Naeem's Blog

Normally Bill Maher is a bigoted idiot who fancies himself as an educated liberal. He has a history of bashing Islam for having inspired the radicals and extremists, while often conveniently forgetting that Western aggressions have paved the way and tilled the soil for those perpetrating completely un-Islamic reactions.

Except this one time. For once he connected the dots and (somewhat) admitted that a source of so much misery around the world is Western meddling in extremely unstable parts of the world.

Let's hope and pray that others too come to their senses and instead of digging a deeper hole and channeling their inner Rambo*, realize that less is more.

*Speaking of whom, I think it should be mandatory viewing for everyone to watch the Rambo episode when he aids the Afghani Mujahideen. That just about sums up the complete confusion upon which American foreign policy is based. The West has no clue who to support when it comes to these lands of a thousand tribes, such as Iraq, Syria, Yemen, and Afghanistan.

Yes, it's been quite a long time. My longest respite from blogging yet. I have my excuses. Leaving Saudi Arabia after 12 years and relocating the family to Islamabad would leave many a bloggers gasping for air. At the same time, it sure does provide for some good material.

Let us all stop being manipulated. Let us stop our mouths from watering every time the bell rings. Let us stop being knee-jerk consumers of 24-hour news channels, internet crazes, and instant feeds.

Let us begin dictating our own agenda. Let us decide for ourselves what is worthy of our attention. Let us raise the bar in inter- and intra-communal discussions.

For every video showing a Taliban beating some lady, let us refrain from commenting at the behest of wider society. For every news story highlighting the plight of Saudi women and their prohibition from driving, let us turn our backs on outside forces dictating the relevancy of certain issues (and thus the irrelevancy of so many other). For every video of a Saudi beating an expat worker, let us avoid being goaded into an apologetic response merely to appease our host nations. For every nutjob Muslim highlighted for acting like a nutjob, let us stop validating the highlighters by psychoanalyzing the nutjob.

Let us stop digging ourselves deeper into our hole by continuously answering, ‘When did you stop beating your wife?’ Just as we understand the idiocy in replying to that question, we must also understand the madness in responding to every sensationalized whoop and holler highlighted in our newsfeeds.

We need to begin framing our own context and establishing our own position instead of responding to foolish viral videos and cultural phenomena that serve to only further substantiate prejudices and biases. Instead of fostering an enlightened alternative, we are only nourishing the degenerate beasts of shock journalism, snuff entertainment, and socio-cultural rubbernecking.

Must we have an opinion on every shmuck getting her fifteen minutes of fame? Must we demean ourselves with water cooler discussions about the latest video phenom on Youtube?

Or maybe we can choose the high-road and become prophetic, not only in our daily worship, but in our consumption of daily culture. Let us stop shrouding these instances of cultural flatulence in faux discussions of morality and ethics and instead, insist on meaningful conversations rich with substance and import, consistent with our agenda and beliefs.

I’ll humbly join the chorus of know-it-all’s who are not so humbly declaring to the world that they predicted the unfortunate fate of ‘democratic’ Egypt. While the current turmoil and chaos is very saddening, it definitely is not surprising. Two years ago, based on the experiences of Pakistan and Turkey, I envisaged such a scenario where the military would intervene. I must admit that Turkey has shown greater maturity and resilience in their standing up to the military, but Pakistan has remained true to form with the military still calling all the shots.

I recently listened to this very enlightening podcast episode by Lexicon Valley titled '30 million by 4'. It details a very interesting research that highlights the importance of engaging your young children in conversation. Anyone with preschool children would greatly benefit from the 20 minutes or so.

30 million by 4 podcast

And I won't tell you what the title means...you'll have to listen to the podcast to figure it out. :-P

I recently returned from a short two-week trip to the US and one of the more common discussions I had with family and friends was about the future of Muslims in the West. I plan on posting my thoughts in some upcoming posts, so let me start things off with a very real concern: Intermarriage.