For the first few moments after one wakes up (or has been woken up) before reality comes barging in, there is this complete and total zen like peace. Unawareness. Blissful ignorance. Whatever you choose to call it, its there.
I was disturbed from my morning slumber prematurely. I had no intentions of seeing morning and had hoped to wake up sometime after 1pm. Instead, at only 10am, I found myself sitting at the edge of my bed wondering where those first waking moments went. From the second I opened my eyes I felt like crap. No particular reason for that feeling stood out but I was sure that once the sleep fog cleared from my head I'd know right away. Today's much anticipated and talked about date came to mind. Its 'January 1st'. New year. A day celebrated world wide by mankind irrespective of sex, race or religion - and yeah some may argue that certain religions/nations dont actually celebrate or recognize the Gregorian new year but they still congratulate each other on their own respective new year dates. Either way, I don't understand the celebrating/congratulating. Maybe if it were done to mark Dec. 31st/last day of their respective calendars and people were celebrating having made it thru another year or having had accomplished greatness in the year passed or something of significance worthy of being celebrated. Then maybe I might vaguely understand it. But as it stands I honestly don't see what the hell there is to celebrate? And no, I'm not saying this with Gaza in mind. I'm saying this wondering if everyone got a divine memo, to which I was excluded from receiving, stating beforehand that this coming year, or any other past/coming years, will be a year of great achievements, victories and etc. To be frank, I see no apparent reason why the changing of a year should be acknowledged any more than the change of a second, minute, hour, day, week or month. So a year is longer than all of those aforementioned, 'yay', what of it? Decades are longer and still centuries are even longer than all, I dont see anyone celebrating those. So I ask again, what the hell is there to celebrate?
As one kind, mankind, what exactly is being celebrated? Did someone receive credible info that in this 'new year' all the warring parties of the world would agree on peace? [It's totally not impossible. Take palestine for example. Instead of all the insane terrorism both sides are guilty of, why not just divide the whole land into three equal parts. A part for those nationalistic jews, a part for the nationalistic arabs and lastly a part in the middle for the innocent/unbiased/nonprejudiced from both sides, who can live in a peaceful - or at least tolerant manner. Next, build up huge ass walls to keep the volatile nationalists apart. And of course build or give them the means to build up equal facilities, ie hospitals, schools and etc. Very simple solution to a very screwed up problem that should have been handled decades ago.]
Maybe world peace isn't the reason for celebrating, maybe a solution to world hunger/poverty was found. [ You know like all of the better off countries pitching in and effectively eliminating that problem. And yes, please spare me the impossibilities of it, because with all the technological advances, modernization and globalization or whatever the filp we wanna call it, that has been reached in this day and age, surely a solution can be found that enables the giving of the most basic human sustenance.]
So neither peace nor poverty's ends are being celebrated, what else is there that I may have missed? I mean warring and poverty are top world issues aren't they? And if the world isn't celebarating the solution to either of those what else is out there worthy of collective merry making?
For all the happy sparkly optimism attached to every new year I can honestly say I am so not feeling it. I wasnt feeling it last year (which was technically the beginning of this week, Dec. 28, 29, 30 or 31) and inspite of the changing date my mood did not feel obliged to make a miraculous 360 turn to gaiety.
I ought to have curtailed the amount of blog reading I do after the time I had a really really weird dream which basically took everything I had read in that week and meshed it with a few prominent plots of shows I had been watching and then put me in the middle of all of that. I almost feel sorry for the fact that blog reading has become like a hobby to me. So many interesting thoughts, opinions and in general randomness that you wouldn't ordinarily get the chance to hear from strangers you happen to passby. Reading comments is an added bonus. People's reaction to what has been written and posted. I usually find all of that very amusing, but lately Gaza and the New year have made for very grim readings. The top 3 subtopics that stem from Gaza and 2009 are:
The arab world doing nothing for the Palestinians
Shaykh Mohd bin Rashid cancelling official new years celebrations in Dubai
and the most depressing of them all:
Muslims being terrorists and 'enjoying the misery of non muslims'.
