Archive for the ‘Social’ Category

Pakistan, What if we took an area in the country and started from scratch?

Posted: March 28, 2013 in Affad Shaikh, Democrat, Education, Foreign Policy, leadership, liberation struggles, Politics, Progressive, Republican, Social, TED
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affad with pakistan consulate

Pakistan is a hot mess.  I got that sense of Pakistan recently when I was invited as a distinguished guest to Pakistan’s 73rd Republic Day event.  Yes, Pakistan has a Republic Day, which is separate from the August 14, 1947 Independence Day.  Republic day marks the day when Indian Muslims decided to split from the Hindu dominated effort for independence to create a Muslim majority nation in the subcontinent.  This moment in history is marked by a resolution that was past in 1940 on March 23 and that is the event that we were celebrating.   I was invited as a distinguished guest because I was a recently elected California Democratic party delegate (ran in an election and won the second highest number of votes!) for District 36.

I am very appreciative of the invitation, however, as an American Muslim of Pakistani roots (I was, after all, born in Karachi) I am a bit disappointed that the most distinguished politician in the room was Congressman Ed Royce, a Republican who has no love for Muslims let alone for Pakistan.  The fact that the Pakistani community could only rope in Royce is a sad state of affairs, but that is also reflective of the hot mess that is Pakistan.

Pakistan has so much potential.  I saw it on the streets of Karachi when I visited in 2008, but its split by economic class warfare, compounded by ethnic and sadly religious sectarian violence.  All of that is politicized into a neopatrimonialist structure of coercive power.

That got me thinking, what if- WHAT IF- we could take a portion of Pakistan and cleave it from the Federalist system to create a experimental political and economic model, not a perfect society, but rather one in which democratic institution building is given a chance to succeed while there is real economic development.  Basically, why can’t we scrap the entire government/social structure to begin building a small piece of what Pakistan could be and slowly roll that model out elsewhere.

This is not my idea, is actually something Paul Romer has been advocating.  His contribution was this concept of “charter cities” which he promoted at a TED talk in 2009.  Subsequently Honduras followed suit but that relationship quickly fell apart, largely I believe because of Romer domineering (almost new form of imperialism) character, but not out of malice but rather out of a desire to keep the charter city concept from falling into the interests of a few elite elements within the political ruling class.

Check out the NYTimes article about the project in Honduras and in terms of Pakistan, a charter city in the Himalaya’s where tourism could potentially feed economic growth or Gwadar, China’s deep sea port access to the oil rich fields of Central Asia, really its pet project, in the arid deserts of Baluchistan, would be awesome sites for consideration.  Pakistani’s can start from scratch, young activists and western educated entrepreneurs, congregating into a place where democratic institution building can truly take shape- utopia?  Dare I dream?

Muslim Men in Mini Skirts, Heels and Beards…. #LikeNever

Posted: March 13, 2013 in Affad Shaikh, American Muslim, History, identity, Islam, male sexuality, Masculinity, Masjid, Sharia, Social
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Check out them pointy heeled shoes! (and the socks, those became a aristocratic fashion symbol too!)

Check out them pointy heeled shoes! (and the socks, those became a aristocratic fashion symbol too!)

Fashion is all about leaning forward.  Designers do their thing by pushing the limits and this post is almost a stream of conscience reaction to men’s fashion because I highly doubt one day we will have practicing Muslim males showing up at masjids wearing mini skirts and high heels and the while sporting burly beards.

Did you think high heels were only a women thing?  If so you are completely wrong!  In fact, thanks to Persian (Muslim Safavid) fashion, heels made their way into European court (Shah Abbas’s diplomatic missions to Germany, Russia and Spain).  Soon enough, heels were all the rage amongst the aristocrats from Vienna to Westminster (until Napoleon banned them, I wonder what complex he had against them since it would only have helped him!).  What Persians had worn out of necessity, the heels helped them control their stately steeds in battle, were soon to be regulated into the world of women’s high end fashion, Jimmy Choo’s, anyone?

