Wonderful Leaders we have

As of this post over 1000 Palestinians have been killed due to israeli Nazi tactics. This is not to mention food shortages, water shortages, lack of electricity, lack of water treatment, lack of medical aid, lack of sanitary conditions especially with the burial of bodies being made nearly impossible in some situations. The apartheid state of israel has been given the go ahead by the United States (as usual) and is given an unquestioning support by this country.
On January 9 2009 the United States House of Representatives voted on House Resolution 34 which essentially was "Recognizing Israel's right to defend itself from attacks". Without surprise this resolution was passed and sadly the two Muslims in congress didn't vote a "nay" when they cast their decision. Andre Carson of Indiana voted "yay" while Keith Ellison voted "present". For some of us who know how politics is conducted and who understand the pattern of behavior by people in power the way these two Muslims voted doesn't come as much of a shocker. For others who had faith in them, this is something that's going to shake their faith in their elected leaders and so-called representatives.

There is no doubt at all as to the kind of atrocities, massacres, genocide and ethnic cleansing that has been going on in Palestine and is going on in Ghazzah currently. There are plenty of news sources (outside of the U.S. of course) which are reporting on this with the reality on the ground. There's information about who broke the cease-fire and who broke it repeatedly, who broke the cease-fire and who went into it with bad faith from the get go so there's no excuse that these two so-called leaders (for some reason, some of us look at these types as leaders) can pull out of their magic hat to convince the public that they didn't know what was going on. They were and are very well aware of what is happening in Ghazzah but their actions show that they could care less.

The idea of not going against a declaration of continued aggression or even in Carson's case voting for this aggression should serve as a wake up call for the Muslim community that these people are not working for the best interest of their constituents or their brothers and sisters. What these types do is rely on people who look like them, talk like them, have the same apparent beliefs as they do and use these people to gain more votes. They may go to masajid after masajid collecting supporters to give them a victory but when it's all said and done they don't look back and do what is in the best interest for a community. In fact why do we expect a person to change things when they enter a machine that is already functioning in a certain way? The person who alters a machine from the outside, who is able to see all of its faults and flaws and potential good is one who can change the machine for the better. The one who enters the machine becomes part of the machine and works like the machine, in fact they have no choice because if they don't work as the machine does the machine will destroy them. Saying this, why do we expect that when a person is elected to a position in this country they'll be able to change the system for the better? If they want to change the system it'll be next to impossible to change it by working within it because its influence and effect will be too strong. A person can stand next to dirt only for so long before they themselves become dirty. When will the Muslim mind begin to understand that things can not change by working in a way that is structured by the oppressor? Any oppressor obviously does not want the oppressed to have freedom and by common sense it should be clear that they would not present any means or options which bring about a state of freedom (mental, physical, financial, etc). If a people truly want freedom they have to seek a means towards it and that requires a lot of work, time and thinking. What has been presented by the status quo to the general public as a way towards freedom is a joke. Voting and participating in the electoral system has been presented as such. The Muslims voted in bloc for GW Bush and we see what happened. They're supportive of Carson and Ellison and we've seen what has happened. They have hope in Barack Obama and we're already seeing what is happening, from his picks in his cabinet to the support they've thrown towards that zionist entity. Where's the freedom? Who is getting freedom and liberty? Surely not the Muslim or any oppressed people for that matter. So, if we've been doing something for years and years and that has brought no result whatsoever, is it pragmatic to continue doing that thing and hoping for success?

Muslims today are living in an unfortunately pathetic state. We have made ourselves ultra politically correct, we don't want to appear angry, we don't want to voice our opinion, we want to be cool. No matter how many atrocities occur, no matter how many people are unjustly arrested, abused, deported and so on for no real reason whatsoever, we want to put on this image of being cool, calm and collected. Proof of this is seen in the comments made at the bottom of a youtube video. Keith Ellison, after showing he didn't have any heart whatsoever to speak out against apartheid israel's murder of Palestinians appeared at a rally and the audience knowing how he voted boos him out. The comments made by users who saw the video went along the lines of "Muslims need to show more akhlaq, this is not the right thing to do, we should not disrespect our leaders" or "this is why the Muslims aren't respected, because we act like this" etc. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QjagbIZzNcw) How pathetic is this? You mean to say that hundreds of people can be murdered while thousands more are starved and dehumanized and when a group of people express discontent about that they are in the wrong? Are we supposed to remain calm and cool when people are dying? So many of us have our heads in the sand and are so terrified of being labeled one thing or another that we don't want to even show our emotions, our justified emotions.

