Brave Muslim Children

Last week, my four-year-old daughter was operated for tonsillitis and adenoids. I had been putting off this surgery with oral medicine for the last six-months or so because I felt that I did not have the strength to cope with the psychological pressure of having my four-year-old in an operation theatre. However, one fine day, I got a call from my child’s school which finally made me understand that I could no longer put off what I had been putting off for months. ‘This is it’.

The morning of the operation was poignant for my husband and me. We were waiting outside the operation theatre to hand her over to the surgeons while she played in our arms. All despondent episodes from other people’s lives were chirping at my head; episodes of unexpected deaths, deaths during operation and deaths in post-operative care.

When they finally summoned us, I questioned my husband, ‘You or I?’ meaning who will go into the operation theatre with her till she dozes off with the anesthesia. My husband gestured for me. I felt peace. As the nurse beckoned me, I started towards the inner door of the operation theatre, only to realize that the nurse was taking my daughter out of my arms.

‘What?’ I looked quizzically at her.

She smiled to assure me. My daughter was still holding on to me.

‘Won’t I go in with her?’ I asked.

‘No,’ she smiled again.

‘… but she won’t stay without me … let me stay with her until she becomes unconscious … ?’ I pleaded.

But she allowed me not, and expertly took my daughter out of my arms.

Dumbfounded, I mumbled something to my daughter about bringing something favorite of hers right away.

Tersely, I sat outside the operation theatre.

Fifteen minutes after the nurse had taken in my daughter, a doctor came out and apparently looked around for me. I rushed to her.

'Are you the mother?’ she asked.

 ‘Yes,’ I said.

 ‘Is your daughter normal?’ she inquired.

 ‘Huh?’ I was stupefied. ‘Yes of course she is normal. Why? Something wrong?’

 ‘Well,’ she stated, ‘its just that she has been sitting so quietly and pliantly in there for the last fifteen minutes that we thought maybe something is wrong with her … normally children throw a tantrum’.

In a piercing moment, I felt so proud of my daughter. She had been so brave. After the number of pre-operation visits to the doctor, she had understood that this was the hospital and these are the doctors and that she is brought here for a purpose.

My poor darling … she is basically of a shy nature; shouting and hooting and running mad when the family is around but going into a shell when a stranger is around. She hides behind her father or me or her nanny if a stranger looks at her. She would never be alone with a stranger. Yet she managed. She managed being alone inside the operation theatre, conscious and with total strangers around her, for a full fifteen minutes and more.

She understood the situation and braved up to it.

Children are brave. It is we who underestimate them. It is we who do not let them grow up. Which is why it is about time that we stopped fooling our children by making them live in oblivion. It is time we stopped cheating our children by making them live in a religious seclusion, close enough to monasticism.

We teach them, ‘Be a good Muslim and forget about what is happening around you’. How can a good Muslim forget about what is happening around him? We have a history where our heroes were the saviors of not just their own nation but the saviors for the weak and oppressed of other nations as well!

It is about time we told our children about who we are and what is happening to us. It is about time we told our children of our past and of our future. It is about time we shared with them the news of their siblings in Palestine, Syria, Burma, Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. Let them know that Superman, Spiderman and Batman are actually nobodies. Let them see the world, as it really is. And they can. If they can see blood spilling in Tom & Jerry, horrendous fights between ugly characters and bursting bodies in video games, surely they can see a little real blood out of their own windows?

Raise brave children. Teach your children about Faith, worship and ethics and the foremost of them is not turning a blind eye when someone is in trouble. Coming back in a full circle, it is that Faith, that we initially teach our children, is what will protect our children when they try to protect others.

“

They came first for the Communists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew.

