There was something nice about being young: naïve and carefree, the world at that time is a blank canvass, an undefined and boundless potential. The mind is fresh enough to perceive ideas, that are shape not by experience but by unbridled imagination. My lack of experience was compensated by insatiable hunger for information. And so I remember reading everything readable I can lay my eyes on, including the Green Book of Qadafi, supposedly, a ‘Muslim’ version of the Red Book or the Das Capital of Carl Marx.
And yes, I wanted to change the world, well, specifically Mindanao. The Bangsamoro narrative was slowly introduced to my pscyhe during the Ramos-Misuari era and SPCPD and what not. Thus I saw my self, primarily as somebody from the Bangsamoro – hence I wrote under the pen name “albangsamori”. With Armed Revolution romanticized by Che Guevara and Che Guevara Wannabes, and being influenced by that, I was furious and indignant that Misuari had to make a peace deal with the government. This belief (that we need war to achieve change), which I now believe to be misdirected, was reinforced by misunderstanding the Islamic methodology of Al Amru bil Ma’roof wa nahtu ‘anil Munkar (Enjoining what is good and forbidding what is bad).
Once I was with a wise man, Mr. Ibn Hajr Turabin, a father of a friend. He told me for Muslims to get back their homeland, they have to buy Mindanao (or some of its portion). It sounded like a joke to me then, but now, to me at least, it makes more sense than fighting an unwinnable fight.
And so the years gone by, and to my disappointment, the world has still not change. My idealism has waned. I no longer wanted to write using the pen of ‘albangsamori’.
Having said all these, I am aware that this shouldn’t stop me from communicating my ideas about my homeland.
2 comments:
Reading between the lines, the idealism has just waned-and NOT ended totally- in a limbo of frustrating uncertainties, which even the writer could not fully grasp just as yet and so he is thinking aloud captiously but with circumspection; awaiting a prod to egg him on not to give up. The reader discerns there still is an idealism within the writer subtly cocooned in Surah Ankaboot and Surah Tauba…the writer just want to fortify his heart and not waste his Time on incessant hopefulness. You are almost there as you undergo a neo-spawning towards the Mastery of Faith… spewing Turaabin on your face is the last thing on my mind… NgWLipKs...
May Allah swt grant coolness and comfort to eyes that will dwell in your heart to tide up your disrupted tranquility....Ameen Ya ALLAH
Subhanallah, I didn't even know this is being read by other people...I was hoping that maybe decades from now, somebody who's in my place right now would read this and be able to relate. I didn't know it's this soon.
I guess u r right. In the beginning of writing, I thought Idealism has ended in me, but after thinking out loud about it, I realized, subconsciously that it's just waning.
Barakallah feekum
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