Just Cause and the Challenges of Character Self Audit – Mahfuz Mundadu
Wrenching all covers and egos, I ask the awkward questions polite men dodge. Why does a movement born to uproot injustice now spend its precious time uprooting itself? Who manufactured this new cottage industry of gossip, whisper, envy, and the ever popular *Pull Him Down* tablet with limitless RAM of rumours? A product and service sold over the counter of every _dakali, dandali_, and chat group. And why do earnest brethren, faces aglow with piety filters, swallow it before dawn prayer?
History offers a mocking echo. The schismatics began as idealists chanting “Judgment belongs to God alone.” They ended swinging swords at every face that failed their purity test, including faces once called brother or rather _brabuza_. We should all be mindful. A just cause erodes when personal accolade or ideological purism overrides collective discipline. The Algerian anti colonial front scattered, and the minute Parisian medals appeared in the post. Even the Jacobins, guardians of virtue, fed one another to _Madmoiselle_ Guillotine by season’s end. The pattern is drearily predictable: when a banner for justice turns into a competition for the spotlight, the banner tears down the middle.
Imam Ali, whose sermons carry the weight of mountains, warns, “Jealousy eats faith as fire consumes (dry) wood.” He fought his wars against the monopoly of power, yet busied himself sharpening his character first, for he knew rust on the inner blade dulls any outer strike. The Prophet of Islam slept on a reed mat thinner than a manifesto leaflet. Still, he shook empires because he nursed no pomposity inside his heart. His daughter Fatima baked barley bread for strangers while her own cupboard yawned. Imam Hasan signed a peace treaty to spare blood. Imam Husain refused one to spare dignity. Yet, neither wrote a tract condemning the other’s choice. Each read the time, felt the pulse, and then acted without branding his predecessor “ a sell out” or “a hot head."” *Their unity lay not in identical tactics but in identical mission and purpose*.
What, then, infects us? A subtle bullying: the urge to staple God’s will to our own prism of perception. “Believe as I believe, say as I say, see as I see, look as I look, sound as I sound, act as I act, or run the risk of being cast out,” says the folk who has arrogated to himself the undisputed standard of the truth. In us, within us and around us, devotion to justice curdles into a competition for the larger megaphone, recognition, accessibility and a nod that gets us noticed.
Let us audit ourselves before a morbid anatomist performs brutal autopsy. Do I gossip in the language of ‘concern’? Do I volunteer solutions or only complaints lubricated with holy vocabulary? When a colleague climbs the podium, do I pray for his success or plot and celebrate his fallibility?
Imam Ali cautions, “The tongue of the envious never rests.” The Fourteen infallible built habits that muzzled this serpent. They trained the will with dawn supplications, freed the intellect through intellectualism and scholarship, and anchored the wallet in lawful earnings so it could not be yanked by patrons from the shadow. They mixed courage with courtesy, debate with decorum. They disagreed yet never diced unity for the thrill of being braggadocios.
So here is the prescription. Unfashionable, slow, and therefore priceless:
*Character self audit*. Keep a nightly ledger. List one hidden motive exposed, one apology owed, one bias trimmed. Burn the sheet if pride fears discovery. But, do the tally.
*Moral capacity building*. Pair seasoned characters with the energetic youth, not to brainwash but to refine and fine tune. Let the Qur’an and Nahjul Balagha sit on the same table with books on economics, vocational skills, youth empowerment, and digital literacy. The enemy you fight owns and controls economy and technology; ignorance and penury are luxuries we can not afford.
*Material independence*. Earn enough, legally, to tell every patron, “Thank you, but no strings.” A beggar movement chants what the paymaster hums.
*Spiritual resilience*. Fast beyond Ramadan, wake before sunrise, give quietly so the left hand forgets the right. A self emptied of craving can neither be intimidated nor blackmailed into being a pawn on the chessboard of the scoundrels.
*Good manners*. Be polite but not the plastic grin of networking. The smile that admits fallibility. Address rivals by name, not by *ismul-fussuqu*. When tempers flare, quote Imam Sadiq: “Our Shia are those whose neighbour feels safe from their harm.”
*Scholarly discipline*. Draft positions with footnotes, not forwarded memes. Truth loves evidence; demagoguery loves volumes of sensations.
Failure to adopt this code carries tariffs no any magnanimous lender can waive. Let not the movement fracture into guilds of mutual suspicion; every victory will incubate its own upheaval. And if care is not taken, it is the outsiders who will harvest the split. Remember the fox’s advice in Orwell’s fable: *keep the hens busy quarrelling, and supper is served without chase*.
_Inna saayakum la shatta!_ This is human. This is natural. So, if we succeeded in silencing every opposing voice, how will we know when we have erred? Dictatorship is not born in palaces; it sprouts and blooms in the cellar of each soul, unwilling to face criticism. Imam Ali welcomed correction from a peasant mid sermon. Will we, dear brothers and sisters, endure the same medicine?
Choose. Either weld hearts through humility, scholarship, selfless service, and a brotherhood tougher than steel, or continue chiselling one another until the gangsters in fancy suit cart away the rubble. The grave beckons each of us. What legacy shall we drop at its edge? A united push for justice or a suitcase of unused hullabaloo?
The well-meaning folks hope for the former, else the scoundrels grow fat on the feast of our folly.
_*Rabbanag fir lana zunuu bana wa li ikhwaninal lathiyna sabaquuna bil iymani. Wala taj al fiy qu luu bina gillan lil lazhiyna ammanu…*_