But the current trend in fashion for androgynous fashion- the mixing of masculine and feminine characteristics (think Prince, Marilyn Manson, Annie Lennox, Boy George, Steven Tyler…).  Basically its the ideal of either having no gender value, or having some aspects generally attributed to the opposite sex.  I would say would be the idea that in Europe little boys could not wear pants during the Victorian era because those garments were the exclusive dress of grown men.  So women wearing pants during that time was unthinkable (interestingly enough Paris just took off the ban on women wearing pants but the Hijab is not permitted!).

Well bringing back the blog to relevancy, I was perusing through Pinterest’s collection of Men’s Fashion pins and came across the JW Anderson collection, I was immediately reminded of the many men’s fashion restrictions placed by the Prophet.  JW Anderson has created the perfect line of boy’s dressed in mini skirts and I cringe at the thought that his design might influence other men’s designers to follow suit, happily though, this whole thing is a blurb that history will allow us to laugh at, or maybe not… Judge for yourself:

J.W.-Anderson-boys in dresses sipping tea

So besides this being the bane of fashion and totally a FML moment, I wondered what the Prophet had to say about this, because he had a lot to say about men’s fashion and not just about women’s fashion (i.e. the Hijab) yet we barely hear about that in our culture wars.  For instance in one Hadith the men who shave their beards were seen to be to be outside the realm of mercy from Allah (as Reported by Ibn Abbas (R.A.) in Tibrabi).  (Apparently beards also keep you healthy, go figure!)

In one variant, “The Messenger of Allah cursed men who made themselves look like women and women who made themselves look like men.” [al-Bukhari]

Also:

Abu Hurayra said, “The Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, cursed any man who wears women’s clothes and any woman who wears men’s clothes.” [Abu Dawud]

...if heels aren't your thing, then try this pair of mary jane shoes!

…if heels aren’t your thing, then try this pair of mary jane shoes!

The whole thing is just fascinating to me because it seems to me the projection of societal norms is leaning towards this androgynous fashion.  Pop culture is thriving on this norm, within the fashion industry this style of gender neutral clothing has been raising itself in one form or another since the 1990′s.  The acceptance of skinny jeans, and even women’s jeans worn by teenagers (sometime rock stars) is increasingly becoming acceptable.

I do then wonder how Islam will cope with this trend.  Women wearing jeans, at least in the West, is now a settled fashion question.  Though from what I understand girls can’t wear trouser type things during prayer therefore they will don long flowly garbs.

Clearly cross dressing by men is prohibited in Islam but what about androgynous or “genderless” dress, or transgenders in general in Islam?

(Curiously enough is there a “necessity clause” for instance in the case of Mualana Abdul Aziz of Lal Masjid standoff fame, who was caught trying to escape arrest while wearing a burka?)

In my search for this I ran across this article on Transgenderism and Islam, where I found a translation of renowned Hadith scholar An-Nawawi.

I unfortunately can’t share due to copyright restrictions.  which makes me hate JSTOR, may God rest Aaron Swartz soul and allow his mission be accomplished!

But the what I can share I am pulling from Wikipedia just to avoid any sanctions or what have you:

“A mukhannath is the one (“male”) who carries in his movements, in his appearance and in his language the characteristics of a woman. There are two types; the first is the one in whom these characteristics are innate, he did not put them on by himself, and therein is no guilt, no blame and no shame, as long as he does not perform any (illicit) act or exploit it for money (prostitution etc.). The second type acts like a woman out of immoral purposes and he is the sinner and blameworthy.”

While the whole thing requires more reading on my part, I will leave you with this.  In the same country as the Burka Wearing Mullah, the Pakistani Supreme Court ruled that the government must take proactive steps to protect transsexuals from harassment and discrimination, although no legislation in the area of gender identity exists.  Pakistan officially protects ‘Third gender’ discrimination back in 2010.  Which is not to say that the actual protection occurs, but if you ever visit Pakistan, its totally an open secret that no one officially wants to recognize.

The last thing to remaining untouched in this post on fashion is the elephant that never leaves the room- Hijab- and well, on that account I will borrow the Nobel Peace Prize Tawakkul Karman, the mother of Yemen’s revolution, response to a question by a journalist on how the hijab is not proportionate with her level of education and intellect:

“Man in early times was almost naked, and as his intellect evolved he started wearing clothes. What I am today and what I’m wearing represents the highest level of thought and civilization that man has achieved, and is not regressive. It’s the removal of clothes again that is a regression back to the ancient times.”

