The European Mirage

An empty room with hundreds of seats...

Europe has long been the home to Christians and Jews. From the time of Christ, many Christians flocked to Europe where they both spread the faith and established their domains. The mighty Roman Empire eventually converted to Christianity which only further strengthened and bolstered the region while establishing Vatican City as the central source of Christian doctrine. Multiple times in its history, Europe has been the center of change and progress while the rest of the world lagged behind.

Islam came to Europe through territorial expansion, exploration and trade and through Arabic manuscripts and scientific research. It further grew with the arrival of many Muslim immigrants from countries that had been colonized by European powers. Yet, despite the influx of so many Muslims into Christian-dominated Europe, the attitude towards Muslims didn’t change. Regarded as a lesser race that belongs to the immigrants, the Muslims in these countries have been subjugated to being second-class citizens with Muslims often mired in poverty and inferiority.

My brief escapade across Europe allowed me to get a brief glimpse of this subjugation. The subways and underground were filled with mostly North African migrants. There were several beggers who clearly weren’t Caucasian Franks. The “better” areas were almost completely devoid of any minorities. In a short period of time, it became clear that Muslims and minorities truly were regarded as second-class citizens. I talked briefly with some Algerian Muslims while in France and learned from the exchange a little bit of their pain in France. I suppose it’s no wonder that there were riots in France in the ghettos because of the poor situation present there for Muslims. The impression of change and progress is a mirage it seems.

What does the future then have in store for Muslims and Europe? Various reports say that the Muslim population will double by 2010 due to immigration and birth rates. If that truly is the case, does that mean that the Muslim population will be better able to dictate their status or will it just be a growing lower-class segment subservient to their colonial masters?

“Still got that work if you got the right fee…”
- Slim Thug (I Run)

P is for Pilsen

The main destination for my trip was Pilsen, Czech Republic seeing as how the World Ball Hockey Championships were taking place here. The home of Pilsner Beer was now home for one week to the best ball hockey players in the world representing their nations.

Destination #3: Pilsen, Czech Republic
Upon arriving in Pilsen from Prague, it became clear that I was no longer in a major world city and had just entered a small locale with a small town mentality. The architecture and style of Pilsen gave me the same feeling as being in a city such as Kingston, Ontario – a nice place that really didn’t have enough to be more than what it was and was just a cut above from being a small town.

Nonetheless, I liked the place. It was my home for a week so we made the most of it. However, there were some drawbacks to the place. One was the lack of any halal food in the city but that was to be expected considering that there weren’t any Muslims really in the city – and very few in the country! – to begin with. Secondly, despite being home to the second largest synagogue in Europe, there weren’t any kosher restaurants around either. So it left us with little in terms of food options… one can only take so much of McDonald’s, Subway and a local pizzeria before starting to miss Indian food.

It was interesting to see gypsies around the city – a nomadic culture that had spread across Europe and was also now starting to take refuge in Canada – since I had heard much about them but didn’t really know much about them. I did some research and learned quite a bit about their culture… and was surprised to learn that many gypsies were Muslim. Good ol’ Wikipedia…

Nearby to where we were staying was Pilsen Square and at the center of the square was a large gothic church that served as tourist attraction instead. Climbing up the tower of the church was a challenge due to the narrow steps and extremely low ceilings – I bumped my head against a wooden support beam – but it was worth it. The view from the top was gorgeous as one could see all of Pilsen and parts beyond. The small city of Pilsen looked even smaller from the top of the church and it was a nice reminder of how small the world really is for as large as it may feel at times…

“Their love for it is the reason I have become this praised…”
- Lupe Fiasco (Put You On Game)

P is for Prague

I left for the Czech Republic after spending just 4 hours in Paris sightseeing. Seeing as how it had been the middle of the night when I was in Paris, I was naturally tired and I spent my 1.5 hour flight from Paris to Prague asleep.

Destination #2: Prague, Czech Republic
When I arrived in the Prague airport, I met up with an associate who had arrived just then too and we proceeded to leave for our destination of Pilsen. Customs consisted of just three people standing and gawking at you as you walked by them… that’s it! They didn’t check any papers or any passports or anything… the most lax security I’ve ever seen when it comes to people entering a country. Wow.

After finding our prebooked rental car, my associate and I took off for Pilsen which is an hour’s drive away from Prague. The speed limit on the roads were 130 km/h so we drove 150 km/h along with everybody else on the road… it was so nice to be able to do that unlike in Canada where they would have seized our car for speed-racing. Canada could learn a thing or two from the Czechs…

…so basically, I didn’t get to see Prague upon first arriving there. Instead, a bunch of friends and I made a couple of trips down to Prague including one where we spent the day touring Prague. It’s amazing just how much history is present in Prague and that’s not surprising considering how many different empires and groups occupied and controlled the city. From the Austro-Hungarian Empire to being under Nazi control to being a part of the Eastern Bloc, the city has seen its fair share of occupation. In addition to that, Prague was a major presence in Masonic circles as evidenced by several buildings bearing the Eye of Providence logo (ie: Freemason logo).

