November 2008 Archives

I believe in Jihad. I believe in its call to struggle with ones heart against the selfs inclination towards avarice, greed, vanity, lust and despair etc...BUT - I also believe in its call to arms. Yes, you heard me right. Mr moderate is getting tough...well kind of. Hear me out first.

A student of the Prophet Muhammad said that 'we pick up the sword only to take the sword out of the hands of mad men'. Innocent people have the right to be defended by their brothers and sisters in humanity. The people of Congo have a right to be defended now, against their genocide.

I say now, because I watched what happened in Bosnia. I heard the first hand accounts of the genocide that was going on there and listened as David Milibands predecessors said how terrible it was but that it was up to the UN. Then we all watched years later, after the butchery had all but finished, as the Great British and American troops all flooded in to 'save the day' and get the bad guys.

This is a true Jihad against a gross injustice happening right now as we breathe. But where are the Muslim Jihadis? These noble men and women who say they fight in the way of God? Hiding in caves? Hiding in council flats? In tube stations? Signing in at the Job Centre most likely.

I believe in Jihad and make no apologies for it. Where 'non combatants', women and children are being indiscriminately murdered, the nations of the world should be there, defending the defenceless and making peace.

Of course that is the purpose of the UN, isn't it? While the British Government hides behind its 'appeals for peace in the region' and proud statements proclaiming 'no plan yet', a quarter of a million people are fleeing for lives and hundreds of thousands of families are being slaughtered.

When all this was happening in Bosnia, I was about 17. I was angry and desperately wanted to 'do' something. I was offered to go to a training camp in Afghanistan to train in the ways of warfare so I could defend my sisters in Bosnia from the gruesome state terror of rape camps and brutal savagery being meted out by Serbian Christian extremists.

For the record, I declined the generous offer, beacuse jihad is not about becoming a vigilante and I didnt want to give up playing my guitar. But I still believe, that to die defending the defenceless, is an honour. And I take my hat off with full respect to those who fight in our armies to do just that.

But for all this talk, I will continue to wear my navy pin stripe Aquascutum suit and walk amongst the masses trying to keep a roof over my head and my children happy - which, incidentally is becoming increasingly impossible.

I guess, besides the marching and the speaking up, I can only pray that God saves the people of Congo, because we sure won't. Not until it's too late.