Advice to South African Muslims - 2017

I first visited South Africa in 1994 as a member of a Government of India delegation on tourism. I stayed in Sandton in one of the Sun hotels and traveled to Durban and Cape Town. The only Muslim I met was a lady who said that she was a marathon runner. Seeing her outfit, shorts and t-shirt, I believed her. I was surrounded by White Afrikaner and English South Africans. The only Black people I saw were servants, doormen, and waiters. There were no Black people even walking on the street, especially in the evenings.

I next visited South Africa in 2003 and it was like visiting a different country. Since then I have had the privilege of visiting South Africa almost every two r three years. Thanks to the friends I made, I have been exposed to and can count very dear, personal friends in every stratum of South African Muslim society; Ulama (my first and continuing hosts), business people, academics, educationists, politicians, diplomats, elephants and lions. After my visit in 2006, I wrote a paper that I called, "State of the Nation'. It was a reflection on what I saw and experienced. What I garnered from different conversations with people from all walks of life. To refresh my memory, I read that paper again before writing this article and to my great disappointment, I believe that as I write this in 2017, most if not all of what I wrote in 2006 still holds true. That is seriously bad news.

South African Muslims are the victims of their own self-induced blindness and arrogance. Unlike Indian Muslims, they inherited a legacy of honor. And they had the advantage of learning from the Indian Muslim experience (from whom they are descended) about what not to do, more than what to do. But they chose not to learn and instead, chose to repeat the mistakes that we made in India. That is what beats me. Why would you choose a failed strategy when you can see its results in real time? But you did. You are more involved in internal strife (your Ulama leading the field in this), fighting imaginary battles with Shias, Salafis and among your own Sunni Deobandi and god-knows-who else, than in looking inclusively at protecting yourself as Muslims. You are more involved in maligning and supporting those who malign your own people whose only intention is to help the community, than in using those talents to address real external threats to Islam and Muslims. You are unwilling to sit together to solve problems like drugs, mental health and crime.

You spend more, far more, money to help the poor in Palestine, Syria, India etc. than you spend to help the desperately poor African next door. You do this despite knowing that Islam commands you to take care of your neighbor before taking care of someone distant from you. I recall being told by more than one headmaster, when I commented on the almost total absence of African children in most Muslim schools, that Muslim parents don’t like their children to sit next to African children. I asked them what they would say to having the children of Sayyidina Bilal bin Rabah (RA) sit next to their children? Hypocrisy doesn’t seem to bother anyone today. Racism is rampant among you. Just ask how many of you have African wives or husbands. I can imagine the looks of horror on your faces as you read this. Ask, what positions do Africans have in your Masajid, Madaaris, businesses and homes. If we do a survey, what will we find? Having the odd African executive to satisfy BEE norms, doesn’t count.

I remember speaking at the AMS Conference in Laudium and saying, “Pay your insurance premium.” They asked me what that was. I told them that it was whatever the black shanty towns people living cheek by jowl with you, needed to come up to a respectable level of existence. You did nothing. At least nothing compared to what you still do outside your country. You still underpay, abuse, oppress and treat your black employees with disdain. Your women lead the field in this, in the way they treat their maids at home. Every African to you is a potential thief and untrustworthy even if he or she is a Muslim. I have heard complaints about this from a friend who is a professor. She is a Muslim and told me that she has stopped going to Masjid and Muslim events because of how she is treated by your women. So, it is nothing to do with rich or poor. It is racism, pure and simple. Indians are famous for this back home in India. Just look at the Matrimonial ads in any Indian newspaper to judge the extent of racism – posturing as ‘White’, while being black. Tragically, you imported that into this country, while you stand on your pulpits in your Masajid and quote Rasoolullahﷺ’s Khutbatul Wada’a where he said, “An Arab is not superior to a non-Arab. A white man is not superior to a black man. The most honored in the sight of AllahY is the one who has the most Taqwa.” The irony and hypocrisy of this, doesn’t strike you.

