Under Anesthesia

It as been exactly a week now since this slightly surreal scene in the living room of my house:

a partially disemboweled rabbit, still alive but in shock, 

surrounded by a bunch of people with little idea of what to do next.

The barely two-month-old bunny had just been attacked by a stray cat, leaving his intestines spilling out a gash on the side of his abdomen.

An injury which proved to be fatal.

The above scene, though, is not the most surreal one to have happened in the last few weeks. 

And as gory as it was, neither was it the most horrible.

At a field hospital near Al-Adawiyaa Mosque, just off Rabaa Square, the names of the dead are called out.

Listening are families of those lost.

"It was as quiet as a morgue", goes the saying.

But the morgue here is far from idle; it is the busiest place in the city.

What can be heard inside are people sobbing in between gasps for fresh air;

the atmosphere a stench of dead bodies left out for too long.

Mingling with the groans of the injured and the prayers that still go on.

The floor is a flood of fresh blood, ice blocks brought in to preserve bullet-ridden corpses left out for too long.

The army chief smiles on camera at a broadcasted national police academy graduation. 

Honored with a standing ovation, and praised by the Interior Minister as

"Egypt's devoted son".

All less than 24 hours after he ordered the bloody killings at Rabaa Square.

Pretty surreal scene...don't you think?

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A consultant I've met at a hospital placement years ago told me that during surgery, an anesthetist holds a lot of power.

If the anesthetist senses that something is wrong, he/she can call off the surgery right there and then.

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Exactly a week ago I was kneeling down beside the rabbit's prone body. 

I had carefully flipped him over to reveal his wound.; 

the hole was big enough to let his intestines out, not quite big enough to let them back in.

In retrospect I wonder if things would have ended up differently if I had anesthetics of some sort. 

Maybe I would have been able to calm him down. 

Push his insides back in, even.

Anything to let him live to the morning, when he would be able to get more professional care.

But all that is wishful thinking, I guess.

The death in my house, though, was a good reminder.

A reminder of how easy life is for me here.

Don't get me wrong: I am grateful for this calm, and I do not wish the bloody scenes of Egypt to happen in Malaysia.

Not in a place I call home.

But in my heart is a certain sense of unease...

I look around to see so many people still oblivious. Uncaring of brothers and sisters in Egypt.

Like the bunch of people standing cluelessly around a disemboweled rabbit, 

we stand cluelessly around a nation disemboweling itself.

The Prophet (p.b.u.h.) once said:

"The Muslim Ummah is like one body. 

If the eye is in pain then the whole body is in pain  

and if the head is in pain then the whole body is in pain”

But as our brothers and sisters are 

massacred in Egypt, 

gassed in Syria, 

under siege in Palestine,

exiled from their own homes in Myanmar. 

The rest of us...barely bat an eyelid.

This ummah has become like a person who doesn't even realise that he is being stabbed all over his body.

That he is bleeding.

That he is dying.

He doesn't realise.

He is under anesthesia.

To those who read this I ask you to get the word out.

If you can speak, speak.

If you can write, write. 

If you can donate, donate. 

And pray. 

Pray for our ummah to wake up

We have to wake up.