Muslim blogs are checkered with remarks on how the arab world and its leaders are turning a blind eye on our Palestinian brethen but has anyone really stopped and gave thought to that? Has anyone thought that maybe, just maybe the arab leaders really wanna do more than just send food and medical supplies?
No one likes to see innocents being massly slaughtered but truth of the matter is, the Israelis have labeled the Gazanians as the instigators of this current massacre and just mentioning that Hamas is holed up amongst them gives the Israelis automatic American approval to do as they please. So scenerio #1 sees a few arabs, hundreds, maybe even thousands, form a little unofficial battalion and rush over to Gaza to fight against the Israelis. Of course, in their minds they are making 'jihad' - which would be wrong since there is no jihad unless their is a leader, and not just any leader but one leader whom all the muslims agree is the leader and follows. That seems like forever from now, given the way muslims cant agree on anything. The outcome of that unorthodoxed jihad would only end with more trouble. The US would be able to label the aid of the innocent Gaza people as helping the Hamas and then they'd lay blame on the origin countries of aforementioned jihadists, which would most likely end in the US justifying attacking those said countries 'to rid the world of terrorists'. And you know what? The world would conveniently forget it was the Israelis who started a wildly disproportionate retaliation on Gaza in the first place.
Scenerio #2: I had a lengthy bit to write in defense of the arab leaders but I think their actions speak louder than words. After all, weren't they there for Afghanistan and Kuwait when they were attacked by the Russians and Saddam? I have great faith that they will also come thru for the palestinians when the time is right - or in other words, when more good than harm will come of a more proactive approach. At any rate I may be wrong in thinking, but I believe a leader's first duty is to the citizens of his country and the palestinian president ought to get his folk in check because all of those random fractions going off on their own little rogue suicide bombing/killing assignments and killing innocent Israeli woman and children arent helping peace arrangments. Even in a real war, muslims arent supposed to harm woman and children of their opponents.
The second-highest-bitched-about-topic across the blogsphere was of Shaykh Mohd cancelling 'official' new year celebrations in Dubai. I've already vented my stance on NYCs so no need to state that again. As for the whiners, they still got to party right into the NY from what I heard - and even if they hadn't Abu Dhabi isnt that far and NYCs certainly wasnt cancelled here. [Instead
Shaykh Khalifa ordered the gov. depts not to charge palestinians immigration and residency fees.] Other whiners whined that SM isn't doing enough and that the cancellation was simply a cover for covert intentions, some even saying he should sell some of his assets and send the money to Gaza. Can't people just be happy he showed respect for the Gaza ppl in his decree [I'm sure he sent or is going to send humanitarian aid to them as well since the UAE always sends out lots of that regardless of the country being affected]. Seriously though, those same ppl accusing him of his lack of 'doing' would have had grand mal seizures if he had went ahead with NYCs and they had a display of fireworks that rivalled those of the
Atlantis opening. There's just no pleasing some people. My last word on that subject as a whole: 'ah salute'.
The most damningly depressing reads are by far those blogs/comments stating that muslims in general are terrorist and revel in the infliction of calamity on non muslims. Totally untrue. For one, those claiming to be muslims and going around shooting ppl, blowing up places and spilling the blood of innocents are definitely not following the religion properly - if they can still even be considered as part of the religion. That other bit about muslims rejoicing at the mishaps of non muslims is also very wrong. If that were the case, why were arab units over in china providing aid the last time it was hit by a major earthquake? And weren't they also over in the tsunami hit countries giving aid to those afflicted by the disaster? Now that I think about it, there probably isnt much convincing a normal muslim could do to show the general people of the world that religion is not responsible for individuals who decided to go rogue and do things unsanctioned by their religious affiliation.
I'm already tired of 2009, I'm going back to bed.
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