Eid not-so-mubarak

Eid Mubarak! Or, in English, may your feast be blessed. That is what we Muslims say to each other during these days, when we are celebrating the end of the holy month of Ramadan. We share deserts, we visit relatives, and we wish, Eid Mubarak.

However, deep down in my heart, I know this Eid (or Bayram, as we say in Turkish) is not much of a blessed one for the global Muslim community. The reason is that, first, there horrible injustices done to our co-religionists. Secondly, there are horrible injustices done by our co-religionists.

On the first front, there is of course the nearest tragedy in Gaza. As I was writing this piece, more than a thousand of Palestinians, most of them civilians, including hundreds of children, were killed by the Israeli military. Israel’s staggering ruthlessness and self-righteousness while killing so many innocent people is undoubtedly sickening. And the poor people of Gaza (and West Bank, and the refugee camps in Lebanon and elsewhere) deserved nothing but support and sympathy.

However, do we Muslims really think that we will help liberate Palestine by merely condemning Israel’s occupation and militarism? Israel is intoxicated with its might, but what have we done to counter this in the right way? For decades, what have Arab and other Muslim governments done to find a rational, feasible solution that will take Palestinians to statehood? Haven’t we rather weakened or de-legitimatized this right cause by devolving into sensationalism and anti-Semitism, and even the exploitation of Palestine for domestic politics?

Beyond Palestine, the ummah, the global Muslim community, is burning, too. But more so by the confrontationalism among Muslims themselves, rather than the conspiracies of...