Daily Archives: June 27, 2011

Jun27

HUMAN RIGHT IN UGANDA, THE FATE OF THE 1979 MUSLIM MASSACRES IN ARUA AND ANKOLE (PAPER PRESENTED AT UMYA RAMADHAN SEMINAR 2008)

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HUMAN RIGHT IN UGANDA, THE FATE OF THE 1979 MUSLIM MASSACRES IN ARUA AND ANKOLE

Presented By Immam Iddi Kasozi at Uganda Muslim Youth Assembly (UMYA)Ramadan Seminar  2008 With additional Summary Discussion by Ass Prof .Dr Abasi Kiyimba

This Paper was recorded and translated to English . The Original version was delivered in Luganda. However accuracy was maintained.

Paper Presentation

Unlike what is reported in many books, Islam Came to Uganda before 1840 and adopted at king’s palace in 1841. By the time it reached the palace, it had already reached Buganda as a region and other parts of Uganda.

On 25th January 1971, Iddi Amin who was by then a Major in the forces took over power. He was in power for 8 years, 3months and 11days. Upon taking over power, Muslims in Uganda became strong.

It should be noted that Iddi Amin ruled with other non Muslims politicians like Paul Muwanga, Grace Ibingira, Ben Kiwanuka, Wanume Kibedi, Prof Rugumayo e.t.c all as members of cabinet only that history has been deliberately made silent on them and failed to bring to public notice the non Muslim faces who ruled with Iddi Amin with whom they had political responsibility if any.

When Iddi Amin was ousted from power, people instead of punishing the ousted leadership who were with Amin like Rugumayo, Ammama Mbabazi e.t.c only focused on innocent individuals (lives) who incidentally were all  Muslims.

In places like Kilu in yumbe. Muslims were butchered just because Amin was suspected to be a Kakwa and these were Kakwa people who were all
Muslims.

Malicious massacres were made in Toro and Ankole in daylight and killers were never prosecuted by the state to date and continue to walk free even though known.

Muslims were killed in Arua (Kiziba). Individual participants in the massacre came from Shema and Igara.

Among the frightening broad day massacres, a pregnant Muslim woman was cut on the stomach with a pang, the baby came out and the attacker said “we have removed Iddi Amin…. “The woman and the baby died. Many of the attackers testified that they were sent by current state agents and leaders who to date have not been apologetic to Muslims.

NB: For details on this mass Muslims massacre and those involved read the book “IS THE 1979 MUSLIM BLOOD-BATH IN BUSHENYI HISTORY? A REVIEW OF THE GENOCIDE THAT WAS CALLED LIBERATION” By Abas Kiyimba, First published in 1990 and Reprinted in 2002

The Fate of the Massacred Muslims and Their Families

•       Majority of the persons who massacred Muslims are still alive and free at their homes .No interest and steps have been taken to prosecute them merely because those killed were Muslims.

•       Some killers were caught and sent to prisons but families of massacred Muslims have till date not been compensated.

•       The fate of these people have been made impossible and almost complete, perhaps by the time they will get a savior, most valuable evidence would have been lost and witnesses dead.

•       No human rights group has devoted interest in the fate of these people merely because those killed were Muslims.

•       Land and other Muslims valuable properties that was grabbed away from Muslims is still in hands of those who grabbed it and Muslims families have not been assisted to regain their land and properties.

•       Psychological suffering and bad dreams affect Muslim survivors on seeing killers of their loved one moving free and at times provoking those who lost family relatives.

•       Their fate is now followed by Continued Muslim arrests and suffocation without trial and at times branded terrorist like our brother who had come to build boreholes in Uganda from South Africa who were recently arrested and deported.

•       All avenues of communicating the fate of these people face resistance from security agents creating a prospect of totally forgetting the Muslim massacres and the fate of these people. Even many Muslims today are not aware of these and similar Muslim massacre blocking any chance for Muslims collective response.

•       No lawyer has developed interest in representing these people and existing legal aid clinics shun away from this category of complaints.
The families have no where to run for help and can’t afford hiring expensive private lawyers.
•       E.T.C

Recommendations

•       There is need to put Muslims in Uganda and world over on notice of the existence of these un addressed massacres where many criminals are
still at large with no efforts geared on prosecuting them.

•       Need to establish a Muslim human rights organization to follow up human rights violations of Muslims including these Muslim massacres.
The Muslim community does not benefit from merely having a desk for human rights in existing organizations; we need a body purely focused on following up human rights violations of Muslim rights.

•       More research is needed in the area of these massacres to unveil even more of the unknown atrocities on Muslims.

•       Need lawyers to come up and privately prosecute those who were involved or we mobilize and hire lawyers to take up the matter.

•       We need to pray for our deceased brothers and sisters and also come up to help the survivors with all possible humanitarian needs and
comfort.

