Tariq Ramadan – Ramadan Chronicles #27 Consumerism

We have been talking about all these resistances,

and this is quite important in our life.

Now there is a system, there is a

world where we are called to eat more,

to buy

more, to try to be part of this

economic equation where people are producing and we

have to consume.

Consumerism,

it's a perverted

way of dealing with,

our needs.

Everything in Islam is calling us

to independence,

autonomy. When we say

there is no god by god, and the

messenger is

our,

the prophet is the messenger is our guide

and, that we are following.

Muhammad

is the messenger that we are following.

What we are saying? We are saying that

everything that we are trying to be on

earth is to be autonomous, independent with our

mind, with our consciousness,

with our life. Independence.

There is no other god, and we are

not going to be dependent. No addiction.

Consumerism is the other way around. It's a

philosophy.

It's, an ideology

that is distorting the whole,

independent call. It's just to make us an

element,

a link within an economic equation where we

need you to eat. We need

you to consume

in order to produce and to make money.

It's to nurture

addiction and dependence

while

saying lies

the other way around. And why are we

fasting? Why are we stopping eating and drinking?

Exactly because this is what should be part

of our

understanding.

Stop

to eat. Stop to drink and come. Stop

drinking and eating and stop all this in

order to,

realize this way of

nurturing your consciousness

about your own autonomy

as a believer and as a human being.

Consumerism

is going to nurture your needs and to

make you feel that there is always something

which is missing, that you can get better,

that you can have better.

Consumerism

is about having.

Spiritual past is about being.

And then during Ramadan, we have to be

very cautious because some don't get it at

all. They are eating more, drinking more, and

they are even more dependent

of the maghrib after the maghrib when they

are going to eat than during the day

when they are freeing them self from all

these needs that are there to

distort your way of looking at the world.

Consumerism,

it's

a global

reality today, and we have to be very,

very cautious with these technologies and all these

products that are you get one and we

are you are told that there is another

one which is coming and it's going to

be better and then nurturing the needs that

you have in your life.

Life. We have to check your needs.

You have to check your,

what is necessary in your life and to

get what is

without being addicted to what is going to

be necessary because you are told it's going

to be necessary

and make your life better. You will never

have a better life with what you have.

The better life is with who you are,

what you are looking

for, and what are your expectations

for what is good in your life and

resisting what is bad. