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Coming Out of the “Victimhood” Syndrome

Disenchantment is Setting In
Friendless Saudis
Pak’s Drift to Despair

If we reflect on Nature, we find that nature is always calm and surrenders itself to the power of the Supreme Creator. Take animals, birds, trees, rivers, oceans, sea, mountains, forests””all creations of God that are at peace with themselves always.
It is only man who always complains, grumbles and ends up blaming others for his woes. While human beings are bestowed with the ability to think and have the freedom of choice, they also have an ethical and moral obligation to think positively and strive towards their goals, through the right means that is also bestowed on them.
As a community, over the years, we have played enough of the “blame-game,” making ourselves the “victims” of injustice and oppression by others. It is true that Muslims have suffered and are suffering all types of problems, be it poor economic conditions, educational poverty, socio-economic distress, insecurity and many other woes. But is it fair to blame the others, be it any other community or even the government, for these problems always? Certainly not! We need to introspect deeply and come to a realization that we are responsible for these problems to a large extent and it is in our hands to take charge of these issues and sort them out ourselves. Being on the defensive all the time, demanding and commanding our share of the pie without working for it puts the community on the threshold of being the “takers” all the time. When are we going to wake up and become “givers”?
As citizens of this country, Muslims have many duties towards nation-building. At many seminars, conferences and meetings, most of the time we go back to the past, narrating events of how Muslims ruled the country for centuries, but we cannot live in the past. Then, we love to point fingers at other’s faults, and how we have been wronged by others, without bothering to look at our own flaws!
Let us shake out of the glories of the past and look at the ground realities today in the country and the world. The community has resources, the means and the manpower to handle issues of poverty, education and unemployment. It is just that we want to sit in our “comfort zone”, expecting others to do all the leg work and hand over the goodies to us on a silver platter.
It is a matter of reaching out to everybody and opening our hearts to all, irrespective of caste, community, gender or class. Let us work towards building institutions that help everybody, take lessons from the way other communities are working towards making life brighter and better for society, and also come out of the “victimhood” syndrome in which we are trapping ourselves, as this is a major obstacle in our path to peace and progress.
“The remaining moments we have are the only ones in this life that we can use to shape our eternity. We have to keep reminding ourselves to use them wisely, because we love to forget this,” as a wise saying goes. We have this time, and it is up to us how we make best use of this to introspect, cleanse ourselves and take charge of our lives, individually and collectively as a community, for the betterment of our own selves and that of the nation and the world.

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