It Makes No Sense

By Thomas Balderston

 What is happening in Saana; what is happening in Yemen; what is happening in Iraq; what is happening in Syria; what is happening in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran and other areas of the world does not make sense.  What are people fighting for?  There is the faction that desires only power.  To control the country is to control the money is to control the people and to enjoy the largesse.  Is that what both sides are fighting for?  In tribal-centric countries what is each tribe seeking?  Why the borders.  Why the guns?  So many questions, but the answers, how simple they can be.  It is selfish determination not selfless sacrifice that prevails over those throwing rocks, firing weapons, tossing bottles, hurling Molotov cocktails or grenades, and ordering indiscriminate killing.  What are they dying for?  What can and will be achieved.  Death fills the air and blood coats the streets.  Is this the Will of Allah, the turmoil caused by civil strife by factions each knowing Allah is on their side?  Most war-torn areas have Muslims involved, engaged, and attacking each other yelling  ‘Allahu Akbar.’

 If the victor is victorious claiming it is Allah’s Will, only to be followed up with tyrannical governance and a requirement for absolute obedience, is His Will being honored.  Add to that employing a personal secret service, incarcerating journalists who disagree along with pubic dissenters, and hiring family or tribal members in the new government.  To brace the new order assistance from richer countries for financial aid to improve conditions is sought.  Can the funds be for enhanced agricultural techniques, industrial manufacturing opportunities, food stuffs to feed the hungry, and weapons to equip the army?  What follows the military success is bribing by way of favoritism to sects or factions for public service jobs or public sector works in exchange for political support.  Then there is the earnings stream, as it were, the victors and their cadre taking a financial cut of all that flows through the new government and making deposits in the banks of the most pleasant areas of the world to visit and enjoy life.  Then also there is running the country.

 How does this story end?  Or does  a most similar story begin all over again?  Is there a happy ending?  If so for who?  Do all stories need war to fit the pattern?  The people as a whole prop up the call for change, yet suffer in the end, as the victors are but a few and those most loyal, most familial, and most needed to retain power are kept close.  Is this as Allah Wills?   Allah does require absolute obedience.  Do we see in the aftermath of war in the Muslim world a tiered system where each level, from the top down, requires absolute obedience to the level above?   That is as it seems.  Yet as one surveys each level going upward corruption creeps in, deception creeps in until at the top we have the Best of all Deceivers, of all Planners. 

 What is the ending you see?  Is it a happy one?

 If freedom was an objective for winning the civil strife, the war, will there be freedom?  If peace was an objective for winning the civil strife, the war, will there be peace by order of the tyrant, his secret police or paid internal spies?  Can peace exist where Allah Wills?

 Peace can only be attained when hearts are changed for God. 

 There is fantasy in almost every story.  It has a good beginning.  All is well.  Enter the villain, the mask of evil, and changes take place.  Fear grips the populace.  A faction of good hearts senses the urgency to deal with the problem.  Fear is more effective than the truth and has much success.  The populace turns towards the evil who offers protection.  Their satisfaction is short-lived and those who then realize the truth are revealed and suppressed.  The good contingent must operate in secrecy until they are ready.  A leader of the good takes steps towards a new world order.  Death by the evil-one continues.  Can good overcome evil?  It is what we all desire; the happy ending.  The good becomes the victorious one and is the fairest of all.  Peace proceeds from the victory of the good.

 Staring into the night, the dark clouds and smoke-like mist, suddenly a small light is noticed.  It sweeps to the left and right and comes closer, gets larger.  Then there is more than one light, then many, a gathering of the good is prepared to deal with the dark.  Sacrifices are made.  Lights are snuffed out, but they keep coming.  There is death, but can the good overcome the evil and the death?  The story continues.  We are caught in the web of intrigue with hope that all ends well.  The leader of the good dressed in golden armor beneath simple peasant dress is viewed carrying his torch with a band of followers behind.  He confronts the most evil of all the evil-ones.   The most-evil is much larger than the good-leader and his protective garments are more elaborate and complete.  They stare at each other, good facing evil, their weapons appear, swords, the evil one carrying many other tools of war as well.

 Their swords meet with a violent clash.  The battle is a lengthy and turbulent fight, the observer never certain who has the upper hand.  The reader, the viewer, is hidden from the climax when the noise is the greatest only to be followed by silence.  It is finished.  The scene is in a morning light now and the battlefield is behind a curtain of thick dust.  The curtain tears from top to bottom, the dust falling to the ground to the right and the left.  Difficult to distinguish but a figure, as an apparition, appears coming closer and closer, becoming clearer and clearer.  It is….

 The evil-one proudly comes out of the dust waving his weapons of destruction. Disheveled and damaged, it is clearly not the one people wanted.   The audience gasps.  This is not the joyful outcome expected.  When he speaks it is in a deep rough and brusque tone.  “It is finished.  I am the overlord of the cosmos.  Good is dead!”  The people cower.  They are lost and have lost any sense of direction.  

 A breeze picks up and moves the air and the trees.  The evil overlord has the populace kneel at his command.  The wind velocity increases.  Hair on each persons head moves.  Scarves around necks stir.   Above a whirlwind forms, its whirring sound noticeable and the people look up. 

 Above is the good-leader looking down on everything and focused on the evil-overlord.  He has a unique aura about him.  Overlord looks up in disbelief.  He puts a hand over his forehead to provide shadow from that emanation from above. He calls out, “You are dead.”   In response, “but I am Risen, and here to protect everyone from the evil you have caused.  They will be free as you will die.”  

 The good-leader alights the surface to face the overlord before the people and with a swift motion of his right arm it was as if a sword of fire blazed through the center of this large evil element, his body engulfed in a vibrant, brilliant, ball of flame.  It was over in an instant and all that remained of the overlord was a black dot on the ground.  The sun arose in full glory to shine on the populace.  It was over. 

 The people turned to the good.  Stay with us.  I can no longer be with you as I am, but I will be with you as you want me to be and as I was for you and as you can be for all others.  Know the good will stay with you; it will dwell inside you and forever guide you from the sword of the evil-overlord.  He then calls for the people to collectively guide each other and live caring, protecting and loving one another.

 There is a happy ending.

 Ask about it.

 The story is available.  Many are precluded from reading it to avoid the good overcoming the evil and eliminating the autocracy and tyranny that can operate freely when hearts are selfish, hardened and determined to win even Pyrrhic victories.

 Grace and Peace.

 Author:  Thomas Balderston, author – Wake Up! Wake Up! The Testimony of a Layman, and The Proven God.  Blogger:  http://www.Understand-Islam.com