Closing Pandora's Box

The following post is by a good friend who used to blog herself once. She had posted this before on her blog, but seeing as it is a highly pertinent issue today, which many people may find themselves in, I asked her if I could use it to share with my readers. She agreed. Thank you ever so much Smiley, you gem.

*****

“So, did anyone call today?” Zack asked popping a spoonful of spaghetti into his mouth. He was starving.

“Mum rang this morning asking whether we had received the parcel she sent and then Ryan rang later this afternoon,” Sammy said pouring a glass of water and taking a huge gulp.

“Ryan?”

“Yeah, Ryan from London. You remember him?”

“What did he want?” Zack asked starting to chew slowly.

“Oh nothing much, we were just talking about stuff, you know,” Sammy said reaching for a spaghetti string from Zack’s plate. She slipped it into her mouth and took a seat next to him on the couch.

“What stuff?”

“Well, he told me he went to see his mum today. I told you his parents are separated, didn’t I? And then he said we should come down to London during the summer break. He said he'd love to meet you,” Sammy laughed, remembering Ryan’s words.

“How long did you guys talk for?”

“About forty five minutes I think, not sure. It was good to talk to him. He said he left me something on my Facebook wall,”

“Did you check?”

“No, didn’t get time. Been revising all day,” Sammy stifled a yawn, took the empty plate from Zack’s hands and placed it on the table. She sat back on the couch, stretched her legs out and placed her head in Zack’s lap. He reached for the remote and started flicking through the channels.

“How’s that going?”

“Booooring. I missed you today. The day just went on and on and on,” Sammy said looking up into his face. Strands of dark unkempt hair fell into eyes. She studied the long column of his throat as her fingers played with the buttons on his white shirt. They'd been married for forty four days now.

“Really? That bad, aye?” his eyes twinkled with warm amusement. “And don’t you ruin this shirt of mine, I think it’s the only wearable one left in my whole wardrobe, thanks to you!” He grinned. Sammy laughed and tugged a little harder at the button.

“You’re worried more about your shirts, huh?” she said, looking away pretending to pout. He turned her face back and kissed her cute button nose.

“So what you say, we go to London this summer?” He pulled the ribbon out of her hair and let it fall loose. He loved her hair.

“Yeah that would be great,”

“We could go to Bath and visit my old uncle and aunty too, ain’t seen them lot for ages,” Zack said smirking remembering how his wife disliked his old fashioned family.Sammy punched him in the chest.

“Ha ha. Very funny! Ryan mentioned Bath; he said it was a lovely place to visit for a day,”

Zack’s hand paused its play of her hair.

“Can you just stop that,” he said suddenly.

“Stop what?”

“Ryan. You’re always talking about him. Ryan this and Ryan that,”

“No I’m not,”

Sammy sat up, lifting her head from his lap. The moment was gone replaced by something else.

“Yes you are. It’s always you and Ryan,”

“There’s no me and Ryan. What you talking about?”

Zack got up off the couch and faced her. His face was turning a slight shade of pink and all humour had vanished from his tired eyes.

“I bet there is,” He said ever so quietly.

There was silence in the room as Sammy stared at him, unable to believe what she was hearing.

“That’s just crazy. He’s just a really good friend that I met on Facebook. The guy lives a million miles away, don’t know what…”

“Oh so that’s what it is, is it?” he cut her short. “So if he was closer things would be different, is that it?”

“Hell no. That’s not what I meant. You’re taking it the wrong way Zack,”

“Am I? I don't think so!” He was shouting now

“Look, he’s just a friend. He’s helped me through a lot….”

“You care about him?”

“What?”

“I asked do you care about him.”

“Well of course I care about him, he’s my friend, Zack,” Sammy said, her voice quivered. She was hurt. She didn’t know where this was going.

“You know when mum and dad got divorced he was the only person I had who I could talk to. He’s always been there for me. Our friendship is special. I don’t see what the big deal is," She looked away as the memories came flooding back.

“The big deal? You want to know the big deal? You’re always going on about him and I’m sick and tired of it! Before the wedding you couldn’t stop talking about him and all your incredibly fun times together," he waved his hands around the room, the words coming out like a fierce storm. "You were even talking to him on our wedding day. And now look at you. How do you think that makes me feel? He’s helped…”

“What on earth is that supposed to...”

