The time for giving...isn't it?

As the birthday of the Messiah approaches, Christians world wide will be reflecting on giving, charity and the needy. No doubt the new found generosity that many people will dip into over the coming weeks will impact the lives of many impoverished people the world over. But in order for there to be a feeling of generosity, we have to find someone that we can feel sorry for and that we can be charitable to. We need poor people to make us feel better about ourselves and we don't like it when we are reminded that we are no better than them as human beings.

We read articles and watch programmes about poverty. Poverty is this, poverty is that. I read a blog post somewhere, I can't remember where, which spoke of poverty as not having a mobile phone to call a tow truck if your old car breaks down. Of sleeping on the same mattress for fifteen years. Wow, truly tragic if we see people in America facing such calamities! We see the Emirati's celebrating the opening of an exclusive and expensive resort (which nobody can prove is a front for a massive initiative to introduce gambling in the region) at the expense of millions of dollars, and attended by the rich and the famous. One timezone away, people who speak the same language and follow the same Prophet, as these corrupters allegedly do, cannot even find food to burn on the firewood which they may or may not be able to find, since they do not even have gas or electricity. A people which is eating out of the rubbish under the eyes of the entire world, where people cannot get basic medical treatment because of a lack of supplies, whose land was, and continues to be, stolen from them since 1948.

In Iraq, the occupation of a superpower has led to the death of over 1 million Iraqis and the displacement of many many more. All this while the Saudi King is seen sipping drinks with the ruler of that superpower, or the Mufti of al Azhar is seen shaking hands warmly with a man who comes from Israel, an occupier and settler state, that exists in the region by virtue of its brute strength and the support of that same power which is bombing and killing innocent people world wide. Yes, Christmas is the time of charity and giving, just don't pay attention to what the people you hypocrites have elected are doing in the birthplace of Christ. You tell those people you oppress to turn the other cheek and to love your enemy and that this is what Christ would do. That is a lie, if Christ was in Palestine today he would pick up a machine gun and fight those oppressors. It is not the poor and wretched of the earth that we should pity, in fact it is they who pity us, for we have forgotten Allah.