Gay, Jewish, Black or Green?
INsights 060, Friday 11th October 2024
Gay, Jewish, Black or Green?
INsights 060, Friday 11th October 2024
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If I had a pound for every time I’ve heard the Jewish community being cited as one whose example we need to follow or whose standard we need to emulate, I wouldn’t be a rich man, but I’d certainly have enough for some expensive clothes or a fancy meal.
It’s a sentiment I’ve heard consistently ever since my childhood, in a variety of settings from all sorts of people, from my own father to community leaders of local and national organisations.
If only we could be as unified, wealthy, protected and influential as the Jewish community seems to be, then at last everything would be fine. We would be taken seriously. No one would mess with us.
It’s almost as if we have collective envy.
The meteoric rise of the LGBTQ agenda in recent years provides a useful parallel example.
Like the Jewish community, it’s another minority community that has been long shunned and derided by the vast majority of the rest of society, which has somehow managed to turn its affairs around in a very short time span and become an extremely powerful force.
There is almost no day in which its influence can be escaped, whether it’s in our educational institutions, workplaces, both traditional and social media, even our road crossings.
I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that the LGBTQ movement’s achievements of late represent one of the fastest and most remarkable peaceful cultural shifts in human history.
So, we ask, how is it that these groups have managed to achieve such feats whilst we continue to struggle?
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The thing about the Jewish, LGBTQ and – to add another example – the black community, is that their campaigns are inherently about themselves. They want to be treated with respect, to be seen as equals, and not have to face hate or prejudice.
Jews aren’t telling others to believe in God or advocating for Judaism as a way of life. Homosexuals aren’t telling others why they should become homosexuals. Of course, black people can’t tell anyone else to become black. We are told to appreciate them all, not join them. We hear demands, not invitations.
Apart from extreme elements of the transgender movement, none of these groups are generally advocating a particular way of life as being better or truer than any other one. They’re just looking after their own interests and their own people.
Sometimes, their pursuit of self-interest may even go so far as to drive them to trample over the rights of others just to preserve their own. It’s about survival and even the pursuit of dominance in a dog-eat-dog world.
Of course there are plenty of individuals within each of these communities who do care about others. But here I’m addressing the overarching collective message of each group to the rest of society based on the characteristic(s) that set them apart from everyone else.
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Can you see how our ways tend to model – albeit far less successfully – these three communities? Like them, our collective narrative has become something like:
Don’t hate on us just like you don’t hate on them.
Tolerate us like you tolerate them.
As long as we are well-represented in the diversity statistics like they are, we’ll be happy!
We are frustrated by our weakness. Surely power is the answer. So, our thinking goes, let’s see who’s powerful and try to do what they have done.
As with most of our ill-informed narratives and misdirected strategies, this attitude is understandable. But it’s also inexcusable.
Power on earth is not supposed to be our end objective. Like wealth, once power and position become the objective, that’s when everything starts to go horribly wrong. It's only when we focus on the right objective that being elevated by God on earth becomes a likely by-product.
We grant the Home in the Hereafter to those who do not seek superiority on earth or spread corruption: the happy ending is awarded to those who are mindful of God. (28:83)
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Sure, we can learn from the techniques of those who are defined by a rights-based narrative. But we can’t adopt the same attitude.
Instead we should be more like the green lobby.
The beauty about environmental campaigns is that they are inherently universal in their concern. Since it’s about the environment, it’s about all of us.
All of us can support, all of us can benefit.
Active green campaigners believe in something and stand for something beyond themselves.
If they are sincere and conscientious, they try to model the behaviours that they encourage others to adopt.
Of course there may be bad actors or ineffective campaigners. But that doesn’t take away from the essential goodness and universal nature of the message to live in a way that is sustainable and respectful of the earth’s natural balance.
Like the three groups referenced above, environmental campaigns seek to influence society’s attitudes and practices through all avenues: social, cultural, economic, political and technological.
So the means are all similar, but the impetus, the narrative and the objective are completely different.
Based on these distinctions, it should be self-evident how the insular “Muslim community” approach is wrong in aligning itself methodologically with the Jewish, LGBTQ and black communities’ approaches to public advocacy and engagement.
By contrast, it should also be clear how the environmental agenda provides a helpful example of the style that is more appropriate to adopt for the universal, God-centred approach I've been pushing for, which I would argue is far more aligned with the clear mandate that God has set out in revelation.
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We are people who believe that this life is a flash of opportunities before we transition into an eternity of consequences.
For as long as we are in this world, our task is to serve and represent God without giving any share of the devotion due to Him to anyone or anything else.
Guidance for the approaches we should take in our earthly affairs must come from Him and, by extension, from prophetic example.
So where do we get the idea that our aim is simply to become a well-established minority, left to our own devices by the rest of society?
Our agenda is bigger, much bigger, than ourselves. Even if we face prejudice, we are not to retreat into our shells, complaining and focusing all our efforts on securing our rights, forgetting about the actual mission at hand: promoting God, tackling godlessness, furthering goodness and preventing harm for all.
Guess what? When we follow this approach while maintaining a strong connection to our Lord, all the resources, influence and power will follow. It's a divine promise in fact:
God has made a promise to those among you who believe and do good deeds: He will make them successors to the land, as He did those who came before them; He will establish the way of life He has chosen for them; He will grant them security to replace their fear. They will worship Me and not join anything with Me. Those who are defiant after that will be the rebels. Keep up the prayer, pay the prescribed alms, and obey the Messenger, so that you may be given mercy. (24:55-6)
Maybe our current powerlessness is a blessing. Maybe we’re not ready. Maybe He’s giving us a chance to reset and reposition ourselves.
So let’s get on and do just that before it’s too late.
In God we trust.
Until next time.
Peace.
Iqbal
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