Written by Karima Hamdan
Are you aglow with fevered anticipation yet?
It is the most hotly anticipated global event of the year, drawing together people from all parts of the world with a single purpose. Despite different cultures, languages and skin colour there is no discrimination. For the individual there are hours spent in quiet sacrifice with a determination to stay the course and all building up to a day where they will be judged on their effort and stamina and can reap their rewards. Of course there are problems – the lack of infrastructure to cope with the crowds springs to mind but I am all too sure we can rise above it all for the sake of the greater good.
Centuries of shared memory are re-lived as over a billion of our brothers and sisters across the planet mentally count down to the start of this year’s Ramadan.
Oh, and you may have heard – London is hosting some sort of a sporting jamboree this summer as well, drawing together the three things Londoners can’t stand – crowded Tube trains, tourists and exercise.
I have often found that the Olympics offer strange insights into the reality of the host country. It has often been thus in the past. The Athens Olympics had the Greeks wildly underestimate the cost, wildly overestimate the economic benefits, only to be saddled with an Olympics that it couldn’t afford (but I guess the Germans are paying for it now…). The 2008 Beijing Olympics: as memorable for its human rights abuses as for the jaw-dropping spectacle of the opening ceremony complete with an original Made in China fake – think: lip-synching girl in the red dress. The 1980 Moscow Olympics saw the US boycott the games in protest at Russia’s invasion of Afghanistan – presumably they were upset that they had to wait another two decades before they got their turn. The 1984 Los Angeles Olympics inaugurated overblown, over-budget opening ceremonies (complete with a rocket man)…as well as the first Olympics which saw the white doves symbolising peace being roasted alive in the Olympic flame.
London 2012 – with its grey skies, police-state security arrangements, pathetic dependence on shambolic private contractors, junk food and transport anarchy – seems a sad metaphor for Britain today.
To some it is an extremely seductive idea to equate the reality of Ramadan with the rhetoric of the Olympics. This pairing up has been explained away by saying that both Ramadan and the Olympics are a time of giving, of charity, of sharing, of remembering those in need and reaching out.
This demonstrates a profound lack of understanding as to what Ramadan and the Olympics stand for.
Allah makes it clear in the Quran why Muslims are commanded to fast:
“O you who believe! Observing As-Saum (the fasting) is prescribed for you as it was prescribed for those before you, that you may become Al-Muttaqûn (the pious).”
[Quran: 2,183]
The Olympics, on the other hand, is a vast commercial showcase that is backed by rapacious multinationals in order to massage the egos of jingoistic nations keen to distract their debt-ridden citizenry from their wage-slave lifestyles by selling them the lie that the victory of one elite athlete trained since birth over another elite athlete trained since birth will somehow inspire normal people to strive for excellence on the assembly line.
The hypocritical balderdash at almost every stage of the Olympic ‘dream’ is staggering.
It purports to be about encouraging exercise, good health and achievement in children and yet in a country with sky-rocketing childhood obesity rates it is sponsored by grubby purveyors of mass produced junk food. Indeed, in the capital of a country in which 60.8 per cent of adults and 31.1 per cent of children are overweight, our Olympic village will boast the largest McDonalds restaurant in the world. Other major sponsors are Coca Cola, Cadburys and Heineken. This grotesque deal has raised the hackles of doctors and politicians alike. To add to the corporate-driven theme, all this junk food can only be paid for by Visa card because as part of its exclusivity as a major sponsor it is the only card accepted in the Olympic village and it has demanded the closure of the 27 ATMs at the various Olympic sites. This will mean that despite 85 per cent-plus of all transactions usually using cash, Visa will deliberately make visitors “cash-starved” and therefore forced into using its credit.
The Olympics clothes itself in the language of freedom, peace and fair-play and yet another of its unsavory sponsors is Dow Chemicals. For those unfamiliar with this company let me enlighten you – it was one of the main manufacturers of napalm and Agent Orange for the US Army during the Vietnam War. Millions of gallons of Agent Orange were sprayed over parts of Vietnam during the war by the US military as a deforestation agent. It was, however, packed full of dioxins and other toxic chemicals and it is no coincidence that in the areas it was used rates of birth defects and cancers have sky-rocketed. It is estimated that 150,000 children in Vietnam have birth abnormalities resulting from Agent Orange use.
Dow Chemicals also owns Union Carbide Corporation – the company responsible for the Bhopal Refinery disaster of 1984 – the worst industrial disaster in world history which killed 3000 people in the immediate aftermath and another 8000 in the months and years afterwards. There has been ongoing controversy due to Dow’s refusal to properly clean up the site and compensate the victims adequately. Despite Dow loudly protesting that it had nothing to do with the Bhopal disaster as it bought Union Carbide afterwards, it was disclosed by Wikileaks that it had paid a global intelligence organisation Stratfor to spy on the personal lives of Bhopal activists.
