Today is Independence Day and I am aware that we aren't truly free. We remain under the yoke of oppression by a ruling class who deem they are better than the rest of us, and that only they know what is best. And so they control the decisions being made with gun in hand, and stick in charge. Yet none of their decisions yield true fruit; they turn to dust, the color reminiscent of the same as what clads their skin.
They too, are not free. Chained by their desire for power and authority, they demand respect - yet they do not earn it, and rather have to enforce it. What deception those in power can put themselves through in order to feel grand.
Neither are we truly free because we follow blindly the West, the very same "civilization" that destroyed our education systems, our economic systems, our legal systems, our administrative systems, and in its place gave their crude, blunt instruments to teach, to enforce, to administer, to judge. Why else do our countries struggle? We think it is our fault. We think we are inferior. Yet our ancestors built empires and civilizations far more beautiful and knowledgeable and wise than these modern echoes garbed in nation-statehood. We cannot think beyond the mind the colonizer shaped within us. We are enclosed, in a cage, and what is worse, just as them, we have become blind of the cage that is right before our eyes! For even those who live in the ‘Free World’ - the West - are not truly free. They live in the illusion of freedom, while being chained to their whims and desires.
Hz. Mevlana Jalaluddin Rumi wrote:
One of the marvels of the world
is the sight of a soul sitting in prison
with the key in its hand.
Covered with dust,
with a cleansing waterfall an inch away.
A young man rolls from side to side,
though the bed is comfortable
and a pillow holds his head.
He has a living master, yet he wants more,
and there is more.
If a prisoner had not lived outside,
he would not detest the dungeon.
Desiring knows there is a satisfaction
beyond this. Straying maps the path.
A secret freedom opens
through a crevice you can barely see.
The awareness a wine drinker wants
cannot be tasted in wine, but that failure
brings his deep thirst closer.
We who have not lived outside this dungeon of modernity and western thinking, who have been raised by Western thought as if it is the only paragon of progress, tolerance, and wisdom are unable to see beyond its narrow confines. We perhaps see glimmers, the crevice that shows us a peek into what else is out there. But to really cleanse ourselves in the waterfall from all this dust and cobwebs and rot, we have to be brave enough to step through this prison of our mind.
For our minds are colonized, though our hearts feel there is a truth beyond the threshold. We sense it in our bones for our ancestors lived these lives free from the tyranny of monotonicity. The European did not just colonize our lands, but also our minds, making us feel inferior, and telling us the only way we can be 'civil', the only true way of 'progressing' was their way. Even though our ancestors built civilizations that created more beauty and more equity and more tolerance than they can even imagine. But we do not know, for our education does not show us that history. It intentionally obscures and obfuscates it. In order to continue to colonize us.
The European may have left, but they left their chains intact. They stole our wealth, and gave it back to us in loans. They demanded we do business like them. They demanded control of our resources, and when those who denied this and desired for their countries to chart their own way forward, were either forcibly removed through coups, or assassinations. They imposed upon us rulers who do their bidding. The Brown Sahibs. From Egypt, to Saudi Arabia, to Pakistan, to Syria, and beyond.
And then you have the opposition who are equally imprisoned in their minds in a different way. For them the past is meant to be imitated, blindly, heartlessly, thoughtlessly as if an imagination of the past is what will hearken power. When your mind is imprisoned, what can you do but become like the Taliban - the opposition to secular modernity but nonetheless the spitting image of it for neither know or allow other ways of existing, just their own.
Yes, we are not truly free. But we are somewhat free. And freedom is also relative. For there are those who have some, and there are those who have none. I think of the Afghans here in Pakistan who, as we celebrate Independence Day, are being harassed, rounded up, and detained by Pakistani authorities in order to forcibly - and in an undignified manner - send them back to Afghanistan. I think of the Afghan family we met, and their beautiful little children, their daughter with such immeasurable talent in drawing. What will become of them? What will become of her?
I think of the Uyghurs who face indoctrination in "reeducation camps" that are reminiscent of boarding schools for Native Americans in the Americas. I think of Kashmiris, of Balochis, denied their autonomy because the state they happen to find themselves encircled by deems it unnecessary.
I think of the Palestinians, in Gaza, in the West Bank, in Al Quds, in what is rightly called Palestine, who suffer a genocide these past almost 2 years, and the world simply watches on. Their freedom denied for just about the same amount of time as (most of) the people of Pakistan gained their relative freedom: 77 years. 77 years of injustice and oppression!
What is my freedom, if someone else's is being denied? I am grateful to Allah for this blessing, but I also know that I cannot sit with this blessing idly. The awareness of the suffering, of the oppression of others warrants striving for their freedom as well! For I do not see myself in isolation. These past 2 years, seeing the relentless pain and suffering of Palestinians, and also of their resolve to survive and live - despite the odds - and the heartbreak, and pain and sadness, and grief, and anger that has coursed through my veins all this while has made it abundantly clear to me that I am not separate from them. I am they, and they are me. I too am Palestinian. And I too am Afghan. And I too am Baloch. And I too am Uyghur. And I too am Kashmiri. And I too am Sahrawi. And I too am Ukrainian. And I too am Sudanese. And I too am Congolese. And so are we all. Their oppression is also our oppression. Their freedom, is also ours. Because such an injustice may not yet have reached our doorstep, but when it does, what will we wish for in turn? Solidarity in action, or just words of condemnation, and “thoughts and prayers”?
And so when I reflect again about Hz. Mevlana's words about the key to the prison door being in our very own hands, it is important to remember that the first step to freedom is not striving for it in the world before us. But rather it is the world within us. And it can happen in tandem. For example, now that we have become aware of the prison - and deceit - of the “rules based world order”, international law, and human rights, then can we begin to cast aside this prison door, look beyond and step beyond it, to seek, imagine, and strive for a better alternative, and not remain beholden to a vestige of deceit and lies. Only then can we truly take action against it in a real sense. That is how the inner, and the outer struggle combine.
As the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ taught us to strive against evil with our actions, "Whoever among you sees an evil action, then let him change it with his hand [by taking action]; if he cannot, then with his tongue [by speaking out]; and if he cannot, then with his heart – and that is the weakest of faith."
So let us make strides in our hearts, with our tongues, and through our actions to strive against what is wrong. By beginning to free our minds from the shackles of colonization, from the shackles of society, from the shackles of politics, from the shackles of nationhood, from the shackles that keep us imprisoned, can we begin the journey of true liberation for ourselves and for our brothers and sisters in humanity. That awareness, of another way of being, is what begins to pave the way to dismantle the oppressiveness that exists in the world around us, inshallah.
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