Scattered Aurora

I am proud to call myself a Muslim and a Mujahid. I am no suicide bomber. I am no terrorist. Yes, I blow myself up, take my own life and thousands others along with me but I'm no murderer. I am not a killer or a psycho path. I do not do this for fun. I do it so that those infidels who call themselves Muslims and disgrace the name of my religion and my Allah can be punished. There are no innocents who die in this jihad. No blameless men who are just victims of circumstances. They are those heretics who just for the sake of it embrace my Allah and later go against His every word. And Allah has writ for them to die with me. My destiny is to purge this world of these munafiqin who have sold their very souls to the Devil and have no such religion. They are the ones who talk of Islam as if its something to be ashamed about, something that should be hidden from others in fear of what they would think. They have no right to live in this world that Allah has created for His believers. My hands are drenched in their blood, yes, but this is the blood which I spill in the name of Allah; the blood which will carve for me the path to Heaven, which will eradicate all the years of pain and misery I had to bear in this world. I plead innocent!

Everyday I wake up to reflect on whether I will be here tomorrow or not. Or will I be killed in the warfare taking place in my motherland. I look in the mirror and see a young army officer standing in full uniform. I thrust out my chest and see the medals gleaming. I stand up straight and my mirror image reminds me that I am the son of this land. My first and foremost duty lies in defending my country from these infidels who have infiltrated my motherland. I have to purge them from my country and cleanse the destruction they cause. I kill many of my enemies everyday but I also see many of my fellow soldiers being killed by them. But I am not afraid to die, in fact I consider it an honor to die for my country. Those infidels call themselves freedom fighters. We call them terrorists. What freedom do they fight for if they believe in forcing people into the confines of a religion born in their convoluted minds. I fight for the freedom of my people; freedom from these oppressors. I capture these terrorists and I kill them even but I am still no murderer. My hands may be drenched in the blood of these heathens but the soil of my land has soaked up a lot more blood of the innocent people of my country. The blood of my enemy means the life of my people. I plead innocent!

I take in a deep breath and blow out the twenty candles on an imaginary cake. YAY!! It's my birthday!!! I jump around with joy, and dance around the room. I cut the cake, sing the song, take the pictures even (all imaginary of course :P). And I really really wish a very happy birthday to me!! :D

A certain man planted a rose and watered it faithfully and before it blossomed, he examined it. He saw the bud that would soon blossom, but noticed thorns upon the stem and he thought, "How can any beautiful flower come from a plant burdened with so many sharp thorns? Saddened by this thought, he neglected to water the rose, and just before it was ready to bloom... it died.
So it is with many people. Within every soul there is a rose. The God-like qualities planted in us at birth, grow amid the thorns of our faults. Many of us look at ourselves and see only the thorns, the defects.
We despair, thinking that nothing good can possibly come from us. We neglect to water the good within us, and eventually it dies. We never realize our potential.
Some people do not see the rose within themselves; someone else must show it to them. One of the greatest gifts a person can possess is to be able to reach past the thorns of another, and find the rose within them.

This is one quality of true love... to look at a person, know their true faults and nevertheless accept that person into your life... all the while recognizing the purity and strengths in their soul. Help others to realize they can overcome their faults. If we show them the "rose" within themselves, they will conquer their thorns. Only then will they blossom many times over.

The story goes that some time ago, a man punished his 3-year-old daughter for wasting a roll of gold wrapping paper. Money was tight and he became infuriated when the child tried to decorate a box to put under the Christmas tree. Nevertheless, the little girl brought the gift to her father the next morning and said, "This is for you, Daddy."
The man was embarrassed by his earlier overreaction, but his anger flared again when he found out the box was empty. He yelled at her, stating, "Don't you know, when you give someone a present, there is supposed to be something inside? The little girl looked up at him with tears in her eyes and cried, "Oh, Daddy, it's not empty at all. I blew kisses into the box. They're all for you, Daddy."
The father was crushed. He put his arms around his little girl, and he begged for her forgiveness.
Only a short time later, an accident took the life of the child. It is also told that her father kept that gold box by his bed for many years and, whenever he was discouraged, he would take out an imaginary kiss and remember the love of the child who had put it there.

In a very real sense, each one of us, as humans beings, have been given a gold box filled with unconditional love and kisses... from our children, family members, friends, and God. There is simply no other possession, anyone could ever have, more precious than this.

I have been thinking about the documentary that we watched in class a few weeks back and on which my post, The Catharsis of Torture was based. We couldn't watch the complete documentary due to the emotional upheaval it caused in me and my friends and which caused the teacher to stop showing the documentary citing it as emotionally disturbing in view of our behavior. Although I'm not sorry that I haven't been able to watch the complete movie (knowing my frustration of leaving things incomplete; surprising ain't it) but I still feel guilty. Guilty that I have been able to put it in the back of my mind and scurry back into the escapist world that I have created for myself; my very own private bubble. Guilty that I couldn't face the truth; that my so-called opinions and beliefs couldn't give me the strength to sit through the portrayal of truth however gruesome it might be. But I couldn't and I still can't. Even if I could, I wouldn't want to. Why? I don't know; no idea, utterly clueless. I'm ashamed of myself, of all my high-handed principles, of all my big talks; but it is a shame which I'm willing to live with.

It's strange but I have grown up watching violent and gruesome movies with my dad and bro but in my mind there is a huge difference between a fictional and a true story. Somehow the words ''documentary'' and ''true story'' take the picture to an altogether new phase one which I'm not sure I will ever be able to climb up to. I remember when a few years back when the horrors of the Abu Ghraib Prison and Guantanamo Bay Detention facility were publicized. At first I was very curious as to what was all the uproar about but my curiosity fast dwindled into disgust and horror at the barbaric callousness of these soldiers who are supposedly fighting for justice and peace (huh! what a joke!). After reading a detailed report in the newspaper on the torture of prisoners I started avoiding any stories that gave details on both the detention facilities. I remember not reading a newspaper for like two months afterwards.

I know that some of my readers will be disgusted at my confession and some might even call me a coward but I feel that I don't care. I'd rather live in the beautiful world of my own rather than the real world of horrors.