Facebook Wants a Piece of the Twitter (SMS) Revolution Pie

Posted: December 4, 2012 in Affad Shaikh, American Muslim, facebook, liberation struggles, Social, Social Media, Strategy
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Strategic move indeed, Facebook rolls out plans for a new messaging service via SMS mobile phone services.  You might be wondering how antiquated, right?

I would be as well if I hadn’t spent a few months following the “backend” of the story about social media and its use during revolutions in the Middle East, in Iran before that, in disaster relief in Japan and the list does go on.  We in the US primarily interact with the world wide web on some form of personal computer in the form of desktop (less so today), laptops and/or tablets and the growing smart phones.  However, this technology has not translated for the rest of the world.  The transfer of use is greatly limited by costs.  An average middle class income in Egypt for example could hardly afford the cost of a personal computer and the internet services charges associated with it.  However, everyone out of necessity as well, can afford a cell phone and pay-as-use cards or chips for mobile phones.

Internet use, therefore seems like a everyday occurrence, is in fact a luxury in the developing world.  Facebooks fortunes rest on access to the internet via out of reach technology for these countries.  While facebook may have a billion users, its potential in many markets has or is maxed out because the vast majority of people don’t use the internet daily.

Twitter on the other hand represents a business model and in particular accessibility that is unparalleled by many social media providers through its connection to SMS, or texting message connectivity.  In one sit down a user in Egypt can set up an account via Twitter but not have to rely on direct internet access in order to stay connected on their cell phone to the internet.  They still have access to the vastness that is the internet network to get their message out, but they dont rely on the internet website directly.

Thats why many in the Western media labeled the recent Arab revolutions to Twitter.  I am finding out that that is itself a major point of debate and criticism and would require a whole other post but the conclusion is that Facebooks model is very limiting.

Just to get you some figures: prior to the Egyptian revolution, the population was around 78 million.  The mobile phone industry had 73% penetration into the market, with only 10% of that connected with Data to the internet.  Think about it this way, formal bank accounts in Egypt only amounted to 10% of the population.  More people used a cell phone then had a bank account.

Now consider internet connectivity in Egypt.  According to the pre-Revolution-Mubarak Ministry of Communication 2010 study, only 22% of the population had access.

Putting that into context think about the United States, with a population of 130 million people, there are 120 million cell phone subscribers here.  Thats incredible!  And internet access, while not complete, is still higher then that of Egypt.

Given the industry environment in the developing world, this makes complete sense for Facebook to want to get access to this market.  Facebook is assuming that this messaging, free and subsidized by the company, will lead to new users, therefore new marketing and data gathering prospects.  The downside is that the assumption is based on a growth in internet access, or developing a messaging service that is able to take millions of text messages and making sense of gathered data.  Subsidized messages, MIGHT, allow Facebook to send direct advertisement messages.

The kicker here is that Facebook had been given the title of “SMS Killer” (according to wired a year earlier) just around the beginning of this past year according to NYTimes blog and here we are with Facebook readjusting its strategy to fit the global marketscape with its no-user-account-needed-SMS-chat capability.  Will text messaging disappear?  Probably not, but what it does mean is that Facebook has now realized the marketscape and impediment to its capturing a segment of the larger broader market.  Check out this talk at TED by Robert Neuwirth about this market-D and how cell providers in Africa had to rethink their strategy to get market penetration into Nigeria, the largest market in Africa.

Vandalizing with the Succulent Sort

Posted: December 3, 2012 in Activism, Affad Shaikh, American Muslim, Green Deen, leadership, Organic Gardening, Politics, Progressive, Social, Strategy, team work
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http://assets.inhabitat.com/files/gratewithflowers.jpgIn thinking about cityscape and living experience, I admit Los Angeles is one big paved over concrete and asphalt uglyscape. There are very few places that look attractive and those are largely found in affluent areas. If you read my 10 TED Lectures you must watch post, there were two lectures that addressed this very issue. The first was by Pam Warhurst who challenges the notion of bureaucracy being able to change something like the plants in and around the city or create open natural spaces, so in a way like the Succulent Vandals, her group of folks in English town of Todmorden went about transforming the landscape by making it edible. Yes, you read that correctly. The second talk was by Kent Larson who proposed that building in the future city requires us to examine the fundamental notions we have about cites by considering a rule of 20 minutes. You can watch both the lectures here, along with the 8 others that I recommend you to watch.

