While discussing our beloved city in one of our team discussions (which we usually have every morning), I broached the point concerning corruption and how everyone from bottom to top is involved in it. This was when a friend pointed out that yes you are right, we are all corrupted, but revolution begins with self, and if something needs to be changed, the change has to start from the bottom, and this change will then proceed upwards affecting everyone it touches when finally even the top will be changed for good.
Bottom, consisting of commoners, and we being commoners, have never thought about this, and even if we have, we just force our minds to think about something else. Even I had never thought of it in this particular way. But my colleague was right. If we want a change to come in our society it has to begin from the bottom. From "US".
Now don't think that "how can WE be corrupted?". Because we are, we all are. And if you think you are not, then ask yourself the following:
1) Have you never cheated in a paper/test/exam? Remember, that just confirming ture/false is cheating?
2) Do you run away from responsibilities which fall on you?
3) Do you concern yourself more with others lives? What someone's wearing? What's the "scene" between that guy and girl?
4) Do you often lie with/without knowledge?
5) Have you ever found yourself saying ill things about some person or/and then justifying your act by saying "I am not doing geebat these are simply the facts".
6) Do you spend more time gossiping?
7) Do you ask your friend to check-in using your RFID card at office? Or are you the friend?
8) Do you take an off from office for no reason, without even thinking if you have pending work and if it will disturb others?
If you can reply with "no" to all of the above questions then may be you are a better person than most of us. But DO evaluate your everyday life and if you can still claim that you are not corrupted then maybe you can work towards making others aware of what they are doing wrong and motivating them not to.
And if you say "yes" to even one of the above questions and I will have to say yes to most of the above questions then we need to change our ways, and it's high time that we do. Change our ways, bring betterment in our lives, be better Muslims and, therefore, better human beings.
It won't be easy, but then again, change never is. Yet we need to change. We need to work towards bringing this change in not only ourselves but others.
A good way to start would be to involve your friends. You can begin with something like this:
Yaar I think we have copied enough assignments, cheated in enough papers, let's do one think this time, let's not cheat. We, being Muslims, should not cheat anyways. Plus, as we have not been caught till now, there is a high chance we will be caught in the future. You can't get lucky every time.. So we will not cheat, we will prepare harder, we will not cheat and we will not let each other cheat as well. What say?
Or may be something like:
When I started this job, I followed the timing rule religiously. I was always, always on time. But now, I have spoiled myself. I don't ever come on time. But this month I have decided that I will check-in at exact 9 or before that, but not later.. Or maybe, one or two minutes late, but only once or twice. Most of the days I'll inshaAllah check-in at or before 9. If Quaid-e-Azam can do it, so can I! I will set my alarm to 7 o'clock so that I can be on time. Shall I wake you up as well?
So, revolutionize. Today. Don't wait for a new year to begin before you state your "Revolutions of the year". Why wait for something when it can be done today? Make a list of what things you should change. Prioritize them according to importance or easiness. Then start with the first one. One change at a time. Then when you have changed this one thing about yourself, then work towards the second on the list. And so on.
(By the way, this is not what I had set to write about.. I had decided to write about something else, but this too was going to be a topic for my next post. But as I have this topic here, a separate post for the actual topic will be pointless, so I will discuss that too here as well.)
We keep saying that the conditions of Pakistan are Allah's wrath (azaab), the earthquake, the floods, the bomb blasts, the target killings and what not. We give the title of Allah's wrath on our nation for all our sins and corruption and all, and then we just sit around and do nothing about it. Have we become so accustomed to Allah's wrath that it no longer scares us? That we would rather just say it loudly then do anything about it? Is it too, like everything else, just an every day thing for us? Have we become that hard-hearted?
And if not, then why doesn't anyone do anything about it.
Junaid Jamshaid, in one of his programs which were aired during last Ramzan, said:
Why haven't anyone of his ever asked Allah for forgiveness? He forgives like no one else, then why haven't we tried? How many of us ask Allah to help Pakistan, to save Pakistan? Why don't people ask Allah to forgive Pakistanis for all their sins? If asked with real devotion, maybe we will be forgiven. (These are not his actual words, just the essence of what I remember he said. Any mistake is unintentional.)
So if we truly believe that what we are going through every other day is Allah's wrath then why don't we ask for forgiveness. Why don't we ask Allah to give us the strength to change our ways and the knowledge to decipher between right and wrong? Why don't we?
Instead, we have become so accustomed to all of this, that it's only seldom that a bomb blast or even a natural calamity really affects us. And it only does, when God forbid some relative or acquaintance is caught in it. Otherwise, we just carry on with our day-to-day lives without so much as flinching, or even worse, consider it an opportunity to take an off.
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