And then ... they came for me ... and by that time there was no one left to speak up…

”

[Martin Niemoller, German Anti-War Activist]

Heartbroken Over Imran Khan

No, I am not Zoya Ali. I am not any of those crazy girls who have been standing all dolled up at Imran Khan’s dharnas hoping to catch Imran Khan’s attention, or perhaps the media’s? I am not even a girl from the 80’s who has seen the prime youth of Imran Khan and held a secret crush for him into this age. Nah, none of that. I am simply a politically conscious citizen of Pakistan who does not shrug her shoulders at the mention of politics and say ‘I couldn’t care less’. No, but I care a lot, because, ‘politics’ although a maligned and murky water right now, is a pond right outside my door step which moisturizes the wind coming into my windows and channels the water pipes into my house. If I say that I am indifferent to politics, I am saying that I am indifferent to what is happening to me.

I became a PTI supporter for the simple reason that I saw in Imran Khan a visionary, potential and daring leader. It was a mathematical choice, not an emotional choice, or an inherited choice like choosing the PPP, nor a self-interest choice like choosing the PML-N. Most of PTI supporters are either ex-PPP voters or ex-PML-N voters, like myself. We being ex-voters of someone else proves our cry of desire for ‘Change’. When we ask for change, we first of all change what is within us, and that includes our voting direction.

“The fact is that Allah never changes the condition of a people until they intend to change it themselves ...” [The Holy Quran, Surah Ar-Ra’ad, Excerpt from Verse 11]

The will and potential to change is the most powerful and dangerous potential within a human being. It means that if once upon a time I was strong enough to quit voting for PML-N, today, I would be having the strength to quit voting for PTI as well.

The news of Imran – Reham divorce has been nothing short of a shock of a lifetime. How could Imran Khan do this? There are many conspiracy theories running around his divorce. So is Imran Khan, 63-year-old, so naïve that he could not figure out that he was marrying an agent planted by the West who would ultimately poison him? Or is Imran Khan, a leader, so shaky that he got overpowered by the political resistance against Reham Khan from within his own political party, possibly the female cluster? Or is Imran Khan, a man, so typically chauvinistic and insecure that he could not tolerate the spread of the wings of his wife, Reham Khan?

In the past, voting was a kind of mundane activity. With Imran Khan, it became a passion, a rage, an elation. The passion of Imran Khan for a change and rise as a nation infused within us a revolution. But not blindness. We will not turn a blind eye to the blunders of our leader like the N-leaguers and PPPians do. We stand for truth and change. We will follow the Sunnah of the Muslim pioneers where a common man had the guts to question Syedna Umar RA as to why he was wearing two chaddars instead of one as everybody else had gotten in fairness? And a common woman had the guts to object to the opinion-formation of the same intimidating Khalifah, who was considering to limit the amount of dowry a man gifts to his bride at the time of marriage. This questioning and possible objection is not disrespect, nor lack of loyalty, but commitment to ethics and principles of leadership and followership.

It has been three days since the fallow news of Imran-Reham divorce. And my heart is still in sorrow. As I said, supporting Imran Khan was not a mundane activity, but a passion, a joy … I think, my first political love. And as it goes, first loves are hard to forget. Ever since the divorce, I have been waking up in the morning with a heavy heart, a mournful heart, a betrayed heart. My heart skips a beat when I see the PTI flag somewhere. I feel melancholies when fragments of his taranas play themsleves in my ears…

I want to know what happened.

In the old Pakistan, if a man beats up his wife and the neighbors hear the commotion of it, they hush up each other saying ‘It is their personal matter…’ In Naya Pakistan, it does not happen so. We voted for you. We expect the Naya Pakistan from you as far as you are concerned. Neither you nor Reham have given any public statement as to the reasons of this divorce. So it is a dilemma for us. Should we quit supporting you or continue? Women, sensitive women, sensitive to the respect and rights of women shall not be able to continue supporting you. While, the opportunist, the jealous and the selfish women would not care less. I have seen various reactions by women and men regarding this divorce on media. Some are blaming Imran Khan. Some are blaming Reham Khan. But the worst reaction is that of indifference. As if they are dead people.

Imran Khan, you must tell us why you divorced Reham Khan. I greatly respect the fact that you have never spoken ill of Jemima even after your divorce with her, like a true gentleman, and I am not asking you to do so with Reham. However, you need to state fair facts in this precarious situation. And so should Reham Khan tell. And that information will act as the third umpire for us in this messy match !