So it was not to long after watching those TED lectures that I ran across these planting vandals who turn up on a abandoned, ugly and neglected Los Angeles city lot and transform it over night into a city garden. The practice known as Guerrilla Gardening is spreading, and for good reason, lots of ugly cement/asphalt cites need to greenified. I think this is just another great example of civic engagement and people saying enough with the bull shit, if government can’t get it (changing the cityscape) done, we will do what we can.

Let Food Be Thy Medicine

Posted: November 28, 2012 in 70 day challenge, Affad Shaikh, American Muslim, CAIR, diabetes, diet, fitness, Health, health and fitness, heart disease, lifestyle, obesity, Politics, Progressive, Social
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let food be thy medicine

Sage advice from Hippocrates, the father of medicine who said “Let food be thy medicine”

This is not giving us a license to live to eat whatever we want, but rather the way I interpret the quote is about understanding how food is the frontline and the continuing anecdote to the health problems the human body is challenged with over time.

My journey has been an interesting one.  I started as an advocate for American Muslim civil rights, and I worked for CAIR, an organization described as the “bull dog” on these issues.  We fought back, we fought hard and we didn’t care if it meant being excluded form the table when we knew that the issues that affected the community was not even being discussed in an honest and sincere way by Federal, state or local agencies.

Somewhere during my six years of doing this fighting my body began to give out.  My body stopped while I tried to fight on.  The consequences of which were evident in that I suffered from severe insomnia, severe back pain, anxiety attacks, headaches and the simplest task of walking a block from one meeting to another resulted in loss of breath and complete sweat storm.  I had gained weight because my daily routine involved me sitting at my desk at work, to sitting in my car commuting, to sitting on my coach, to sitting and eating and then sleeping.  This was on repeat for six years, intermittently I would try to get out and do the activities I once loved but with greater and greater failure.

I got my act together because at the end of the day I believed that my health was my personal responsibility and Islamically its an amana, a trust between an individual and God that the individual is held responsible for.  But each time I got to working out I failed.  Sometimes the worst was me working out and rather then losing weight, gaining weight.

The realization I had, after a lot of lecturing from my mom and health conscience friends, boiled down to food consumption.

The bottom line was that the more conscience I became of what I put into my body, the more weight I loss, the less I felt fatigued and all the other things.  That realization over time was revolutionary for me because I now understood something that I couldn’t quite comprehend before this, there was something fundamentally wrong with the foods in restaurants, on the shelves of grocery stores especially those being advertised and promoted as “healthy” alternatives.  This food was not nutritious, it was not filling me up , I ate it and was hungry to eat more of it or stuff similar to it.  But why isn’t our food nutritious?  How am a an informed consumer when everything I eat is hurting me?

Here I am standing at the doorstep of another David-and-Golith advocacy struggle: our current policy on health, food and agriculture is not designed to benefit the citizens of America.

Which is an utterly sad trend across the board, whether its civil rights or on education or employee rights, it is easier in the United States to be a consumer rather then to be a citizen.

Today consumption of food is probably just as dangerous to your health as is joining the Army and going off to fight in Afghanistan.  While in the army one would be in the direct line of enemy fire, Americans at home have no idea that we are eating ourselves to a shorter life span.  What good was all the scientific and technological developments since WWII of decreasing child mortality, increasing life expectancy, lowering cost of living, when the foods we eat push us further and further along the path of medicated life and eventually death?  Death that could have been avoided altogether.

What stands in the way is our Government, Corporate interests and foolish people who believe in true American values and principles but only as much as it benefits them directly.

So Hippocrates was right and at the same time wrong in modern standards when he said “Let food be thy medicine.”  Today not all foods are equal, not all choice is free and none of this wrapped up in personal responsibility.  However, food can be our lifeline out of this when it isn’t packaged in plastic with a long list of ingredients the majority of which we can’t pronounce let alone clearly know where in nature it comes from.