It has been said that the people reflect their leaders and the leaders reflect their people. If that statement has ever been true it is true with Muslims today because both sets of people are cowards, terrified to do what is right and to speak truth to power. Others want to retain what little semblance of power they have (that which has been granted to them by an outside ruling group) so their greed and fear of losing power keeps them in check. Keith Ellison and Andre Carson represent this in their action. Hosni Mubarak represents this in his locking the Palestinians in their concentration death camp as do the vast majority of the other Arab "Muslim" leaders of today.

Thoughts on Ghazzah

Bismillahir Rahmanir Rahiim

With all the murders being committed by the nazisrael zionist machine against the Palestinians in Ghazzah it's interesting how there are individuals who have taken a position that essentially says the suffering being dropped on the Palestinians is equivalent what the Israelis are facing. What is even more saddening is when individuals make the claim that the Palestinians are suffering because of the actions taken by certain groups in Ghazzah. When I hear some of these claims and ideas I am usually stopped in my movement and wonder where these thoughts come from and how they even develop.
Let's understand something, Palestine is an occupied land and it has been so for the last 6 decades. Because of what happened not as a result of Palestinians, or Arabs or even Germans in general but a particular German regime the people in Palestine were first occupied, then had their land taken, then were killed, ethnically cleansed and squeezed into an area that is less than a quarter of what it originally was. From that time to the present the Arab population of Palestine has been subject to abuse, harassment, arrests, murders and essential liquidation. Keep in mind again that this has been occurring for 60 years. These things that have been happening were not caused by the Palestinians, they did not start it, nor did they exacerbate it yet the blame is repeatedly placed on them.
One thing that I've been hearing constantly in the last few days during these events is that both sides are using these situations for political gain. For the Israelis this assertion is understandable. There's an election coming up in the very near future and some parties want to appear more capable of ruling the country and protecting it from harm and additionally they want to save face from their miscalculations with the 2006 encounter with Lebanon. However, this same accusation is thrown in the face of certain Palestinian groups. The accusation says that the Palestinian groups are wanting to gain political power and power over the society even at the cost of innocent lives. Statements like these are extremely ridiculous to me. In what way do these Palestinian groups and their leaders gain? How many of these leaders are driving a Rolls or a Bentley? How many palaces and mansions are there in Palestine? What kind of riches are there in Palestine, one of the most densely populated countries on this earth? On top of that how could anyone benefit when they are under virtual house arrest while they are being targeted for death at every turn they make, with every morsel of food they eat and sip of liquid they drink? Where's the benefit coming from? What material gain is there when putting one's life on the line everyday, every minute, every second and being locked in a virtual prison?
Another accusation made is that this thing is an "us against them" thing, that certain groups are against other groups due to religious differences. When has this been the case in Palestine? If we take the opportunity to read and to listen to what those people involved with this situation have to say we see that for the most part it's not the religious differences that provoke these situation, it's the oppression meted out to the oppressed that bring out the anger in individuals.
When a person or a group is being oppressed do they not have the right to defend themselves and protect themselves? Yet, when they do, the oppressor doesn't say that they're protecting themselves against oppression, the tyrant says they're haters, they're racists, they're this that and the other. It's to be expected for the murderer to say such a thing but for people to carry the line and run with it is extremely shameful. It's judging a situation that's been in the works for years upon years with various dynamics within them and simply looking at the superficial make up of the situation and judging everything based on that surface appearance. There is no way a judgment can be soundly made like that.
I still find it hard to understand how individuals can put an oppressor and the oppressed into the same category, they're not the same, their position is not the same, their power is not the same. There is more give and room for the oppressor and less for the oppressed. Who can compromise? The oppressor, they have more, in fact they possess most and therefore have more to give away while the oppressed does not. Some say that both sides are violent...I say one side is violent and one side is preserving life and limb against being put at the level of animals. Do people not have a right to protect themselves? Maybe it's thought that since the oppressor is being violent, the oppressed should take the higher road and resort to getting help from groups like the UN however, this is impossible, the UN won't help the so-called lower classes of humanity. For the most part the UN benefits the countries which are in the so-called upper echelon and those countries which are aligned with it. The U.S. is the most powerful country in the UN and exercises extreme authority within that "international" body and in the case of what's going on now, exercises it for the benefit of the nazisraelis. Time after time since its inception nazisrael has been given resolution after resolution to follow and abide by which have been in favour of the Palestinians yet the zionist nation has blatantly treated these resolutions with disregard and disrespect with no penalties faced. They repeatedly commit crime after crime and act with disrespect for human rights with no penalties incurred. Who can the Palestinians turn to then? The Arab nations don't protect it, they don't help with much aid, the UN doesn't, it's an isolated and lonely nation that's brutally treated by zionist dogs so what exactly should the Palestinians do? Surely they want peace, but can there ever be peace without justice, human rights, human dignity, basic respect? Malcolm X once said a man can never be at peace if he doesn't have freedom...what freedom does the Palestinian have? So much demand after demand is placed on the Palestinians while little is placed on the Israelis, it should be the reverse, yet its not. Too many of us who are here, comfortable in our couches, with windows in our panes, light in the rooms, heat for the winter night are so quick to pass judgment and we don't even ask the people what they themselves want, how they feel, what they feel. Sometimes people ask "if you had a magic power, what would it be"? If I had a magic power, I would put everyone who judges the Palestinian in Palestine, to live there, for life....lose hope, be stuck in an imprisoned country and then make the judgment call.