UMYA KEEPS RECORD OF ALL PAPERS PRESENTED AND PUBLISHES THEM IN A COMPENDIUM EACH YEAR.

DON’T MISS LIVE PRESENTATIONS THIS COMING RAMADHAN AT UMYA RAMADHAN SEMINARS 2011, KIBULI PRIMARY TEACHERS COLLEGE
FREE ENTRANCE

Jun27

Getting Married: How Hard Can It Be?

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Getting Married: How Hard Can It Be?

 

My husband and I recently tried to match-make a couple of our friends. Omar began telling his friend about a really nice woman we knew at 33, successful, beautiful. His first response was, “So, what’s wrong with her? Why is she 33 and not married?” Looking at the 30-year-old man before me, my first thought was, “I could ask you the same thing.” However, the reality set in that there’s a double standard when it comes to the issue of age and marriage. 

Many Muslim women are successful lawyers, doctors, professors and journalists. They are outspoken and active in their Muslim and non-Muslim communities. They are intelligent and beautiful, and they are unmarried. The same women who are ambitious and focused on their academic and professional success are finding it difficult to find a suitable spouse.

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Twenty years ago, as young Muslim boys and girls were being raised in the U.S., they were encouraged to excel academically and professionally. Parents placed a huge emphasis on education and hard work for both boys and girls. And apparently, they were taken seriously. Girls excelled and never felt they could not attain an education or a profession. They worked hard and succeeded as their parents had encouraged all those years. Now, these same women are in their twenties and thirties and the same parents are now pressuring them to get married.

Are women to blame for being ambitious and educated? Apparently so. Women seem to be penalized for their ambition. Once a young woman passes the age of 25 and remains single, she is considered “old” and often finds it difficult to find a suitable spouse.

Suddenly, others tell her that she has become too picky and her expectations of a husband are unrealistic and that she should hurry up and get married already. “There are some of us who went to college and are successful in our careers and we are not on a search and destroy mission to get married,” says Suhad Obeidi, a 39-year-old former banking manager with an M.B.A. The reality is that Muslim women have worked hard for their education and careers and they will not give it all up in order to get married.

In recent decades, men have also become highly educated and progressive, and have even fought for women’s rights and the elevation of women in Islam. However, while these men are impressed with a successful and active woman, they do not consider her “marriage material.” Despite the elevation of women, many men have maintained traditional ideas as to the type of wife they seek. After all, they do not see anything wrong with the way their mother was.

Consciously or subconsciously, many men seek a wife who will fulfill the traditional role of a wife and mother and one who will maintain a traditional home life. She should be educated, but she should also be willing to put her education and career on a shelf while raising a family. These women in their late twenties and early thirties appear too established in their career and lifestyle and therefore, more difficult to marry because they will not fall into this traditional role.

Many American Muslim women want to be wives and mothers while at the same time be respected for their profession. “One big problem is that, rather than embrace her ambition and success, men simply tolerate it and expect something in return,” says Nagwa Ibrahim, a 25-year-old activist seeking a career as a human and civil rights lawyer.

Current expectations of marriage have changed for women and become more aligned with the examples of women during Prophet Muhammad’s lifetime. The Prophet’s first wife, Khadija, was an established career woman who was 15 years older than her husband. Khadija was a very confident and successful woman who actually proposed to the 24-year-old Muhammad. Yet, the Prophet was not intimidated by her nor found her “unmarriageable.” 

They maintained a strong marriage as she continued to be a businesswoman, as well as wife and mother. Prophet Muhammad and Khadija were married for 28 years, the longest of all his marriages. The year that Khadija died was also referred to as the Year of Mourning by Prophet Muhammad.

Many Muslim women seek not to compete with men, but rather to establish a partnership with their spouse. Ultimately, these women want to be cherished and loved in the same way that the Prophet loved Khadija. This type of partnership in marriage can only exist when both people are accepting and respectful of one another’s ambitions and priorities in life.

Nagwa Ibrahim feels that men have succumbed to negative cultural stereotypes that are contrary to Islam when selecting a spouse. “We (Muslim women) are the way we are because we are trying to be good Muslims,” she says. 

Thus, a partnership in marriage can only be developed when men and women really follow the principles of Islam and learn to communicate their expectations of marriage as well as be understanding of one another. 

Communication is vital to any successful marriage, but now more than ever, women must feel comfortable in expressing their expectations of marriage to a potential spouse and in return feel that they are being understood, respected and encouraged. 

This evolution will happen once we see more modern examples of successful Muslim men and women getting married and further benefiting society by their union. Educated Muslim men and woman will only improve our Muslim communities by expecting the best from everyone, be they men or woman.

Beginning in the homes, parents need to nurture their children by encouraging them that they can have both worlds and that they can be successful in their career and marriage. Muslim women can have a huge impact on the future by modeling the multi-faceted woman of Islam to their children.

