Five months after January 25th revolution in Egypt, I guess we are all suffering the post-revolution syndrome known as FLS (i.e. Friendship Loss Syndrome.) This is clearly because we have been faced with the challenge of taking definite and major political, ideological and religious (or combinations thereof) stances on many issues regarding the situation in Egypt. I claim that the Grandeur stance was, is and will always be the interaction between religion, politics and the state.
Personally, my frienships map has channged dramatically. Some friends dropped me from their frienship maps and I, with a lot of honor, acquired some other frienships. More importantly, I gained other invaluable and intagible bonds with people with whom I have never met and will probably never meet.
Just over the last 48 hours I received the following two personal messages.
Message 1:
"Yes, I knew you but now I claim that I am not sure I knew you. I claim I know X much better. Exactly like when I say I know Sheikh Y far better than you and X.
You had some strange and odd ideas to me and I was stupid enough not to see the signs until you came out of that liberal closet officially lately. Lekol gawad kabwah 3ala el3omom. I hope that doesn't happen to me again with others since it is an extremely sad experience when you think you know someone and then you discover that really you don't.
I hope I learned the lesson.
It was a huge shock for me that Imamak in many of your ideas is Alaa Alaswany that was a shock to me and it made me as if I never knew you before.
And, it should be mosh Liberal ma3az Allah but Liberal A3ozo bellah. And that was not only it by the way but it was a series of other things all of them are either in your blog posts or in FB. I seriously hate FB for that.
I was going to post this to the FB link but then I decided not to do that. If you want it on the post, let me know."
Message 2:
"AA ya shay5 Wa2l,
.....
If I gained anything on the ZIFTBOOK, it is my discussions with you. My deep respect to your dialog."
If I gained anything on the ZIFTBOOK, it is my discussions with you. My deep respect to your dialog."
Crazy. Is not it? One friend says "liberal a3ooz Bellah" while the other calls me "shay5 Wa2l". One friend says he is shocked and feels stupid while the other says he has deep respect for my dialog.
This clearly shows a major discrepancy between the views of different people about the same opinion (regardless of the person here). What is even more amusing is that the first friend has known me for 15 years and we have been meeting on weekly basis in a religious halaqa for most of the past seven years. As for the other friend, we knew each other through a (verbal) fight 15 years ago and only communicated a few times prior to January 25th.
Yet, an important question arises. What makes people willing to lose their friends over a religio-plotical debate? The answer takes us back to square one: owning the truth.
If someone believes that his opinion is not actually an opinion but rather the absolute truth as mandated by his religion, he will definitly be willing to lose any number of friends over this. If someone believes he own the truth, he will be acting as if he is the keeper of the religion. He is speaking God's facts rather than his understanding or interpretation of the holey scripture and, therefore, will not accept any other opposite opionins. Keepers of the religion act with others from a superiority and guidence point of view, rather than simply an opposite opinion. When the other person is not willing to be guided, the keeper will have no problem losing his friendship.
On the contrary, if the two friends are dealing with each other believing that each one has his own understanding and there is slight chance that I might be wrong, we will not be willing to lose each other.
The FLS I am suffering from taught me a few lessons:
1. The principal I am fighting for is correct and I should keep fighting for it. No one owns the truth. Not me and not any one else. We, all, are striving to reach that truth.
2. We should not lose each other because of differences in opinion. I will always tell myself, "you do not own the truth and you are not a keeper of the religion".
3. I wish I could say about those who decided to drop me from their friendship maps "I do not give a damn". Truth is: I do care and I think it is utterly unjustefyiable and rediculous.
4. I am very grateful to Allah to have gained more friends than the ones I lost.
Last but not least, to those who are willing to lose me: Why do not you keep trying to guide me to the right path? If my opinions do not make any sense, I then have to say:
أنا المهرج خفتوا ليه؟
لا في أيدي سيف ... ولا تحت مني فرس
Final remark: FLS could also stand for Family Loss Syndrome. Any thing in this blog could easily apply to many of us who have lost the connection with family members over religio-political debates.
