The middle way

"We have made you a median global community; in order that you may serve as a testimony/example to humanity [Qur'an 2:149]"[1]

"Wasat is the Arabic word for middle, centered, balanced. In Islamic context, it refers to the "middle way", a justly balanced way of life, avoiding extremes and experiencing things in moderation."[2]

"Linguistically, the word "Wasat" means the just, the best (in goodness), the top choice, the finest, the best (in quality), and the most honorable. It was stated in Lisaan Al-Arab: "The most 'Wasat' of a thing is the best of it, the finest of it and the most just of it". Ibn Katheer said: "The 'Wasat' is the top choice and the best quality", as it was said: "Quraysh is the most 'Wasat' of the Arabs in lineage and in quality of living", i.e. the best. And it is said: "Muhammed, the Messenger of Allah, sallAllahu 'alayhi wasallam, was the 'Wasat' amongst his people", i.e. the most honorable amongst them in lineage." [3]

"The 'awsat' is the centre most part of anything, the median between extremes. The wise expression documented in the hadith collection of Bayhaqi, we find the best being linked to the centrist rather than the extreme ... The best of affairs are the (awsatuha) middle ones." [4]

"'Wasat' is also synonymous with good merit, virtue, goodness, justice, and balance. "The awsatuhum/ most balanced among them said "Did I not tell you, 'Will you not extol God's limitless glory?' " [Qur'an 68:28]" [4]

According to Imam Ahmed Saad, "Al-Wasatiyyah" is the Lost Middle Path. "The absence of the concept of Wasatiyyah from the Muslim mind and life has led to Muslims entering an intellectual and practical Diasporas. The absence of this concept gave space to extremism in understanding the truth and contributed to the appearance of many extreme political, intellectual and religious groups that curse one another and brand their opponents unbelievers and claim that they are the only true Muslims." [5]

Further, Imam Ahmed said, "The terminology itself refers to a praised state in which man is kept from falling into extremism. This term of wasatiyyah is as old as history itself and that is why we can find many of its synonyms like moderation, balance, justice and fairness. Therefore, we can say that wasatiyyah is simply: leading a life of balance, leading a life of moderation and leading a life very close to fitrah (primordial innate nature)." [5]

According to Ustadz Maulana Ulbarshah, Lecturer for the Department of Islamic Revealed Knowledge, Human Sciences,International Islamic University Malaysia, "Moderation is an Islamic principle for social life; this wasatiyyah is an antidote to ... ghuluww (excessiveness), tanattu' (harshness), tashaddud (severity), tatarruf (extremism) ... in all its forms. Wasatiyyah should not, however, be misconstrued as compromise on principles or undermining of universal ethics; for what practical, social and ethical value can person of faith have in the absence of principles."[6]

Dr Mohammad Kamal Hassan of IIU Malaysia in his draft paper on the subject listed about eight (8) implications to Al-Wasatiyyah in Muslim society which often caught between immodation and negligence. [7]

The advice of Imam Ibn Al-Qayyim is: "Always encourage people to take a moderate stand, because it will rescue you from transgression. So we find the middle position between two extremes to be the most balanced and just, where a person will find all the benefits and comforts of this worldly life and the Hereafter. Furthermore, even the human body cannot live normally without the benefits of moderation. If a person is moderate when sleeping, waking, eating, drinking, exercising, in staying away or mixing with others, then the body will function properly. However, if a person goes to an extreme in one of these aspects, then the body will not function properly and the person will not live a normal life." [8]

Source:

[1] http://www.islamicity.com/articles/articles.asp?ref=IC1007-4239&p=1#sthash.XGJoaXFo.dpuf
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wasat_(Islamic_term)
[3] http://www.ummah.com/forum/showthread.php?70255-Ummah-Wasat-So-That-The-Meaning-Is-Not-Lost-In-Translation
[4] http://www.islamicity.com/articles/articles.asp?ref=IC1007-4239&p=1#sthash.XGJoaXFo.dpuf

[5] http://www.islamicforumeurope.com/live/ife.php?doc=articleitem&itemId=324

[6] http://taakbs.blogspot.com/2011/04/wasatiyyah.html

[7] http://www.iium.edu.my/irie/11/info/Sample-3.pdf

[8] http://www.biharanjuman.org/muslims_must_be_moderates.htm

Islamic state

We will never attain an Islamic State,
Unless we have an Islamic Society.
We will never attain an Islamic Society,
Unless we have Islamic communities.

We will never have an Islamic community,
Unless we have Islamic neighborhoods.
We will never have an Islamic neighborhood,
Unless we have Islamic households.

We will never have an Islamic household,
Unless we have Islamic selves.
We will never have an Islamic self,
Unless we have an Islamic state of mind and heart.

We will never have an Islamic state of mind and heart,
Unless we have deeply appreciated and lived
The teachings of the Qur'an and the Sunnah!

Free Bangsamoro

A phrase common these days but especially louder whenever there is a ebb in the on-going peace process. "Free Bangsamoro" is a catch-phrase for "right to self-determination" or some form of asymmetrical relationship between the Bangsamoro and the Philippine Government. A substate (though non-existent in the legal dictionary), or anything less than a state but more than autonomy. In short, this catch-phrase is largely a political determination.

Within the political sphere, it is not just a matter of us ruling over our own kind and own homeland, Free Bangsamoro has also to do with movement - from the politics driven by gold, guns and goons towards what type of governance and citizenry?

We need to challenge the exclusive political definition of "Free Bangsamoro", make it more inclusive and holistic. This expansion is in line with a belief that there is more to Bangsamoro than just politics. So we ask a basic question - Freedom from what?

• How about freedom from Nafs (wants)? 
• How about freedom from ethnocentrism and tribalism?
• How about freedom from the culture of rido, impunity, vendetta and vigilante?
• How about freedom from the absence of the Rule of Law?
• How about freedom from social exclusion and minoritization?
• How about freedom from environmental degradation that is now happening at an alarming pace and becoming more frequent and widespread?
• How about freedom from illegal drugs trade and freedom of our youth from this menace?
• How about freedom from preventable and curable diseases and sexually-transmitted diseases, the latter being transmitted by promiscuous husbands to their unsuspecting wives?
• How about freedom from bullies in schools, communities and work places?
• How about freedom from historical and cultural revision and sanitation?
• How about freedom from extremes?

Additionally, we need to  ....

• Free and protect women from gender and cultural stereotyping.
• Free and protect our children from an education bureaucracy hijacked by graft and corrupt practices, inefficiency and deadwoods.
• Free and protect our mothers and daughters from preventable health dangers, trafficking and white slavery.
• Free and protect social, cultural and religious minorities.
• Free and protect our elderly and disabled from neglect.

These are some of what it truly means by "Free Bangsamoro". Political freedom is just the beginning, not the solution, a process not the end-game. Let us wake up and face the truth squarely.

Thought and action

Rewording Henry Bergson's - Think like a person of action, act like a person of thought.

Everyone can think of many great ideas. Great ideas that could and would change the course of history, the future of civilization. But for the few that walked their thoughts, we remember their deeds - how they change our views about the world, how they made life easy with their inventions and how they provide hope for the future.

A person of thought enjoys in simultaneous sights - hindsight of the past, insight of the present and foresight of the future.

Zambo Siege and Food Sufficiency among ARMM Island Provinces

A lot of lessons unfolding out of the Zamboanga Crisis. Food sufficiency for ARMM island provinces is one. The 3-week siege tells us that the island provinces of Basilan, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi are significantly dependent on Zamboanga for foodstuff. This is not the first time. In fact this is the second time in less than two years. Who can forget the Sabah siege?

Sabah provides access to foodstuff at a cheaper price. Since we are just recuperating from the effects of the Sabah siege, free travel and importation are still not at its previous pace. So Zamboanga is our alternative.

Now we have the Zamboanga siege. Into it's 4th week, the effect is most felt in the hampered flow of goods and foodstuff to the island provinces. What is this siege telling the island communities is two-fold:

Firstly, whether we acknowledge it or not, we are now hook on consumerism, purchasing everything in greater amount than before. Something has been done on the level of education and attitude change. Attitude change in the sense that not all we eat or consume need to be purchased. Education that there are alternative and sustainable ways.

Secondly, communities can cut down their purchase by being responsible for some of the food they will consume through family/house and community gardening. 

Until we change our attitude and lifestyle, the food shortage with even worse repercussion will not be far-fetched in the future not just because of possible repeat of the present security situation. There is even a great matter of urgency - climate change and natural disasters.

When do we prepare? Now is the best time to sit down and act.

Is Arabization a prescription of faith?

We have influences all around us. As a Muslim society in a larger Catholic-dominated country, among the external influences are the following: Manila-centric influence either through the public school system, media and other government instruments; and Westernization that is the product of Western countries through such instrument as globalization, free trade and, global media.

There is another that is less political and controversial which deserve the same level of scrutiny. As a Muslim society, we look to Arabs as our (older) brothers and view their thinking, ways and values as (true) reflection or model of our faith. In doing so, we often accept them wholeheartedly. We look to certain Arab countries as our model of public welfare and governance. We look to their universities as the best to train our religious scholars. We appreciate their style of largess.

As a Muslim community in this part of the world, our faith is born out of our unique historical experience and geo-politics. We have traditionally followers of the Shafi-e School of Jurisprudence under the Sunni strand. The combination of Middle East oil monies, traditional charities and globalization, have created a new tension within our society.

