Apartheid Israel with the impunity and munitions to continue its genocide.
The Apartheid state is in the grip of genocidal mania with the devil, an egomaniacal Genocider, and his cabinet provoking the sentiment: ‘Do not follow in Satan’s footsteps—if you do so, he will urge you to indecency and evil’ [24:21].
The brutal Israeli killings are dark and deeply unsettling. But nothing has disturbed me more than the US Congress spectacle on 24 July. The evil present in the room when Netanyahu gave his address was so palpable I shuddered. The ovation spurred more evil. And those who offered applause disrobed their humanity and followed the devil in his tracks.
Netanyahu is a master Orwellian and successfully sells war as peace and lies as truth. The devil incarnate had the best tunes and had the US Congress grooving: ‘Satan has made their deeds seem pleasing in their eyes and has kept them away from the path, so they receive no guidance’ [27:24].
ORGANIC GROWTH
Steadfastly navigating the prophetic landscape and strained under revelation’s weight, the Prophet Muhammad (s) left behind heaven’s greatest miracle etched on earth.
God’s speech would have sundered mountaintops had it descended thereon [59:21]. Instead, God elected Muhammad (s) as the weight bearer for the greatest transference of knowledge from heaven to earth. An office spanning twenty-three years: ‘Those who reject Faith say: “Why is not the Quran revealed to him all at once?” Thus (is it revealed), that We may strengthen thy heart thereby, and We have rehearsed it to thee in slow, well-arranged stages, gradually’ [25:32].
Slow and gradual is nature’s way. It’s organic, not impatient.
God’s rebuttal makes the dissenters’ argument seem utterly foolish, and the refutation also contains within it a model for success:
With stoicism all but a rejected virtue, many fall prey and are defeated and destroyed by instant gratification, which is the exposed attitude of the dissident in the above verse.
But we, too, can leave a legacy etched in meaning if we are willing to defer and face life’s vicissitudes with forbearance and dignity and use the Divine model to grow organically.
The nineteenth-century German philosopher Karl Marx wrote, “Religion is the opiate of the masses.”
I differ from Marx’s religious theories but agree with him that mass indoctrination is indeed a true phenomenon. And I contend that sport, not religion, is one of the primary opioids of our time. Panem et circenses—bread and circus, food and entertainment has long been the method of appeasement. Keep the masses distracted while governments and corporations can propagandise and shape a world that allows them to continue pilfering it without the slightest resistance.
The 2024 Olympics began a week ago, and like most sporting bodies, the IOC’s (International Olympics Committee) claim to be apolitical is far from believable. The IOC’s double standards are glaring. Imposing an embargo on Russia and Russian athletes for international law violations but failing to ban Israel, whom all credible human rights agencies find guilty of the crime of Apartheid and the International Court of Justice are investigating for plausible genocide, reeks of duplicity.
The IOC’s stance is not unique. FIFA, EUFA and the Premier League are also guilty of the same discrimination. The message from these sporting bodies rings loud and clear: the lives of white Ukrainians matter more than those of Palestinians.
When the world allows Apartheid Israel to participate, they feed their impunity, which is fatal for Palestinians.
The IOC’s decisions in the age of genocide are no longer just about the games but also about life and death.
Boycotting the Olympics and these other circuses is not just a moral imperative but also frees us from the opioids that keep us in a passive hypnagogic state and, therefore, easily manipulable.
Until next week, InshaAllah
Zaahied Sallie
Author of The Beloved Prophet – An Illustrated Biography in Rhyme
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