We found ourselves a nice halal restaurant – finally some halal food! – where we got some great Turkish food. This came as a huge relief after eating vegetarian food and pasta all week in Pilsen where there aren’t any halal restaurants. We also visited a major shopping mall called the Palladium which was visually nice but also very expensive to shop in. It was nice to visit but not really useful in terms of doing any shopping.

One of the most impressive areas of Prague was Prague Castle – a stunning gothic piece of architecture which screamed masonic rituals and design. One of the largest ancient castles in the world, the site was home to several leaders in its time including Holy Roman Emperors, Czech Kings, Czech Presidents and more. It was haunting and cryptic and almost made me feel like we were reliving The Da Vinci Code with the sights that we saw around the area. No sign of Mary Magdalene…

“Have we forgotten our history, let’s open our Bibles…”
- Jay-Z (Dig A Hole)

P is for Paris

Travelling can be either a wonderful experience that one savours for a lifetime or a nightmare that forces one to never want to leave home again. My travels in life thus far have been very interesting and rewarding yet each has been predictable and much of the same. Europe is a different beast. It’s different from North America…

Destination #1: Paris, France
I met Usain Bolt – the track and field star who currently holds the world record in a few events – while at the airport in Toronto since his flight back to Jamaica was leaving from the same airport terminal. He didn’t look much different than any other Jamaican I had come across in life but he was nice enough to take pictures with the many people who were around.

My seat on my Air France plane was next to an elderly Egyptian couple who only spoke Arabic. I befriended them on the trip and learned a bit about them through whatever little Arabic I knew and through hand motions. The elderly lady was afraid of flying so whenever there was turbulence – especially while flying over the Atlantic Ocean – she became very scared and started praying to Jesus to save her…

I had things spilt on me repeatedly. A flight attendant spilt apple desert on me which was very annoying but forgivable and then I had water accidentally spilt on me by the elderly lady. It’s okay though… no harm done… as long as it didn’t fall on any of my electronic gadgets (ie: cellphone!), I’m good.

Once I finally arrived in Paris, I immediately went to the Metro. It took me a while to get there in the airport – Aeroport de Charles de Gaulle in Paris – but once I got on it, I immediately got accustomed to the Metro. It was an experience I relished since the Metro was quite different than the TTC in Toronto or the Metro in Montreal. Neither was as vast or complex as Paris’ Metro but neither was as wonderful to use. I particularly enjoyed it since I found it to be very convenient to get from anywhere to virtually anywhere else… that’s how it should be.

I spent my time in Paris first touring the area around the Eiffel Tower. It’s a serene place which is meant to be shared with one’s romantic interest and sadly, I had no one to enjoy the place with. Alas, I savoured it still and walked around the promenade for a while before deciding to get some breakfast. I found myself a quaint little restaurant nearby and ordered myself an “omelette du fromage et mushrooms et une baguette”. It was great.. vintage French food enjoyed in the spectre of the Eiffel Tower…

I walked around downtown Paris for a while and got to see many other sites. Le Grande Palais (The Big Palace) and Le Petit Palais (The Little Palace) were beautiful as were the various other sites in and around the area. Le Louvre (The Museum) was nice from the outside but probably a place that should be best enjoyed by being within its walls instead. The beautiful walkways and common areas were fantastic and only made me want to walk more and more but alas, my time in Paris was done… after spending 4 hours in downtown Paris, I jumped on the Metro and returned to the airport for my next flight…

“I want to feel alone and lost in this solitude…”
– Lacuna Coil (Shallow Life)

Double-Edged Sword

Linked together while others watch...

Ten years ago, social networking on the Internet consisted of instant-messaging through programs such as ICQ. Since then, ICQ has pretty much fallen off the map while social networking has evolved into a behemoth that consists of Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, LinkedIn and a multitude of instant-messaging programs and web-logs (known as blogs). This, of course, only consists of social networking tools that are Internet-based; text-messaging (SMS), picture messaging (MMS) and mobile email only add to the clutter.

This all leads to the question of whether our days of anonymity and privacy are now gone. Sure, we can all choose not to register for these services and that would grant us some reprieve but is that really possible in this day in age? Mankind’s dependency on technology leaves one who chooses to abstain from it vulnerable to missing out on what’s going on around them. Not registering for these services leaves a person out-of-the-loop when it comes to social aspects and that poses its own problems and issues… but joining these services restricts one’s anonymity and privacy. It’s a double-edged sword.

