This Was Bound to Happen

This was bound to happen—Senator Mushtaq and more than five hundred flotilla members have been arrested. If it is in the nature of a snake to bite, and in the nature of a scorpion to sting, then how could Israel ever abandon its nature of oppression and tyranny? A nation that betrayed the prophets, a nation where a dancer once boasted that the price of her body was the murder of Prophet Yahya—what hope for human compassion can we truly expect from them?History teaches us that this nation does not understand the language of humanity; it only understands the language of power. The same power that Nebuchadnezzar once spoke to them, and the same harsh lesson that Germany’s infamous tyrant imposed in more recent history. Sadly, the Muslim Ummah has long forgotten that very language of strength. The world may hear its voice, but it does not understand its message. This was bound to happen, and so it did.But…Senator Mushtaq has proven that the official who told him to dismantle his camp in Islamabad and advised him against sailing to Gaza was wrong—and that this aging yet spirited man was right.He has shown that he is indeed a man of immense courage, one willing to exhaust himself even on a seemingly futile journey for his own people. He has shown that politicians need not only speak within the Senate chambers but can also plunge into the sea of action.He has shown the besieged people of Gaza, bound to us by faith and humanity, that there are still those who will crash themselves against the bars of their cage. He has shown that while rulers may be bound by their limitations and compromises, the Ummah still possesses enough spirit to cast its ships into the ocean like Tariq ibn Ziyad—turning resolve into sails and courage into oars.Senator Mushtaq, Pir Mazhar Shah, their fellow Pakistanis, and the many brave souls of the Sumud Global Flotilla will be remembered in history. They will remain alive in its pages. And long after, when humanity finally begins to understand what it had once ignored, parents will tell their children: when the world collectively accepted the caging of hundreds of thousands of people, there were still some who dared to sail across the seas to deliver a few morsels to them. There were still those upon whom countless hearts pinned their hopes, and for whom countless hands were raised in prayer.These people will live on.