“Just shut up!” he spat the words at her and Sammy’s eyes widened. Zack never spoke to her like that. His jaw was tight, his eyes icy. He was angry. He looked up into her face and took a step towards her. Fear suddenly gripped Sammy. Zack would never hit her.

“It’s either me or him, do you hear?” he whispered the words close to her face. She didn’t say anything, too shocked to open her mouth. She didn’t recognize this Zack.

He turned around, grabbed his mobile and keys from the table and walked towards the door.

“Zack! This is crazy,” she said to his back as he walked out the room.

“Zack!” she called.

She heard the front door open and her pulse raced.

“Zack! Where are you going?”

There was silence.

And then the door slammed shut.

@Smiiiiiiiiley_x

*****

What do you think? Have you ever been in such a situation, be it as Zack, Ryan or Sammy?

_________________________________

Giaus	I have no choice. I’m sorry Gwen.
Gwen	In life you always have a choice. Sometimes it’s easier to think you don’t.
Giaus	Well then, my choice is to leave.

We make choices every day of our lives, every hour of our days, every minute of our hours and every second of our minutes. Our lives are replete with decisions and many of these choices we make consciously, spending minutes, hours, days, weeks and even months on them. Others are made in a split second, things we say in conversations, things said when high on the drug of happiness or low due to a lack of it.
There are some instances when due to circumstances we choose not to choose. But is it not paradoxical that when a person has a decision to make and does not make it, that in itself is a choice? And why do we do that? In such situations where we feel we have no choice and thus are indirectly forced to do something, we do it to protect ourselves or those really close to us. In doing so we may trample on others, the truth and much more to make sure we are safe. Blinded by our fear and that of the consequences we make ourselves believe what we are doing to be right. But is it ever right?
One way of defining a person is by their choices. People are commonly described as being reckless, driven by passion, logical (and the opposite), sharp-mined in regards to the choices they make. A person can be sweet to the core, full of goodness for others, mentally strong etcetera and yes those things do matter, but unless those internal qualities are expressed externally, no-one will be able to appreciate them or experience them. Never a judge a person on what he can or can’t do, but by what he does or doesn’t do. We all have ability, maybe not the same but ability nonetheless and some people choose to use that ability whereas others choose not to. Humans have been given free will, thus each and every day we can choose to bring light to the lives of others or take it away from them. We choose whether our actions do good or evil. It is that which raises you in the eyes of others, or condemns you to the scum of society.
Our choices shape our lives and subsequently our ourselves. This process only ends with our last breath. We are free to make choices, but we are not free to decide the consequences of our actions which may reverberate for many many years to come. Our choices are ultimately our own responsibility. Many of us have seen how sometimes we make detailed plans for our lives but our choices burn them to ashes. After all life is nothing but the sum of our choices; some good and some bad. A person learns to make good decisions after having experienced the consequences of bad ones previously made. Though none of us have the ability to see into the future, we have been given understanding which is especially important when making decisions. Until we take responsibility and accountability for our actions, we will never make worthwhile choices. ”We choose our joys and sorrows long before we experience them,” (Khalil Gibran).
All animals choose. It is our ability to consciously think and understand before we decide something that makes us different from animals and other organisms. But choosing to be a good human is one of the hardest choices to make. A wise person once said, “You (always) have a choice. Live or die. Every breath is a choice. To be or not to be.”
What do you choose?
Title: Anyway – Martina McBride

…Continued (Click here to read part 1)

Click here to watch episode (available in the UK ONLY)

Last week’s Panorama (Monday 22^nd November 2010), shown on BBC focused on faith schools and in particular Islamic schools. For those of you that are not in the UK, let me give you a brief summary of what some of the points raised:

• Of the many thousands of  schools in the UK, 160 are Muslim schools.
• The vast majority of which are “good Muslim schools, but there are also some that have an ideology that is a cause for concern”
• Some schools are directly funded by a mosque and mosque policy is usually reflected in the rules of the school.
• Students are exposed to radical anti-west speakers and thinkers who openly incite hatred against the west.
• Many part-time (after school / weekend) classes use the Saudi national curriculum which caters for 6-18 year olds. Even from an early age children are taught that Jews and Christians are like monkeys and pigs. The curriculum also contains information on how to carry out “medieval Islamic practices” such as amputations of the hands and feet.
• Students are often told to refrain from “evil western practices” such as listening to music and that one should not have any contact or dealing with the “kuffar”.

