Wake-up call to Muslims..........

[Thinkerman]

Wake-up call to Muslims

 

KUALA LUMPUR: It is time for the Muslim community to awaken from its slumber and be committed to preserving its life, independence and beliefs as a united force, said Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi.

 

“It is not an exaggeration to say that the ummah (Muslim community) has been a sleepwalker in world history and politics for a long time,” he said in his keynote address at the international conference called “The Ummah at The Crossroads: The Role of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC)” yesterday.

 

Abdullah, whose speech was read out by Information Minister Tan Sri Khalil Yaacob, said a whole new ummah had to be created to face the challenges ahead.

 

Although the ummah inherited some of the most illustrious history and traditions the world had ever seen, he said, contemporary and recent developments suggested the contrary.

 

“If Islam places a premium on knowledge, why is it that Muslims are ignorant and far from being a learning society?

 

“Why is it that Muslims do not have systems and processes as a means of creating, documenting and generating knowledge, science and technology?

 

“We should first of all be self-critical,” he said, adding that Muslims and the West had a four-fold vicious circle of misunderstanding, he said.

 

They were Western misunderstanding of Islam, Muslim misunderstanding of the West, Western misunderstanding of the West and the Muslim misunderstanding of Islam, he said.

 

“The roots of these misunderstandings are both historical and contemporary,” he added.

 

Abdullah also noted that Muslims were poor in creativity, in the invention of technology and how they portrayed themselves.

 

After the Sept 11 incident, he said, Muslims were viewed as violent and uncivilised to the extent that the world looked upon them as inferior, primitive and backward.

 

Abdullah blamed the silence of the Muslims for this misunderstanding and called for a representational system that was non-coercive.

 

“Muslims must first of all be at peace with themselves. Muslims must lead, at least learn to lead in the creation of a new society devoid of hatred and violence,” he said.

 

He said the OIC must lead the ummah to create and transform the present for the future.

 

“Despite a host of problems and constraints, we must not allow ourselves to be hostages of the past.

 

“At the same time we cannot simply escape to a new reality,” he added.

[Muhammad]

we have heard this cry too many times, yet the ummah continues to fall into even deeper sleep.

 

Mr. Badawi will take the seat of Dr. Mahathir in Malaysia, lets hope he practices what he calls for and not himself fall into sleep.