Why I can support Obama but not vote for him

Posted: November 5, 2012 in Activism, Affad Shaikh, American Muslim, Asian American, Democrat, Foreign Policy, History, Islam, Justice, Politics, Progressive, Republican, Social
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politics

I believe this is half constructed reality. For my conscience these issues affect my vote just as much as empowering the community through political strategy and also the greater good issues.

I wrote an earlier post, where I shared an unpublished letter about how frustrated I was last year in August with President Obama.  I cannot consciously vote for President Obama given his stances on a range of issues.  He is, in my opinion, not someone who fits well with my conscious.  However, I think people have the impression, or are confused, about my stance when it comes to President Obama, and worse voting.

I am a firm supporter of voting, people are dying to have that right, as seen currently in Syria, so voting matters even more.  Also voting is not just about or between two Presidential candidates.  In my opinion local politics is far more impactful on my present circumstances then the Presidential election.

People believe that my tactic is a wasted vote.  I strongly disagree because my decision is not constructed blindly.  Voting is as much a community strategy as it is a personal decision.  However, not voting is unconscionable and I do not accept that line of reasoning.

I understand and appreciate the gravity of having Romney become President.  However, from the get go, my vote in California does not matter because California has never been in contention when it comes to the popular vote or the Electoral College.  However, if you live in a battleground state, or as they are called by others-swing states- like Florida, Ohio, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and now New Hampshire, your vote actually matters.

In those states a minority turnout that supports Obama or Romney can significantly swing the states electoral college, and a study shows that minority do make up significant population growth areas in the past ten years.  Consider Nevada where its estimated that 12 percent of the population now is Asian.  That means if there is a 50-50 split among the general population, a strong Asian American turnout could tip the election. NAAS estimates that there is a 59 percent favorability rating for Obama among Asian Americans and they are more likely to vote if they have registered to do so. (stats pulled from National Asian American Survey)

While I will not vote for President Obama, I will do what it takes to support him where it counts.  That is why I devoted my weekend to getting out the Asian American vote with American Asians, Pacific Islanders for Obama‘s caravan from California to Nevada.  I encouraged my employed friends to donate to those swing state efforts.

However, I do not have any illusions that voting for President Obama is going to change his trajectory on issues that matter to me as an American Muslim. I encourage people to vote with their nose plugged and their eyes closed.

Furthermore, I am thankful I live in California where my vote doesn’t really matter.  Here I believe I can vote for a third party to give them stronger support, but more importantly exercise strategic voting.  For example read this excerpt from Chris Mathews biography Jack Kennedy: Elusive Hero:

As a Roman Catholic, Jack Kennedy would have been, until this moment, an unlikely candidate for national office.  World War II had changed things, however, and it was obvious that now there were ways to position oneself favorably as an Irish Catholic, to take advantage of the changes.  He needed to make the case that the number of Catholics Stevenson lost in 1952 could be lured back to the fold with the right running mate.  Catholics liked Ike, who’d vanquished Hitler, and were turned off by the divorced [Stevenson]…

Kennedy gave the job of proving the case for putting him on the ticket to Ted Sorensen…Again, Sorenson proved equal to the task, knocking out a seventeen-page memo showing the power of the Catholic vote in fourteen key states.  It demonstrated how Catholics’ defection in 1952 had cost the Democrats the election.  It showed, too, that they had split their tickets int he election, voting for Democrats for the House and the Senate, but for Ike for President [who was Republican]…

…he had the Sorensen memo distributed by Connecticut’s John Bailey, the state Democratic Party chairman, a close Kennedy ally.  In any case, the “Bailey Memo…” went out to fifty top Democrats thought to have Stevenson’s ear.  A few days later, it showed its power. Stevenson’s campaign manager, Jim Finnegan, asked for a dozen copies of “that survey” that was going around…”You know, about the Catholic vote.”

What I learn from this is that to show the power of a community’s voting capacity is to understand that it is not a winner take all system.  We have to plan things beyond the immediate election.  The rate of return in this upcoming election is insignificant because we do not, as a community, truly have the leverage to convert those votes into “rewards” which would be the most immediate form of political power we could gain and wield (i.e. appointments to Federal positions, cabinet positions for community members with the right credentials, assistance to elect more people from our community, appointments within key Senatorial or Congressional offices/committees).  That is how Indian Americans and Asian Americans translated their voting bloc power in 2008 and why we see Kal Pen and other Asian Americans in all sorts of positions within the Obama Administration.