*****

“In time we hate that which we often fear” – William Shakespeare

A young mind absorbs knowledge just like the way a dry sponge sucks up any moisture around it. A child growing up in a household full of love and laughter will develop into an individual who is loving himself / herself. A child whose environment is saturated with hate by those around them will surely be affected by it. The first primary school I went to was predominantly white. There were only 3 non-whites there; me, my sister and another Asian boy. In year 5 a black French boy joined my class. One day we had a supply teacher to cover the afternoon lessons. She was a lovely Jamaican lady (I can still remember what we did in that lesson). While she was teaching a boy kept repeatedly talking and as any teacher would, she told him to be quiet and concentrate on his work. He put his pen down, got up and looked at the teacher with eyes like a snake’s full of venom, and shouted, “Go swim back to your country, you’re not wanted here.” Everyone gasped. Later that day I saw the child’s father walking into school. On his arm was a tattoo of a symbol that I did not recognise at that young age. I was 9 or 10 at that time. It was only a few years later while studying World War II did I understand the horrors the swastika had come to represent. We never saw the teacher again.

I don’t think hate is a feeling as such. Feelings are like happiness, anger and nostalgia for example; they’re temporary to an extent. Also we have no control over our feelings, they just happen. It would be more appropriate to describe hate as a verb rather than an adjective. You can feel hated and if you were to say I am feeling hate, that still insinuates the hate is being directed at you as apposed to emanating from within you. It is an extreme form of dislike. The superlative form of dislike which is the product of ignorance and is taught, learned or acquired and exhibited through anger, lack of trust and suffering to mention a few.

In the episode of Panorama we are made aware of the hate that is being spread in some faith schools. The programme quotes Orthodox Jewish, Evangelical Christian and Muslim school to be involved in saying things that may be deemed offensive. Despite that, it specifically chooses to elaborate on the radical nature of the teaching at some Islamic Schools. Education in imperative for the development of an individual and thus the roles of schools can never been underestimated. I think faith schools are a good thing as they allow for increasing one's spiritual knowledge as well as catering for their worldly knowledge. Having a mosque or church close to the school is like having a hospital in close vicinity to a medical school.

Knowledge is a double bladed sword if it is not obtained properly or used in a productive manner. A lack of it can drown one into the depths of ignorance from which it is hard to recover. On the other hand, those with knowledge can spread it in such a manner that instead of bringing enlightenment to the lives of others, it brings darkness. A darkness in the form of fear. As Yoda says in Star Wars, "fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. And hate leads to suffering." What disappointed me the most was the fact that so called 'scholars', whose words many people take for granted without any questioning, were selectively picking and choosing those things to teach that are representative of a specific narrow minded type mentality.

In the translation of the first Chapter of the Qur'an the scholar says, "Guide us not on the path of those who have earned thy displeasure, namely the Jews, nor those that have gone astray, namely the Christians." The mention of the Jews and the Christians is not in the actual Arabic text of the Qur'an. I do not by any means claim to be a scholar and feel free to correct me if I am wrong, but many nations incurred the wrath of God over time; the 10 plaques of Egypt come to mind. Was the Pharaoh and his people Jews? One of the many reasons so many prophets were raised was because mankind had forgotten the teachings sent down from heaven. If only the Christians had strayed from the right path then technically does that mean all those before them were following the true teachings? The university at which I study is no more than 15 minutes walk from Tooting Islamic Centre (mentioned in the programme). Once a special guest from there was invited to give a talk about the status of Jesus (a.s.) in Islam. Judging by the contents of the talk it should actually have been named, ‘Why Christians are wrong in their beliefs about Christ.’ I felt thoroughly ashamed for having wasted my time and was even more sympathetic towards all those Christians who had gone to learn something new about another faith.   

Many people are guilty of misquoting verses from religious texts and presenting a small portion of it completely out of context. One of the speakers in the programme quotes verse 14 of chapter 60 which reads, 'Oh ye who believe! make not friends of a people with whom Allah is wroth.' This verse on it's own seems to be telling Muslims to abstain from having any dealings with those that do not believe. What the people who use this verse to advocate exclusivity fail to mention is the context in which this verse was revealed or what the Qur’an says a little earlier. When this verse was revealed, the Muslims were at war with the Meccans and some Muslims out of their friendship would pass on sensitive information to the enemy. In light of this, the above verse (Chapter 60 : Verse 14) was revealed. This is not just a message for Muslims, but a message that all countries and nations strictly follow. During the second world war posters were made to remind the public that careless talk costs lives. Regarding one’s attitude towards non-Muslims, the Qur’an says, ‘Allah forbids you not, respecting those who have not fought against you on account of your religion, and who have not driven you forth from your homes, that you be kind to them and act equitably towards them; surely Allah loves those that are equitable. (Chapter 60 : Verse 9).