“From the top of the highest summit, again we run it…”
- k-Os (B-Boy Stance)

The Protocol

Walking from one side to the other...

In May I wrote my CMA Accounting Case Exam and hopefully things went well with that. I was looking forward to getting that exam out of the way because I knew that pass or fail, I didn’t have any studying for my CMA accounting designation to do until September at the earliest. That means 3.5 months off to relax… wow…

However, I’m not one to sit idly by and let 3.5 months go by without some accomplishments. I need accomplishments in my life or I become quite depressed with the lack of growth and progression in myself. So… I set up a few accomplishments that I intend to fulfill throughout this nice little break that I’ve gotten:

Memorization
I plan to memorize 3 sur’ahs (chapters) of the Quran… I don’t know which ones as of yet but I plan to memorize 3 more in addition to the ones I’ve already memorized.

Waking Up for Fajr
Serving as my perpetual Achilles Heel, I’ve decided that this will be my chance to finally correct this problem. I’m going to wake up for Fajr (sunrise) prayer each day and not miss it. I’ve been able to do this off and on and stayed up late at night in order to not miss it but that must change… consistency is needed.

Working Out
I keep trying to get back into doing this before some sort of injury or health ailment derails it… but it’s necessary for me and I’m going to commit myself to it this summer. This includes finally getting back to biking and rollerblading a lot.

Extracurricular Projects
I’ve recently decided to accept an offer to join Makki Masjid’s event planning staff. This should provide a nice opportunity to help put together some events for the youth and bring different interests together for a united charitable and humanitarian cause.

Are there any other goals that you think I should be focusing on or goals that I may have overlooked?

“Today’s agenda, got the suitcase up in the Sentra, go to room 112, tell em Blanco sent ya…”
- Notorious B.I.G. (Ni**as Bleed)

Paper Clips

So many tasks, so many tools...

As most of you know, I play a lot of hockey in my free time. I don’t like to let it define who I am but I understand that people will think that hockey is a priority in my life because of how much I play. What some people fail to understand is that hockey is just one of my many activities. I do a lot of things and am always looking to supplement my activities with new ones that will be of benefit for me both in this life and in the next.

I spend a lot of time reading and writing – admittedly, my writing has decreased in the last couple of years but I still make time to do it. My reading, conversely, has picked up even more and I plow through books like cows do grass. My arsenal of books in my growing  library is impressive considering some of the titles and yes, I read every book that I purchase. Fiction and non-fiction, I read. Secular and religious, I read. Graphic or abstract, I read.

This blog serves as a major outlet of my writing since I stopped writing poetry a couple of years ago but I intend to resume writing short-articles on sociopolitical issues in the near future. I’m getting there… slowly…

I also spend a lot of time listening to music. I keep myself up-to-date on all the latest albums and listen to them while I work or travel. I also spend a lot of time thinking and being free from music – time for solitary thought is precious and important to me – as it helps me keep on top of tasks and be at peace with myself. I think I learned/inherited that trait from my father who once explained to me the importance of solitary thought when I asked him what he was doing sitting by himself looking out the window. Nonetheless, listening to music is an activity too and I don’t slack on that either.

I like to travel as well and make time to do it one way or the other. I’ve been traveling more the past couple of years – Vancouver, Chicago, Orlando, Miami, Washington – and I intend to expand my travels shortly to parts of Europe and Asia. Stay tuned for that…

There are many other activities that I do but I think my point has been made – hockey is simply just one of my many activities and it can’t be used to define who I am when I spend a lot of time on other activities. It’s all about multi-tasking and convergence for me and I can only hope and pray that I can do more and reach higher plateaus… because in the end, life is too short to not make the most of it.

“To sacrifice oneself never made sense to me cause life is really the only and last gift we’ve all received…”
- Dredg (Pariah)

Whaddup Shorty?

I can't possibly be that ugly...

It’s hard enough to find the right person to marry without having to go through hoops to approach someone. How does a Muslim approach someone they like without giving the wrong impression and violating cultural norms and expectations? The last thing I need is a situation emerging in which I’m being stoned to death.

At a recent wedding, a pretty girl caught my eye. One of my cousins asked me during the evening if I saw anyone I liked and in an effort to play it cool, I replied “naah”. My cousin responded with “Yeah, same here, no one here of interest.” I have a feeling that he saw the same girl that I did and that we both probably had our eye on her the entire weekend… damn… competition against someone I’d rather not have to compete with…

…now that I think of it, I probably violated some sort of religious expectation by checking this girl out but hey, it is what it is. How else am I to find someone? If I see a girl I like, I look at her. I could have approached her and tried to drop some lines like “Whaddup shorty? Whacchu sayin’, girl?” but I doubt that’d work coming from prim-and-proper me. I could play it all Islamic and ask to speak to her parents for marital purposes but why would I want to talk to her parents if I can’t even talk to her? What a convoluted way of finding someone to marry!

