Towards a more equal society
Introduction
In times of crisis there have to be ways of supporting our community, at the same time ensuring our and our family’s well being.
So how do we achieve this?
We need a large number of philanthropic entrepreneurs. I am using the term entrepreneur loosely here as I do not want to constrict my proposal to any specific occupation. A shopkeeper is as much an entrepreneur as a doctor having his or her own chamber.
So we need a large number of philanthropic entrepreneurs whose faith and worldviews are firmly rooted to the day of judgement, the volatility of this life and the never ending hereafter. These are the basic tenets on which the rest of the discussion is based so it is important to ensure that there are no second thoughts about these fundamental principles.
The next pillar on which the community has to be built is that of generosity and fairness.
“By no means shall you attain righteousness until you spend benevolently out of what you love and whatever thing you spend Allah surely knows it.”(3:92)
This ayah of the Quran affirms that competition should no longer be on who can amass more wealth but the yardstick of comparison should be who has given away the maximum proportion of his or her wealth. There needs to be motivation to gain fortune only to be able to give much of it away to those in need.
There is no doubt that we aspire for a society where our community would be represented in all the important spheres but that does not happen overnight, nor is it possible to be done single-handedly. We need to start small but resolutely with achievable targets and realise them before we can move on to the next target.
Education
The three most important aspects that we need to focus on are health, education and food. Let us discuss education first. We need a more focused and controlled inflow of support to our education institutes. We need to make sure that the children of our community are able to access quality education at the same scale as of the other community.
For example if 75% of the population of the majority community is able to access Vernacular medium education and 25% of the population of the majority community is able to access English medium education we want to ensure that at least the same percentage should apply the population of the minority community. This is not an easy feat because the disparity between the privileged and unprivileged begins right from the birth itself.
We need help to ideate and formulate plans for food, education and health. If you are willing to help us in this journey in any way, feel free do drop me a message at ashhadulislam@gmail.com
