moribund breed

Having roamed the earth close to half a century, I had the opportunity of meeting personalities from both political divides in Malaysia. In the heydays of UMNO, I worked with two politicians as backroom boys preparing inputs for economic papers especially for tabling in the parliament. Those days these politicians seemed sincere enough in wanting to do something good for the nation. I closed one eye to their pursuit of personal gain as they also contributed, even though minute, towards nation building.

Political awakenings as a result of persecution of Anwar Ibrahim opened up opportunity for me to meet with and getting to know politicians from the other side of the divide. I realised then that there was another side of the coin, the side I was not acquainted with but suspected all along to contain a lot of misconception.

I stumbled upon a group of aspiring young entrepreneurs who were sick of being foolhardy in chalking up slices of economic pies. These young men formed a new branch of political party PAS and set out to study its constitutions and embracing its methodologies in shaping members to become concern and deeply involved citizens, choosing to walk with their eyes open.

I was very impressed with their commitment and their intelligence drew me towards their movement. I joined the group a few sessions of studying and understanding PAS constitutions. My father had in all his active years in politics been telling me to read PAS constitution and yet as a person who seemed so sure of what he was doing, I chose to ignore this instead. I should have heeded my dad’s advice. If I did then, I would have treaded a different kind of path, a path filled with much wisdom and continuous learning.

I toyed back with “usrah” or study group with PAS. This was nothing foreign to me as I had experience with such a movement when I was a student abroad. However, this time around it was more systematic complete with syllabus and curriculum and a host of recommended (read compulsory) materials as references. While Syed Qutb’s “In the Shade of the Quran” was familiar to me, other literatures like Fathi Yakan’s “Kenapa Saya Seorang Islam” (Why Am I a Muslim) were alien to me. 40 Hadeeth was a must.

Today, I understand the “PAS Way”. Beginning with Guide to Usrah and then digesting the PAS constitutions cover to cover, continuous reading and understanding the Holy Quran and Way of the Prophets and Virtues of Sahabah and then emulating the way of the Mujaddid in Ikwanul Muslimin was a comprehensive way of moulding a man to face current political scenario. As with others’ struggles in the past, this war to bring people from an ignorant to an informed state of mind is thorny and treacherous. Only those that truly go through the discipline would be able to come out unscathed.

All in all, this allegiance leaves a profound impact on me. I begin to see the world as it is and not the one painted by the (controlled) media of the government. It was an awakening indeed and having seen the light, I would not want to even get near the dark ages let alone reverting to it. As with other great experiences, I would want others to walk in similar paths and not be blinded by the false light shined through coloured filters by those in power.

Today, I have grown up children who are fortunately more aware politically and walk in same path as I am. I am blessed with intelligent children that choose ways of the companions of the Prophet as their paths and propagated further these ways to their friends and foes alike.

Gone are the days when politicians were able to pull wools over our eyes and spread their hideous ideologies only to enrich themselves and made us fools. These unscrupulous politicians are of a dying breed and they have lost their legitimacy in handling the society and its affairs.

It is heartening if dirty politicians are vanishing but if the learned ones are disappearing also, it is a course for concern. We pray that those with sincerity in seeing this nation comes out of this dark-age will multiply in numbers and continue to shed lights towards real freedom.

troubadour

p/s: Wise man says “It is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all”.

adressing needs

We always take for granted the things that we already have very much at our disposal. This is closely associated with our needs and how we respond to our ever changing needs. Maslow’s Theory of Needs proved this point clearly. Maslow depicts needs in the form of a pyramid and we constantly move upwards as we acquire our needs. We move to the next level the moment we have acquired certain needs and thus take for granted what we already earned.

I had this experience of losing something and only then realise that I took for granted so much of the thing that readily have access to. The internet!

Even though other countries have moved leaps and bounds when it comes to access to internet and the kind of speed that they are privileged to have, we so much lag behind that whenever a colleague from abroad experienced our line and cursed its sluggishness I felt like burying my head in the sand like ostriches do. Despite all this backwardness I embraced this technology and now cannot live without it. When I cannot access the internet for whatever reason be it technical or financial, i.e. my company fail to settle the bill for example I feel like screaming on top of my voice. Then I realise how have taken this little luxury for granted and how much my life depends on this communication media and most importantly my resource centre, readily available at a push of a button.

Today is Sunday and I woke up early in the morning as I was awakened by sound of wild swine scouring my backyard looking for worms. This is what these pigs are after I was told, crawly creepy worms. As I live in some kind of a country home, wild pigs are common sight late at night or before dawn. Up and about so early in the morning, I had the time to write and when I want to access the internet, I could not do so. We have become creatures that depend so much on machines. Now the machines rule us.

Back to the subject at hand, one will only miss something when one loses whatever that one use to have and taken for granted all along, lost of loved ones for example. We long for our loved ones only when we lose them or been away from them. This kind of feelings is human after all. Otherwise Maslow would not have studied and discovered as such.

Humans’ pursuit of wealth is also something that demonstrates the working of this Theory of Needs. It is never enough. The reason for this, according to theory, is that move to the next level of needs having acquired the kind of wealth that we already achieved. Crude it may be but this is what we generally termed as greed. Our greed takes over every time we entertain our love for worldly objects and ignore our inner feelings of gratefulness of what we possess.

How do we then deal with our greed? Or better still how do we train ourselves not to be greedy and to be grateful at all times for the worldly possessions that we have and the health and our serene state of mind. There is no substitute for peace of mind and there is a way of getting rid of greed inside us.

The Prophet taught us to inculcate this attitude of gratefulness. This can be achieved by always comparing ourselves with the less fortunate or those of lesser wealth when it comes to worldly possessions and as for doing good deeds the Prophet stressed that when it comes to good deeds, we must always compare ourselves with those who are more charitable, humble and pious and knowledgeable when it comes to pursuit of knowledge.

There is no end if we continue to pursue mere material wealth but on the other hand knowledge is power and knowledge is “having it to apply it”.

Kuala Lumpur, on a gloomy Sunday and drizzling all day long!

troubadour