So what did I do? I made a point of “accidentally” coming across her at some point during the function in order to see if she might at least acknowledge me. And so she did… she looked up at me after I was “accidentally” in her way and we shared a smile… a polite smile but a smile nonetheless. Woohoo! Progress! One of my other cousins saw this and tried to tease me about it but I ignored him while he revelled in his own humour. I got my smile in… now maybe, just maybe, I might get a hello or a “how do you do, ma’am?” in next time…

…fortunately for me, Muslim weddings have multiple functions so I got another opportunity to see this pretty girl. Thank God for the convoluted marital process! At this second function, I decided to scope out the girl a bit more and make a play… but I decided to settle for the conventional Islamic route instead. I told my mom about her and apparently, as most mothers seem to do at this point in their sons’ lives, she also noticed this girl and was intrigued by her. Now we see what comes of it. Maybe I should have just tried dropping those lines instead with this pretty girl… at least that way, I’d keep the “mother-factor” out of it. Daah! What a can of worms I may have just opened…

“It makes me wish I was a banger… I come and retaliate…”
- Dredg (Saviour)

Harvest Season

Apples, oranges, pears = hearts, lungs, livers...

Life begins before we know it and ends before we’re ready to call it an end. However, that doesn’t mean that our deaths can’t help others who aren’t prepared to accept death quite yet. There’s a serious shortage of transplantable organs such as lungs, hearts, livers, stomachs, kidneys and more and many people are forced to wait for an organ to become available for themselves.

I’ve been thinking about it for some time now and I feel that it’s important I donate my organs for others to use once my time is up. I have no use for them once my life is over and they’ll just go to waste in my wooden box six feet below the ground. Would it not make better sense to give those to someone else in order for them to continue living? Who knows – maybe a part of me will continue to live on and make a difference in the world.

Then again, there’s always the chance that the black market may get a hold of my organs instead and sell them off to the highest bidder…

“Trying to move down in this grave, trying to believe in every faith as another bridge to clarity…”
- Lacuna Coil (Daylight Dancer)

The War Machine

A system of controls and suppression...

It’s amazing how many people actually believe that non-Westerners hate Western nations because of their hatred for “freedom of speech, freedom of thought, freedom of belief and freedom of rights”. However, ask anyone who comes from, or has family and friends from, a country outside of these Western nations and you’ll see the reason for this dislike or hatred is far different. The war machine is always hard at work to spin things far from the truth in order to justify what they do…

Western nations are generally disliked because they have, for hundreds of years, colonized and exploited other nations. In essence, other countries are being raped by these Western nations. Economies are made to be subservient to Western nations. People are told their cultures are backwards and have to conform to Western practises and objectives. Entire nations are robbed of their resources and threatened to accept this or be attacked for their insolence. All in the supposed name of “freedom” and “democracy”, we have nations that are bled dry in order to support Western nations and when one of these nations tries to stand up for itself and declare it to be enough, they’re made out to be a villain and attacked.

Case-in-point: Iraq, a nation rich in history and resources, had Saddam Hussain installed as their leader by the United States in order to carry out their objectives. Once he had served his usefulness, they turned on him and used that as a means to “shock and awe” the nation into American control. Never mind the fact that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction – they could barely afford food and the United Nations confirmed there was no weapons of any kind there – but they were attacked on that premise in order for the United States and other nations to regain control of their massive oil reserves. The first thing that was secured when the Americans illegally invaded Iraq: the oil reserves.

Another case-in-point: Cuba, just a couple hundred kilometres south of Miami, was raided of its resources in the 1950’s by the United States before the Cuban Revolution came about. The movement, successful in 1959 when Fidel Castro came to power, was predicated on the Cuban people having enough of their nation and people being looted and exploited by the United States. Despite not being much better off today, Cuba pushed back against their nation’s exploitation and to this day, the United States boycotts Cuba for forcing their personnel out of the island nation.

If one studies American foreign policy and covert operations dating back to 1907 and beyond, it becomes readily apparent that a recipe is in use on how to build up some nations while tearing down others. A systematic method of control is exerted over others and while the Western nations enjoy luxury and peace, blood and oil are spilt with fires burning away at whatever’s left. Freedom is something that people of other nations don’t have thanks to Western nations exploiting them… the irony being that while being denied freedom by Western nations controlling them, non-Western nations are threatened to conform and accept or be labelled as an enemy of “freedom”. Maybe that’s why Western nations are so disliked… they export “freedom” in order to control them instead…

“No kids, but trust me I know how to raise a gun…”
- Jay-Z (Come And Get Me)