For the sake of Allah?

They say “fisabil Allah, we’re getting married”,
When I hear that, I wonder what they mean.
To me that phrase has a certain sound
As if they only do it because they’re duty-bound.
It’s true we have certain obligations to meet
And doing this will help make our diin complete
But, does Allah want us to go into this thing
Like it’s a job devoid of all, or most, human feeling?
Or are we to act with high levels of compassion
Moved by respect, love, and mutually growing attraction?
When we become engaged, get married for Allah’s sake,
We should continue treating one another in the same way
Remembering that our actions be colored for Allah’s sake.
Allah is The Source of Mercy and The Source of Peace,
Shouldn’t our homes have touches of these at the least?
Fisabil Allah requires work with genuine effort,
It shouldn’t be dry like a dead-zoned desert
Looked upon with anguish and increasing dread,
Every color bleached, every sound mute, every feeling dead.
Irrigating rivers to feed yielding trees,
Relaxing the earth so it gives the best and takes the least
This is how it should be.
We have our niqahs and look at our mates,
We don’t use the word but they become our slaves
Spewing out money like they’re ATM machines
And at the other end we have the same thing.
At home we work them near to death
In a few years patterns become set.
Before we were beings so alive,
After, we’re ghosts, living, but many times we’ve died…
They say “fisabil Allah we got married”,
I wonder what it meant and what it means.
Because when we do for Allah shouldn’t hearts be free of distress
And our minds free and easily at rest?
Shouldn’t we feel that our unions are sincerely Allah blessed?
Something that’s done fisabil Allah isn’t restricted and locked in a box,
It’s loosened, freed, ever expanding and having nothing to make it stop