You Indians, Muslims included are all aspiring Whites. You know that will never happen. That cannot happen. But you still want it and meanwhile you treat black people like your role models treat them. But guess what! South African Whites are smarter than you are. They have lots of Black South African kids in their schools. Their maids eat at their table. They may not marry black people but on all other parameters they are miles ahead of you. You need to wake up and remind yourself that Apartheid ended in South Africa in 1994. If not, be prepared to become the targets for black anger.

As we speak, your options for change are rapidly shutting down. You are in the danger of (if not already) becoming the target of Black nationalism and racism, which is the precursor of the way all African states seem to go. You won't accept your own role in your potentially fatal predicament which is your own ‘Indian’ racism, injustice perpetrated (to this day) on your African employees, exclusivist attitude, arrogance about being Muslim and ostentatious and vulgar display of wealth.

You deliberately ignored politics and squandered the legacy of the freedom struggle which was handed to you on a platter by your elders. You did nothing to fill their vacancies or to create value so that you could have taken positions they didn’t have. Vacancies, like vacuums fill up and once filled, are gone forever. That happened and continues to happen. You did not concentrate on education. You did not invest in sunrise and high leverage industries. You were (and are) happy with your mom & pop shops (no matter how large, that is what they are).

You did not partner with academia or the political leadership to add value to the country. You projected yourselves and got projected as net consumers interested only in luxury, self-aggrandizement and self-indulgence, thus prime targets for hate campaigns to leverage emerging politicians to power. You have next to no representation in Civil Service, Military or Police. Your representation in Parliament was way above your population demographic. It has plummeted.

The biggest sign of your self-induced blindness was burning bridges with the ANC which was the party that supported you and your causes (Palestine) unequivocally. Instead of entering the party and working to correct its clearly suicidal policies and corruption, you decided to support the DA, which is clearly the party of your erstwhile rulers. But since historically you were more obsequious to your white rulers and aspired to be like them and shunned the black majority which you are in fact like, you didn’t see the danger of your suicidal political choice. Instead, you did what you do exceedingly well, shoot the messenger who bears bad news.

As I said in 2006 and many, many times thereafter, you are like a fat cow going for a stroll in the predator enclosure of a lion park. What can one realistically say to such a cow, should it not be willing to swiftly spin on a dime and retreat, except to say, “Bye, bye. It was nice to meet you.” Sorry to be blunt. But I say it because I have a duty to South African Muslims who have always been kind to me and honored me more than I deserve.

What does the future look like for South African Muslims? I think the door to your future is closing very fast. Most of it has closed but if you can take urgent and drastic action, you may perhaps still save yourselves. That action begins with facing yourselves and changing your attitudes. Be just with people. Then do more as Allahﷻ told us to do when He said:

An-Nahl (16:90) إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ يَأْمُرُ بِٱلْعَدْلِ وَٱلْإِحْسَـٰنِ

Indeed, Allah commands you to be just and then excel ‘(in kindness’).

We hear this Ayah in every Juma Khutba but don’t obey Allahﷻ’s command.

Do what I advised you to do in 2006.

1.    Invest in Black people. In their education, housing, entrepreneurial development, health care and social upliftment. Give them before they take it from you by force.

2.    Admit one black student for one Indian student in your schools. Pay their fees if they can’t afford it. Treat them like you would treat your own best investment because that is what it will be. Do it right and you will be grateful when one day they walk the corridors of power, enabled and empowered by you.

3.    Create an Entrepreneurial Development Fund. Train young black men and women in different trades and fund their start-ups

4.    Work to change the attitudes of your own (Indian Muslim) people most urgently. Take whatever action you need to take but do it now.

5.    Stop your infighting among Ulama. Stop those who have been maligning and abusing your own people with impunity for decades.

If you do this with great urgency, maybe you still have a chance to survive and prosper. If you don’t want to do this, then prepare to run like hell.