This is of course not to mention the other unsettling stories about the Olympics that belie its bright and shiny image. The heavy-handed brand policing (complete with a spy network) to make sure that there is no unauthorised use of certain words this summer – words including “gold”, “silver” and “bronze”, “summer”, “sponsors” and “London”. This marketing mania has even seen reports that any police officers patrolling Olympic events should not be seen with any food products that are not from the official Olympic sponsors – with guidelines issued by the organisers advising them to empty non-sponsor crisp packets into clear polythene bags. Or that school children taking part in the opening ceremony being told that they can only wear unbranded trainers or those from one of the sponsors, Adidas. Or the third world conditions that those cleaning the Olympic venues will have to endure – sleeping 10 to a room with 25 people sharing each toilet and 75 people sharing each shower.
I am sure that there will be those who accuse me of endless miserablism. “Why, oh, why can’t we just enjoy something without worrying about the ‘back-story’?” they would cry. To them I would point out that one of the many characteristics that draw Islam and Britishness close together is a firm and unfailing sense of justice and fairplay. I would hope that those exhorting British Muslims to be “more British” wish us to model ourselves on the best parts of British society rather than the X-factor watching, turbidly bovine Morlocks who are content to wave flags, slurp Coca Cola, munch Happy Meals and park their rapidly expanding backsides in front of the TV in blissful ignorance of “the back-story”.
The analogy of a person wasting his Ramadan parked in front of the idiot-box watching the Olympics is like a beggar who miraculously finds himself on a beach littered with sparkling diamonds. Instead of gathering up as many as possible he instead spends all his time building sandcastles in the full knowledge that the rising tide will wash them away at any moment.
The essence of Ramadan is not the vacuous fawning upon honed sportsmen and women in a contrived artificial environment controlled and commandeered by vast corporate behemoths. No, rather the essence of Ramadan is captured in the hadith narrated on the authority of Salman al-Farisi (RA) saying, “The Messenger of God (sallallahu alayhi wasallam) spoke to us on the last day of Sha’ban saying:
‘O people, a great and blessed month has emerged upon you. In it there is a night that is superior to a thousand months. A month in which God has made its fast obligatory and its night vigil voluntary. Who strives to come close [to God] in it through doing a type of good [deed], it is as though he performed an obligatory act outside [of Ramadan]. And whoever performs an obligatory act in it, it is as though he performed seventy obligatory acts outside of [Ramadan]. It is the month of patience and the reward for patience is Paradise. It is a month of kindness to others and in it the provision of the believer is increased. Who breaks the fast of a believer in it, he is forgiven for his sins and he is freed from the Hellfire, and to him is a similar reward without diminishing the reward [of the fasting person] in any way. God grants this reward to one who breaks the fast of another person by a bit of milk or a sip of water. And who feeds a fasting person to his fill will be granted drink from my pure spring after which one will never thirst until he enters Paradise. It is a month whose beginning is mercy (rahma), whose middle is forgiveness (maghfira), and whose end is salvation from the Hellfire (‘itq min al-nar).’”
So if the news of this Olympiad’s champions manages to penetrate our bubble of Ramadan-induced spiritual focus, let us reflect on a final difference between the Olympics and Ramadan: The Olympics recognize three ranks of achievement: Gold, Silver, and Bronze (silver and bronze being innovations of the modern Olympics – in the ancient Olympics, it was winner takes all).
In contrast, as this blessed month of Allah, the month of the Quran, dawns before us, let us heed the words of the blessed Prophet (sallallahu alaihe wa sallam) with respect to the ranks with Allah:
“The number of ranks in Paradise is equal to the number of verses in the Quran, so whosoever enters Paradise amongst the companions of the Quran, there is no rank higher than theirs.” (al-Bayahaqi)
Abu Hurayrah narrated that the Prophet (sallallahu alaihe wa sallam) ascended the minbar and said: “Aameen, aameen, aameen.” It was said: “O Messenger of Allah, you ascended the minbar and said, ‘Aameen, aameen, aameen.’” He replied saying: “Jibreel (alaihi al-salam) came to me and said: ‘Destruction to him who found the blessed month of Ramadan and let it pass by without gaining forgiveness.’ Upon that I said ‘Aameen’. When I climbed the second step, he said, ‘Destruction to him before whom thy name is taken and then he does not send salutations upon you.’ I replied ‘Aameen’. When I climbed the third step, he said, ‘Destruction unto him in whose lifetime his parents or either one of them reaches old age, and (through failure to serve them) he is not allowed to enter Jannah.’ I said ‘Aameen’.”
(Ibn Hibban, al-Hakim, al-Baihaqi)