Mistaken perception

Once upon a time I had hope
But that was a hallucination gone up in smoke;
Powdery dreams like lines of coke.
Once when I would look in from the outside
I thought everything was so dignified,
I thought everything was done with pride.
Little did I expect the rude awakening,
The feeling of most of my world forsaking me
Or at least the method of how my thoughts were processing.
I used to dream with energy and vigor
Ready to take all the world’s rigors
If it meant raising us to something bigger.
Dreams filled with color and clarity
Every single detail covered unsparingly;
None of it could be touched by HDTV.
In the sunlight I could see the glow of fireflies,
Smell the slightest scent of the softest spice
But eventually my dream reached twilight,
Dreams are now nothingness. Night to day
I’m hit and I’m plagued
By nightmares that won’t go away,
I’ve become an insomniac
Afraid of sudden attacks
From left, right, front and back.
Demons of my optimism are haunting,
Pointing their fingers and they’re taunting me.
Their rotted faces leave me in a mess
I’m sprouting whites and grays by living frustrated distress.
These are the zombies of what I wanted to be part of,
They’re laughing and pointing,
Following and stalking,
Watching and waiting.
Once upon a time I dreamed of wonderful things
But now it seems
That I was just being naïve.
Sometimes I fall into this trap of mistaken perception
Often easily successful at self-deception,
Any touches of pessimism quickly going into recession.
My eyes see, my heart feels, my thoughts are clouded
Numbing my senses, regardless of how often alarms are sounded

untitled

this thing's constricting my throat
death gripping its hold
my heart and being have been sold
no one notices unless they're told.

from sunrise to sunset, dusk to dawn
every inspiration in me is totally gone
because every attempt goes totally wrong.

i've tried and tried and continue to try
but what's been the result besides the fact my inner being has died?
and that doubt of self has grown wide.

what's wrong with me that i'm not good enough?
why does this situation have to be perpetually tough
especially for a person, who is beyond nafs and lust?

i try to give what i can, put out my best
differentiate myself from all the rest,
yet time after time being good is a test.

so many times you find yourself losing out
i find myself to be without
one person for me to care about.

some wives cling tight to wife beaters
others want to trust their consistent cheaters.
they can be such fervent believers
in those who are the greatest deceivers.

yet when i or someone like me comes by
they're so quick to say goodbye
judging superficially what they see with their physical eye.
knowing this and with a sense of fear, i try
always to be given that bad surprise...

so i wear a beard
which seems to make some of the sisters scared
who 'pre-judge' based on how one appears

probably spend their time in assuming
that i'm some kind of Saudi salafi,
but i couldn't be farther from that thing.

others judge because Allah's given me a darker tone
that's supposedly worse than their own,
one that'd make me unwelcome in their homes.

i'm a pollution of a "pure" bloodline,
a being that corrupts what was once benign,
that turns gold bars into miserable dimes...
at least that's how it is in their eyes.
-unfinished-

The Art of DJing from the Female Perspective

Today I went to a female DJ workshop taught by DJ EarthOne and DJ Soyo. Even though I’ve come across DJ’s in the past, it still is amazing how much DJ’s impact music and yet are barely known. The MCs are the ones everyone knows by name and the ones who are recognized and the ones given the credit for having sparked hip-hop’s existence. But without the DJ, what could an MC do? They could go acapella of course but then could that be hip-hop? They could use instruments but again, would that be hip-hop? Probably not. Hip-hop has a special signature, a specialized voice and the DJ gives that voice to it.
The workshop was a lot of fun and informative. Some people think that being a DJ is simply putting on some vinyl on a turntable and just moving the vinyl around. It’s more than that, there is an art behind it as the EarthOne and Soyo showed. The talents of DJs makes a difficult art form look ridiculously easy but looks can be deceiving. EarthOne gave us an example of a typical set up for a gig. Four or Five vinyls for a party? Ha, yeh right, think again. For a four-hour party you’d need at the very least 2 full milk crates of vinyl records to keep the party going. And then on top of that you’d need your equipment. Two turn tables (at least $400 each!), a mixer, cords, cords and more cords, mic cords, connector cords, extension cords, and then of course there are the needles. Vinyl doesn’t play without needles. And needles cost around $70. The price of being a DJ is expensive. But, as Soyo said, “if you have a love for something just do it…whatever you want to do, just go for it”.
The unique part of this workshop was that it was taught by two women. Just like DJs are many times overlooked by hip-hop fans, women are also overlooked and sometimes not taken seriously. When the women are overlooked, history begins to give the impression that women did not play much of a role in the music or in the culture itself. This thought is incorrect though, “women have always had a lot of influence”. As DJ Soyo pointed out, one of the first DJs in the hip-hop scene got his start thanks to his sister who helped to organize parties for him or to get him gigs at parties. She paid for much of his equipment and financed his DJ career. Other women have been instrumental in the scene but unfortunately have been placed in the dustbins of history.
I’m hoping that there will be more workshop’s or programs like these in the future because not only do they tell a story, but they give the chance to hear the progression and evolution of hip-hop through time. Especially when the younger people come out, it becomes an even better event. They get to hear what they might not normally be exposed to due to the saturation of garbage playing on the airwaves in the entire country. A wide range of people are pulled to this hip-hop culture, the true hip-hop culture because so many different people can identify with it. Hip-hop voices us as a community. I saw kids at the event probably three years old, saw mostly black people but also saw Latinas, and some white people as well. Hip-hop does that, it can bring much to people and it can open people up. Soyo pointed out that she wasn’t really an English speaker when she first heard hip-hop but she loved it so much that she began to learn more of it so she could understand what was being said, what was being spoken, what they were spitting and it opened her up to a different culture. This is true hip-hop. This workshop covered a lot of material within a less than two hour time frame, and though there was a pretty solid group, it would have been nice to have seen a larger number of people come out for something like this.

