Ahlan Arabic fans! Here is the English translation of the article “This Article is not for you هــَــذا الـمــَــقــَــالُ لا يــَــعــْــنــيــك” by the Saudi journalist Muhammad Al-Rotayyan مـُــحــَــمــَّــد الــرُّطــَـــيــَّـــانْ who writes for Al-Madinah newspaper. For more information about Al-Rotayyan, please click on his name above. Also, to view the article in Arabic, kindly refer to our previous post here. I hope you will enjoy the article and the translation.
Image by by John E. Kobara
‘This Article is not for You!’ by Muhammad Al-Rotayyan, August 4th 2014
“You are not searching for the “truth” .. You are searching for what proves that what you believe in and what you are comfortable with is the truth! You are not debating to reach it .. but rather to prove that you have reached it (truth). You are all the things that were piled up in you from the first moment you could use your senses. You are all that forms your “identity” which you boast about and see as the most superior : your color, your language, your family history, your ethnic group, your religion, your origin, your area and your reason! That is all what you see as “identity” .. Have not you ever thought that it is a “jail”!? you can remove the cover .. but you cannot remove the skin you were born with! You: .. Who are you?
Sometimes you are: this person who never hesitates to approach a discussion to any topic and yet he has never read ten books at least. Sometimes you are: this person who “looks” but never “sees” and in spite of this he runs to describe the scene and tell the story! Sometimes you are: this person who is terrified by the new idea or the new machine and you join others in cursing it, join others who fight it, just because your small mind has not understood.. and you are never ashamed when you discover – years later – that it is normal, friendly and harmless and you just rejected it because the “majority” has rejected.
Sometimes you are: this person who is taken by any new media noise. Yet, you are the first to forget the last noise, its reasons, and how far it (the noise) has gone? Often you are: this person who all others think instead of him/her. How easy is it for you to be kidnapped and directed .. as if you are just a gelatinous object that any artist – with half talent – can shape you in whatever shape he likes or in the shape that best suits the time being! You have a “role” – like others – but your biggest role is not to have any role! If you just focused a little, you will discover that you are boasting too much stupid things. You have too many faces and however, none of them resembles you.
Sometimes you are: this person who uses the latest technologies and with the skill of your ignorance, you can change them from tools that generate awareness and knowledge into tools that generate and spread backwardness! Your bright outside resembles your savage inside. Your relationship to civilization is the same as your relationship to your wife! You look doubtfully to the world, and you feel that it conspires on you. You repeat a lot of “words” and you take only the meanings that best suit you. On your enemies, you throw a lot of charges that you know nothing about. You claim that you respect humans, and you means the “human” who exactly looks like you .. and all the others have other names! Always you are: this person who was bought by the master / the ignorance from the backwardness market ..
Who has deceived you and put in your mind that you are free while enslaved by a thousand things!? Have you been provoked by the article? .. Well, don’t panic! Persuade yourself – as always – that we are talking about another person.”
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Peace ســـَـــلام /Salam/
