MUSLIM YOUTH IN A CAGE CALLED MODERN WORLD; part 2
By Lubnah Abdulhalim
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| Photo Courtesy: wallpaperswa.com |
It can be so painful and frustrating when a Muslim youth is neglected not only by the parents, but by the society as well. We have parents who have given their children extreme freedom to the extent that it can just be counted as negligence and recklessness on their side. Most of the times, youths are judged by their character and how they behave when with people but sometimes who is to blame if not parents? The environment in which a youth grows up in really molds him/her to what they finally grow up into. Usually, youth are very vulnerable and especially when he/she misses out on parental love and guidance, that is when we as youth get out of control. Some parents just don’t have the time to listen and talk to their children and young adults. In fact sometimes, it may pass weeks before they see one another because everyone is busy in their own world. They don’t bother to ask or even to care about what is happening in their children’s lives so long as they see them at home with no vivid scratches and wounds then life is good enough for them. But for young Muslims growing up in such a malicious environment, a lot of deep secrets are hidden from parents and if the parents never bother to get close to their children, that’s when the youth find other ways to compensate their parents’ negligence. Some indulge in drugs, some go into prostitution, some just seek love from any man or woman ready to offer them what they need most; which is attention. It is true that some parents actually do offer the parental care and love to their children, but the saddening part is that, these parents are ‘okay’ with how the modern Muslim child is growing into. We have parents who totally see no problem in seeing their young adult daughter go out in exposing clothes or without her hijab, or for some, they totally have no problem if their son comes home with a girl to spend me with. Parents, leaders, role models are letting us, the youth, down. We need to be reminded, we need guidance, we need the love and attention and most of all, we need the support when we are interested in deen. We need more parents saying, ‘it is totally okay if you don’t want to do medicine even though you passed very well, you can go do Islamic studies as you so wish.’ I wish more parents would know that the world doesn’t only revolve around Medicine, Engineering, Law or Business or any other thing they would be proud for their children to take. And that this same world needs more Islamic scholars and academicians and writers. The solution to this is to have both parents and leaders dedicate more of their time speaking to young people; not to harass or condemn for their mistakes or mishaps, but to guide them through their worldly tests and give them the support they need. We need parents acting maturely and setting up good examples for their children to follow instead of joining them in their lost world.
We are living in such a rotten society and our morality is melting away like how wet clay drips off in our hands. We are living in this current era where homosexuality is now being legalized in different parts of the world, we are living in this era whereby everyone is tweeting #mydressmychoice, we are living in the world of parents raping their children and children raping their parents, we are living in the world of bestiality, the world of children taking their parents to court, the world of corruption, prostitution and drugs; we are now living in the era where impunity and immorality is being mistaken to freedom. It is a scary generation and what’s even scarier is the fact that we are scared how our children in the future generations will be like. The fitnah and tribulations can be overwhelming and sometimes however hard a believer tries to abstain from looking, going and doing, the fitnah; sometimes in human form, sometimes in form of music, or videos or even written words, avails itself to him/her whenever he is, comes to them and lures them into sinful acts. This is the era of jihad an-nafs; the era where one has to battle between his mind, heart and soul; to battle with their desires not to indulge in haraam acts. This can be so tricky especially when we are in the technology and internet era whereby youth are being psychologically and indirectly brainwashed and being convinced without them realizing that they are gradually changing their thoughts and way of thinking. Peer pressure plays a great role in the indulgence of youth in immorality especially issues like drug addiction, prostitution, becoming pornography addicts and things like that. Moreover, a lot of young people don’t know who to approach when they are in agony or in doubt or in fear and this is when Satan lures them into acts like drinking alcohol and use of drugs. Worse still, children are left unsupervised; given iphones at very young age, unknown what kind of friends they have, what sites they visit in the internet, where they get the money to spend, where they spend most of their time or why they come home so late. That same negligence as mentioned above is what influences immorality as well. But what best can we do to help youth overcome the challenges they have having to deal with fitnah face to face and help them abstain from sinful acts? We need guidance from our leaders and preferably, the young da’ees and sheikhs since they can easily bond with other young people. We need sheikhs who would not condemn young people for watching or for that matter, being obsessed with football or any kind of sports or maybe play station. We have to realize that in our era, a young man watching football is much better than the one sitting in a baraza with peers somewhere, doing nothing but having idle talk, or watching pornography or taking drugs. And if we try to stop them from watching sports, then we are giving space to Satan to corrupt their minds with other things. So long as the young men obsessed with football prays five times and fasts and does ibadah, we should actually thank God that sports is what they spend their time in rather than other immoral acts. We don’t need sheikhs calling out ‘young people are adulterers, young people are immoral…’ we need leaders and role models who are approachable, those who can listen to the youth talk about their mistakes without judging them; those who can give proper guidance and counseling. We need Islamic heroes.
Unemployment is a worldwide challenge; not just for the youth but all kind of people. The opportunities are lacking everywhere and many youth are left with nothing to do than extreme idleness which further leads to idle talk and walk. As much as our leaders have continuously ‘promised’ to create more opportunities, the youth have to learn to be independent and create the opportunities themselves. But the problem is not that they can’t create jobs, apart from financial challenges, most youth are just too choosy in the jobs to do. Sometimes one may find a jobless youth and may be offered a job as a super market attendant or maybe as a shop keeper but they refuse the opportunity. Not because it is not paying off well but many Muslim especially as per my own opinion of Mombasa youth is that they are arrogant even when they have no high educational qualifications. You may a form four drop out but still want to be the boss. Most youth do not realize that a journey of a thousand miles start with one step; all they want is to fly and reach their destination without any struggle. Go around the local supermarkets and the number of local youths working as attendants or assistants are either very low or probably none at all. More career talks and especially on entrepreneurship should be organized for youth to learn more on how to make it through their life even when the opportunities are very few. Yet still, they have to be taught not to choose jobs with lame claims of ‘how can I do such a job?! It is not of my standard.’ They have to be taught how to be humble and tackle their egos. They have to be inspired more and given more talks by professors, leaders and role models.