The idea is incredibly straightforward and ingenious.  I can see this being applied by the Muslim community to leverage future political clout.  It is much better than the broken record lesser of two evils argument or the equally tiring third party argument being tossed around.  I am hungry for real political power.  I am hungry and I want it sooner for my community, rather then later.  But we seem to keep tossing it down the road with each approaching election.

While I am not deluded to think that we can show that type of results in this election I am still inspired by the JFK strategy to leverage the Catholic vote.   On this reasoning I believe that those Muslims living in non-swing states can, in essence, send a clear message to President Obama and the future Democratic Party that our vote is not to be taken for granted.  Future support depends on addressing our concerns and our issues.

But people living in swing states need to remember that for their consideration is not just their conscious but also the larger fate of the people of the world.   Unfortunately, your vote could place someone worse then Obama AND Bush in the white house. So we owe it to the people of the world to ensure the least amount of suffering possible is conveyed via our President elect.

That is my take on tomorrow’s Presidential election. However, more importantly, keep organizing and working in your communities.  Politics is local and there are significant issues that hit close to home that require your involvement.

Dear Mr. President- Voting for you, again, is hard.

Posted: October 18, 2012 in Activism, Affad Shaikh, American Muslim, Asian American, career, Democrat, Education, Foreign Policy, leadership, Politics, profession, professional, Progressive, public education, Republican, Social, Syria, Tea Party, UC, undergraduate
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The following is a letter I wrote back in August 2011.  Some background: It was one of those late night rants.  I never published it, but in honesty as I head out to precinct walk in Las Vegas, Nevada with fellow South Asians for President Obama, it was fitting I take it from the old note book I scrawled it in and transcribe it here to share with you all.  A lot of the mixed emotions, feelings of being let down- even betrayed- are still there.

August 17, 2011

Dear Mr. President,

I write to you as a disillusioned young professional.  For the past four years I have tried to remind myself why I voted for you and why as an activist in the American Muslim community I championed your cause.  The answers to those questions appear ambiguous.

I look around to see that you have consistently dragged our hopes and aspirations through the audacity of extremist right wing agenda’s- people who hold American values hostage to an America they envision from the 1950′s.  Not only have you made it difficult to champion your cause because you have given up on Civil Rights issues and immigration, blundered on healthcare reform, but, worse of all, you continue to champion draconian measures that pale in comparison to President Bush’s administration.

If I was a one issue voter I would stop there, but I am not.  Instead I have to point out the horrendous development in the most dangerous policy using technological warfare has expanded under your watch.   You have precipitated terrorist-like activities in the pursuit of our enemies, through undeclared wars, in violation of international law in the drone strike program. Worse, you have destroyed due process with the creation of a hit list, extra-judicially executing a 16-year old American citizen.  All the while Syria bleeds and our enemies rally around a noble cause of democracy spreading their cancer within the ranks of Syrians seeking liberty, freedom and justice.

Domestically, instead of helping to shore up the home owners of America, you have aided in the largest bamboozling by corporate America of American taxpayers. Billions are given to those that robbed us and dragged our economy into the ground, all the while, millions of Americans are loosing jobs and their homes.  Yes, the mess you inherited was not simple, its was immense and the worst since the Great Depression, however, handing out money to the Wall Street folks who should be sitting in jails and awaiting trials seems to be the rewarding of rich peoples complete disregard of the rules and decency that has long governed this nation.

You have cut short the aspirations of the very people who will build the future economy of America- our college students.  Your floundering on the Dream Act is but a small indicative measure of your complete failure to provide for college students across the United States the conditions necessary to get an education and build the American economy.

Worse, as the reality of the so-called Debt Ceiling compromise is coming forth, we see that legislators eliminated the interest subsidy for a government-subsidized loan program for graduate and professional students.  While undergraduate education will continue to be subsidized by the Federal government, the truth is Mr. President, your future economic vision does not rest on a nations undergraduates alone, in fact, it is clear that our economy demands an undergraduate degree, but future career require graduate degrees in order for young professionals such as myself to become capable of achieving the American Dream.