Even more surprising was the fact that children from the ages of 6 – 18 in Saudi Arabia are being taught the Jews and Christians look like pigs and dogs. They are being led to believe the world is divided into two groups of people; the Muslims and the non-Muslims. The seed of hate and intolerance is being planted in their hearts and is being cultivated every day they go to school. For that minority of Muslims who do believe in the heinous and absurd claims made against the Jews and Christians, I would like to remind you of a hadith of the Prophet of Islam (s.a.w.). He is reported to have said, “A time will come when nothing will remain of Islam except its name and nothing will remain of the Qur’an except its script. Mosques will be full of worshippers, but as far as righteousness is concerned they will be empty and deserted. Their ‘ulama’ (religious scholars) will be the worst creatures under the canopy of the heavens. Evil plots will originate from them and to them will they return” (Mishkat). Many people argue about the authenticity of this saying, but I think casting a quick glance over the world is enough to understand.

This reminds me of an excellent quote from the book To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee in which the father Atticus is defending a black man in court who is accused for having raped a white girl. The book is set in Alabama, in the 1930’s when segregation of whites and blacks was common. He says while addressing the jury “confident that you gentlemen would go along with them on the assumption – the evil assumption – that all Negroes lie, that all Negroes are basically immoral beings, that all Negro men are not to be trusted around our women, an assumption one associates with minds of their calibre. Which, gentlemen, we know is in itself a lie as black as Tom Robinson’s skin, a lie I do not have to point out to you. You know the truth, and that truth is: some Negroes lie, some Negroes are immoral, some Negro men are not to be trusted around our women – black or white. But this is a truth that applied to the human race and to no particular race of men. There is not a person in this courtroom who has never told a lie, who has never done an immoral thing, and there is no living man who has never looked upon a woman without desire.’ Stereotypes are wrong, we all know it. I personally know Jews who have protested for the rights of Muslims in Palestine and Christians too. We would be walking in the footsteps of the Nazi’s if we were to say that all Jews and Christians were bad people.  

Though the Panorama programme raised some very important points about the regulation of faith schools in England, it was also very biased. Apart from mentioning one good Muslim school at the beginning no attempt was made to highlight the more pleasant and true teachings of Islam. Those individuals who already have misguided and or prejudiced views about Islam due to a lack of knowledge or bad experience will be further strengthened in their beliefs. Islamic law for the punishment of theft (the amputation of a hand) is referred to as a medieval practice. That’s an unfair comment I think. There are two means of execution used in the USA; the electric chair and the lethal injection. Imagine this scenario. The condemned is initially given sodium thiopental which acts an anaesthetic. Next, an injection of pancuronium bromide is given which causes total paralysis. This gives the person a calm look, so that when the 3^rd and final injection of potassium chloride is given to induce death, the death is as calm as possible for the onlookers. Due to the lack of research regarding the use of anaesthesia in execution, what if actually not enough of it is being administered? What if the condemned person experiences ‘asphyxiation, serve burning sensation, massive muscle cramping and finally cardiac arrest’? Is that really humane? This is a debate that has been going on for a very long time. You can  download and read an article about it here.

*****

We all have a choice. Just like we can choose to love (refer to the love described in the quote in this post) a person, we can also choose to hate. This is a choice made depending on our experience of that person, group of people or thing. I remember walking towards the hospital to get into university a few weeks ago. It was raining; not heavily and not lightly either. Everyone had their shoulders hunched up, trying to stop the rain from hitting their faces. Seeing all those annoyed people, I dropped my shoulders, lifted up my face and felt the rain against my skin. It was a beautiful feeling. Sometimes a thing may look bad due to our lack of knowledge or due to what we see other people doing and so we may follow them in avoiding that thing. Try lifting up your face to the rain next time and feel it’s refreshing touch on your skin.

I’d like to end this post with something that my dad has said to me many times:

If you believe you are right, then give the other person the same right to believe they are also right. 

 

…Continued (Click here to read part 3)