Therefore, when their daughters grow up, they will aspire to be women of excellence and ambition. Additionally, when their sons become men, their expectations and views of a suitable wife will include a partnership with an intelligent and successful Muslim woman. With further education and communication, men and women can understand and respect one another’s roles in society and in the home, which will ultimately benefit future generations of Muslims.

 

Adapted

Munira Lekovic Ezzeldine is the author of Before the Wedding: 150 Questions for Muslims to Ask Before Getting Married.

Jun27

Why are Muslims so backward and powerless?

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Why are Muslims so backward and powerless?

Dr Farrukh Saleem

The writer is the Pakistani Executive Director of the Centre for  Research and Security Studies, a think tank established in 2007 and an Islamabad-based freelance columnist.

We Muslims must wonder why is that only Muslim States like Iraq,Afghanistan and Libya are being attacked by the Christian West.

Why do we get pushed around by them with the former President of the US George Bush calling it a crusade?

Why is that Muslim States often depend on the West for survival, even Saudi Arabia, the epicentre for Islamic fundamentalism (i.e. Wahabism) is dependent on American largesse for their survival?

While they preach Wahhabi Islam all over the world, they allow American bases within a few hundred kilometres from the Holiest Shrines of Islam.

There are an estimated 1,476,233,470 Muslims on the face of the planet: one billion in Asia, 400 million in Africa, 44 million in Europe and six million in the Americas.

Every fifth human being is a Muslim.

For every single Hindu there are two Muslims,  for every Buddhist there are two Muslims and  for every Jew there are one hundred Muslims.

Ever wondered why Muslims are so powerless?

Here is why: There are 57 member-countries of the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC), and all of them put together have around 500 universities; one university for every three million Muslims.

The United States has 5,758 universities and India has 8,407.

In 2004, Shanghai Jiao Tong University compiled an ‘Academic Ranking of World Universities’ , and intriguingly, not one university from Muslim-majority states was in the top-500.

As per data collected by the UNDP, literacy in the Christian world stands at nearly 90 per cent and 15 Christian-majority states have a literacy rate of 100 per cent.

A Muslim-majority state, as a sharp contrast, has an average literacy rate of around 40 per cent and there is no Muslim-majority state with a literacy rate of 100 per cent.

Some 98 per cent of the ‘literates’ in the Christian world had completed primary school, while less than 50 per cent of the ‘literates’ in the Muslim world did the same.

Around 40 per cent of the ‘literates’ in the Christian world attended university while no more than two per cent of the ‘literates’ in the Muslim world did the same.

Muslim-majority countries have 230 scientists per one million Muslims.

The US has 4,000 scientists per million and

Japan has 5,000 per million.

In the entire Arab world, the total number of full-time researchers is 35,000 and there are only 50 technicians per one million Arabs. (in the Christian world there are up to 1,000 technicians per one million).

Furthermore, the Muslim world spends 0.2 per cent of its GDP on research and development, while the Christian world spends around five per cent of its GDP.

Conclusion: The Muslim world lacks the capacity to produce knowledge!

Daily newspapers per 1,000 people and number of book titles per million are two indicators of whether knowledge is being diffused in a society.

In Pakistan, there are 23 daily newspapers per 1,000 Pakistanis while the same ratio in Singapore is 360. In the UK, the number of book titles per million stands at 2,000 while the same in Egypt is 20.

Conclusion: The Muslim world is failing to diffuse knowledge.

Exports of high technology products as a percentage of total exports are an important indicator of knowledge application.

Pakistan’s export of high technology products as a percentage of total exports stands at one per cent.

The same for Saudi Arabia is 0.3 per cent;

Kuwait , Morocco , and Algeria are all at 0.3 per cent,

while Singapore is at 58 per cent.

Conclusion: The Muslim world is failing to apply knowledge.

Why are Muslims powerless?
…..Because we aren’t producing knowledge,
…..Because we aren’t diffusing knowledge.,
…..Because we aren’t applying knowledge.

And, the future belongs to knowledge-based societies.

Interestingly, the combined annual GDP of 57 OIC-countries is under $2 trillion.

America, just by herself, produces goods and services worth $12 trillion;

China $8 trillion,

Japan $3.8 trillion and

Germany $2.4 trillion (purchasing power parity basis).

Oil rich Saudi Arabia , UAE, Kuwait and Qatar collectively produce goods and services (mostly oil) worth $500 billion;

Spain alone produces goods and services worth over $1 trillion,

Catholic Poland $489 billion and

Buddhist Thailand $545 billion.

Muslim GDP as a percentage of world GDP is fast declining.

So, why are Muslims so powerless?

*Answer: Lack of education.

All we do is shout to Allah the whole day and blame everyone else for our multiple failures!