That reality frightens me because I am part of the elite 10% of the American population that has obtained a high school diploma, successfully pursued a bachelors degree and am seeking a graduate degree, yet will be locked out of my dreams.  However, I am blessed, because the majority of our country’s students are left out of the education process and their doors to economic success are shut.  This population also is on the federal altar for debt ceiling negotiations.

The question isn’t what has happened to you Mr. President, rather the question is, were you ever really committed to our cause, the cause for an America that belonged to all?  If so, you are not fighting for us, rather your actions suggest you are fighting against us.

Mr. President, I have a hard time deciding to vote for you again.  I can’t say  I will campaign for you.  The irony  of my situation is that as our Presidential nominee you offered us hope, but as the President you have robbed us of that hope.

Sincerely,

Affad Shaikh

A Demoralized American

Whats telling about this letter is that I wrote it while the debt ceiling crisis was going on.  The news articles, I remember them so vividly, were fear mongering and apocalyptic.  The news was all around bad and I sensed that that mood doused my attitude while writing this.

A year and a half later, right after the November elections, a lame duck congress will once again be faced with a crisis, the magnitude of which is insane.  In the impending debt crisis for the winter of 2012, our military budget will literally be gutted if Congress and the President don’t come up with an appropriate budget.

5 Things That Help Me Keep the Ramadan Spirit Going

Posted: October 16, 2012 in Affad Shaikh, American Muslim, Islam, Ramadan, Social
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Its another set of 10 days- those of Dhul Hajj.  Hajj…sigh.  Well if you can’t go for Hajj, there are the 10 days leading into Eid and the most important day for everyone, regardless if you’re performing Hajj or not, is the Day of Arefa.  As those 10 days start (today), I was reflecting on how this year I have been able to keep the Ramadan spirit going, much longer then usual.  These are the 5 things I feel I have been able to do to keep that Ramadan feeling:

1.  Don’t jump out of the deep end: I think one of the things we do during Ramadan is we participate in a great deal of sunnah activities- extra prayers, reading more Quran, sitting together to share food, longer duahs.  All of these things are easier during Ramadan and in return are what add to the Ramadan spirit.  By extending those activities, even a fraction of the intensity of Ramadan, into the rest of your year will help you keep hold of Ramadan.  For me, this year that is a significant change.

2.  Mercy is a Year Round Thing:  During Ramadan we are filled with Rahma, as Allah floods our lives with Rahma.  I feel that one thing we lose after Ramadan is that sense of Rahma and in turn we begin to lose the Ramadan spirit.  We worked on holding onto Rahma by doing good deeds, being kind, smiling, having good thoughts, doing things for ourselves, family, friends and strangers that we weren’t asked to do.  We showed mercy to ourselves, others and the environment during Ramadan because those were good deeds that were being multiplied, we should continue that even if the deeds aren’t being multiplied.

3.  Stay close to those who make you the person you are.  Family orientated activities, that don’t deal with business, were the central part of Ramadan.  In fact, those activities were all about our faith, we gathered because of our religion.  Eating together, breaking bread, cooking together- all of these activities brought the family and friends together during Ramadan.  Doing things that are like that, removing the trappings of business and consumerism or multitasking, and even better electronics, will help keep that Ramadan spirit going.

4.  Cut the static- I talked about cutting the cable cord.  I think one of the things that really helps the Ramadan spirit is not being governed by television or its content.  Use your DVR, limit your tube time, watch the content your consuming.I Performed the five daily prayers with greater concentration throughout the day I was better able to monitor my thoughts and censor and control my own impulses easily.  Also, checking social media like a crack addict, or having that cell phone around texting all the time, it layers on all these connections and responsibilities that allows you to lose yourself and lose sight of your God conscientiousness.  I find that its important to cut that out of my life, so I can devote my time and attention to God, myself and family and friends.

5.  Do good deeds.  Part of Rahma, is understanding the suffering of others.  Anticipating the needs of others is a way to become sensitive to other peoples life.  Learning to walk a mile in another persons shoes is that old saying that oft gets repeated but is so hard to truly live by.  In having a sense of participating in the suffering of others, is our way as Muslims to get near to Rahma in Islam because you raise your consciousness of God and his infinite mercy toward us.

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