Ramadan Journal '17 | Week Three

Blue skies turned black tonight. Grenfell Tower went up in smoke, destruction in its wake as an inferno swept up the tower block, tearing through fragile lives and tearing through flimsy plastic, leaving behind nothing more than charred remains and ash amid the rubble. And my heart breaks. It breaks trying to comprehend an incomprehensible pain, trying to imagine what those poor souls must have gone through in a wave of undiluted panic, fresh terror and dying screams. My heart bleeds for the families that were wiped out in a single wave of destruction, for the families that were left splintered and irreparably broken, for the young victims who fled a warzone halfway across the world, only to lose their life in a horrific deathtrap. I am lost for words in the face of a brutal tragedy that has left the country reeling with grief.

Call me crazy but I have a feeling that blue eyes and blonde hair would re-write the narrative. Because isn't that the status quo? All lives don't matter. Let's not ignore the hypocrisy of these movements, the insincerity of these words that filter their way into the mainstream media from time to time as injustice strikes. Some lives matter - others don't. The opulent and the elite take precedence while the voice of the struggling commoner goes unheard. It's sickening, to know that it wasn't a tragedy at all - it was corporate manslaughter. It was a crime against humanity. It was a corrupt government attuned to the cries of the rich and denying the pleas of the underprivileged. It could have been stopped.

Why is it, that we have a blue government in power that favours declaring war in countries that aren't theirs to step in, that consistently turn a blind eye to social issues that desperately need addressing, that can't even display an iota of empathy, sorrow and grief when tragedies occur on their watch. It is a government with blood on their hands, a morally lacking, inept Tory government that happily dismisses human welfare and gets away with literal murder. It's sickening, how little human life is worth to these people, how they can get away with criminal injustice, unpunished and unaccountable, and how they prove to be spineless without a bone of humanity when the country demands it.

Anyone and everyone who had a hand to play in the Grenfell Tower blaze through sheer neglect should be brought to trial and punished. You can't let human lives slip through the cracks and not pay the price. You can't take shortcuts and play with the lives of innocents. We aren't pawns in your sick game of monopoly - I can promise you that we've seen through the deceit and the farce that has become your leadership. There are thousands of us who refuse to sit idle accepting the lies of the elite. There are thousands of us who don't buy the bull**** you feed us through the news outlets and corrupt media demographic that demonises, desensitises, and dehumanises.

You know what the worst thing is? We can petition and protest day and night, screaming for justice until our voices are hoarse, but it's far too little too late. It doesn't bring those lives back. It doesn't mute the screams of dying children who were failed by the system, it doesn't quell the grief of fractured families, it doesn't obliterate the traumatic memories and experiences that will haunt these people forever. They are living with that heavy loss and those visceral wounds for the rest of their lives; some people have to live with that immeasurably gut-wrenching pain day after day after day and there's not a damn thing we can do about it. And that's the most heartbreaking of all.

وَلِلَّهِ الْأَسْمَاءُ الْحُسْنَىٰ فَادْعُوهُ بِهَا  And to Allah belong the most beautiful names, so invoke Him by them - Holy Quran, 7:180

A ten year old patient sidled up to me at work today and said "you're really pretty" and I may not agree with her but I swear to you a piece of my heart melted. That little girl made my day ❤