Our scholars returning from their Middle East studies have brought a new and different interpretation, often radical from orthodoxy, and new belief system that is confrontational and divisive. Through their oil largess, religious schools, orphanages and mosques are constructed where their belief system are imposed and propagated freely. Our own overseas contract workers having experience the Arab life and living and equated it with faith, are bringing home Arab thinking, acts and attitudes to everyday life and living back in Moroland. Saudi Wahhabi doctrine vying with militant doctrines from Libya, Syria and Iraq.

This is a miniature example of this new phenomenon. Are we engaged in Arabization or Islamization of our way of life? Is Arabization necessarily Islamic? How much of their Arabic influence can be absorb by our society without necessarily becoming their clone? Is Arabization a prescription of faith? These are some critical questions we need to respond collectively.

Culture, common sense and criticality

We love our culture. We are proud to show them. We are so proud about it that it become our immediate recess when something new and different is introduced. We cling to it like dear life itself.

"Kasi ganyan na yan", "kasi ganito na talaga sa amin", "eto na ang aming kinagisnan", we become vulnerable to blind adherence.

There are a lot of good things in our culture. Yes we should continue them. But for the things that's inconsistent with 21st century enlightenment, we should be critical about them. Do they have a place in our contemporary society?

Shall we want to continue "rido", thereby threatening the very safety of our own family and public order?

Shall we continue to reason for those putting the law into their own hands for vendetta to satisfy their angst but diminishing our rule of law and public safety?

Shall we continue patronizing leaders based on familial and tribal affiliation with total disregard for competence and merit and what they can do for common good?

Shall we continue the social divide between blue-blooded and commoners that the latter will have to kowtow to the former all the time?

Shall we continue thinking of public coffer as a familial piggy bank and the institution of public service like a family enterprise?

Shall we continue rationalizing that bureaucrats stealing public funds are engaged in jihad, arguing that while rebels are fighting outside, these bureaucrats are fighting within by weakening government's public service deliveries?

Shall we continue to misuse religion for violence?

Shall we continue victimizing our sisters and daughters to polygamy and pawning them for political ends?

Without critical thought about them, we are doomed.

Seeing whole

Note: I wrote this article in the context of the "Sabah siege", now it appears relevant to what is going on in "Zambo siege" and what we are and are not doing to ourselves in view of this crisis.
_______________

We blame others for what we have become. We rant on what they did and didn't to make out lives better. We think we are in dire situation because of what they withheld from us. We become miserable because of what they did not allow us to become. Given this is true. Before these rants became "them" we ask, "where was we?", "what have we done to ourselves to make things better?", "Isn't it not our primordial responsibility to better ourselves?", etc.

The reality is our lives is now tangled together. The world we live in has become a global village. What happen to us will also hurt them and vice versa. "Them" is half of the coin, half of the truth. "We" are half of the coin, half of the truth. So long as we continue the divide in our mind and use it to continue the division, we will always be divided, hurting each other. The pain will proceed, the hurt will continue until all the blood there is has been spilled and watered the earth.

The pain need not proceed or the hurt to continue. We can start moving forward, together healing each other and making a promise that should we be in a situation of disagreement we prefer to sit around the table of peace to reconcile and resolve, rather than let our angst and pride dictate our action and unleash our fury, and turning our communities into battlefields.

This is the promise of seeing and keeping things whole. By seeing and keeping things whole, we taper our rights with responsibility. we recognize not only our own but also the right of others to live side by side with us. Let us reciprocate good deeds and let us not make violence and vendetta the inheritance of our next generations.

We live our lives fundamentally by our own doing. We are personally responsible. This is the obligation that came with our inherent nature and freewill. Those without are not held liable for any. Those with freewill are accountable for their action. We can not fully enjoy our rights if we do not appreciate well our responsibility. It is not a choice between the two, it is both and both are congruent with each other.

We make each other complete. We make each other whole.
___________________

Former Basilan congressman Gerry Ajul Salapuddin has this to say, "Whatever we planted is what we reap. Whatever befell us is a result of our action. We are responsible for our our fortune or misfortune. And only Allah can get us out of our own mess. All it takes is our strong faith, prayer, zikr and our supplication to Him. Allah is the Most Merciful and Most Forgiving God. While man has limitation on what he can give, Allah has limitless power and bounties."

Former ARMM ORG official Ross Alonto adds, "What went wrong" and "what must be done" are inseparable if we want to move forward and live a better life than we have today. It's "seeing whole" and properly responding to the needs of time. The ball is in our hands.

Water and the Bangsamoro: A discourse outline

Global Context
According to The Millennium Project, "Water should be central to development and climate change strategies. Over half the world could live in water-stressed areas by 2050 due to population growth, climate change, and increasing demand for water per capita."