Annoyances

Day by day these annoyances are growing
I’m lit up, on fire always heating,
Teeth grinding, brain seething
Day by day there’s less of me believing
There could ever be any good inside others.
I don’t think it’s possible for me to get close to another,
Feel like it’s just an open opportunity
To be once more supremely deceived
Into thinking that anyone could feel as I do.
I don’t think anyone could feel as I do.
The world is about selfish pleasure
Irregardless of how much one may be treasured
The other is pathologically out on the roam
Fulfilling the hunger of an endless ego.
Irregardless of the amount of tears one sheds
The other only worries about their esteem being fed.
Into this generational thought I was born
Internally I live with an essence that’s forlorn,
Thoughts cross this mind of who’s friend and who’s foe,
Who’s gonna stay for good and who’s gonna up and go?
Sad to say, most won’t be in the picture for long,
Before I turn around they’ll be gone.
And from friends and this thought of mine
Another thing seems to cross this mind.
If a friend is hard to find
What ease is there in the zawjah for a lifetime?
My generation walks in and out of lives with ease
Doing whatever to whomever they please
Until they get enough, ready to move to the next
Move so quick it makes me perplexed.
Day to day these annoyances are growing
I’m lit up, on fire always heating,
Teeth grinding, brain seething
Day to day there’s less of me believing
Less of me believing.
Born in the wrong social zone,
Wrong generation, I don’t fit with my own
Brother’s and sisters. Can’t click
With the clique of this diin and it’s making me sick
to the point where I wanna just quit.
Making secret du’a to Allah for Him to elicit
The sunnah of Isa on me if He permits…
From this world I have to go into segregation
Because I’m at odds with most of the population.
All they do is bring me tribulations
and none know cuz I keep it behind Disney musical presentations.
Prison for seven years set the example
That it’s best to get away when fitnah is ample.
Like Yusuf stepping away from his troubles
I need to wash my hands of my troubles
Wash my hands of my peer babies
With their “me, me, me” mentalities
Driven by their many insecurities
To do all possible to enlarge their shallow self-esteem.
Gotta wash my hands of all these things that are so annoying.
I don’t know how I ended up in this period of time.
All I know is that it’s not mine
And even though I know it’s not mine
I’m blamed for it’s many crimes
Taught I’m the cause of disaster and breaking hearts
Using females and taking their trust apart,
Being a playa in some kind of kiddie game,
“since you are the in the age range
your ways have to be the same”
Here’s the outcast, the black sheep
Being told he’s the same as those who creep
Under the cover of dark.
Outcast forced to wear a condemning mark
Sentenced for crimes he didn’t perform.
Might as well be a new character for Mr. Hawthorne
The way I’ve been branded
Makes me think it’s a decree commanded.
Perpetual ripples of petty occurrences
Rip into waves from stressing disturbances
Rocking me in the air shocked with turbulence
All born from the drip drop of daily annoyances.