"According to IFPRI this would put at risk approximately $63 trillion of the global economy just 39 years from today. By 2030 global water demand could be 40% more than the current supply. This could change with new agricultural practices, policy changes, and intelligently applied new technologies."

"Otherwise conflicts over trade-offs among agricultural, urban, and ecological uses of water are likely to increase, along with the potential for mass migrations and wars. Although waterrelated conflicts are already taking place, water-sharing agreements have been reached even among people in conflict and have led to cooperation in other areas."

Local Context
Water is crucial to growing population and economy. What are water issues in Moroland? What forestall and hasten these issues (contributing factors)?

Where and when are these water issues more prevalent and imminent in the Bangsamoro homeland?

Analysis
How water issues are connected with other global challenges manifested in the Moroland? Water shortage and climate change in insular ARMM? Flooding and Climate Change in Maguindanao plains? Water Shortage, power generaion and economic development in Lanao?

How do we mitigate water issues in the short-term? How do we sustainably response to these issues in the long-term?

How do we mobilize communities and institutions to respond to water's evolutionary (unpredictable) and developmental (predictable) challenges?

Noralyn Mustafa, A Muslim writer, opines in the context of Jolo Town, "first on the list should be the return of the squatters in the town of Jolo to their places of origin in the countryside where they can be as productive as before; second would be to thoroughly dredge all the waterways in Sulu, starting from the Jolo river. This is to avoid the unimaginable loss of lives when the Big Wave strikes (maybe tomorrow, maybe next year or five years from now, nobody can tell) that will drown everything up to the present town hall."

I agree. However, Jolo LGU can not solve this problem alone. It needs the participation (including IRA contribution) of other municipalities with significant population living in Tiyangge. What this situation telling us is that water and flooding issues are not anymore local problems, but trans-boundary problems requiring the collaboration of towns and similar geo-political entities.

Whole Moro Development

The terms "Moro" and "Bangsamoro" are very often associated with the Moro secessionist movement, autonomy, peace process; all political constructs.

This blog reckons there is more to being Moro than just a political construct or consciousness. Whole Moro Development is a holistic approach that recognizes the inter-relatedness of local politics, security, ecology, ethnolinguistic and culture,history, sociology, etc. The list is endless.

This is an attempt to look at Moro development not just through the politic lens, but beyond contemporary political discourse.

Moro development

“Change, development and progress, according to the Islamic viewpoint, refer to the return to the genuine Islam enunciated and practised by the Holy Prophet (may God bless and give him Peace!) and his noble Companions and their Followers (blessing and peace be upon them all!) and the faith and practice of genuine Muslims after them; and they also refer to the self and mean its return to its original nature and religion (Islam).”
― Syed Muhammad Naquib al-Attas, Islam The Concept of Religion and the Foundation of Ethics And Morality

Why we are failing in our governance?

Why we are failing in our governance?

Firstly, we never fully understood what democracy is all about save for the casting of votes during election. Even in the exercise of our suffrage we are failing too. We see election as an opportunity to make money. This is a tell tale sign of our failure.

Secondly, aside from the conduct of free and fair elections, democratic governance is about the "Rule of Law", protection of human rights of all citizens and active participation of people in politics as well as in civic life [1].

Look around and how unfair the law is applied, goons and criminals freely roaming around; and the law enforcers having second thought apprehending them because the former are allegedly cuddled by our politicos. Look at how justice often favors the moneyed and the powerful.

Look at how politicos and bureaucrats steal from government coffers while flaunting their ill-gotten wealth through cars, vacation trips, mansions and estates and similar displays. As public service suffers, they get wealthier and powerful. While they enrich themselves, children die of preventable diseases, children growing up ignorant and unemployable, parents with no access to employment, families squalor in poverty.... Where is the protection of human rights of all citizens?

Thirdly, where are the people in political and civic life? Engagement in civic life is not for professional "civil society"; just as political engagement is not for professional policy makers. If we leave the shaping of public policy and governance to these professionals, we have just by our own doing, shut out ourselves from public life. There is a common misconception that the only way to participate is to run for election and become a politico; such is the outcome of long neglect on the importance of citizenship and civic education.

Fourthly, how well do we hold our leaders accountable to public trust? Are they not our public SERVANTS? When we are afraid of our public servants, we have only our collective selves to blame. We elected them in the first place!

Fifthly, if we can't work together to clean our neighborhood, how well do you think we can run a huge regional government?

Finally, while our political structure is based on democratic principles; our insight about governance is traditional, parochial and autocratic.

Source:[1] What is democracy - http://www.stanford.edu/~ldiamond/iraq/WhaIsDemocracy012004.htm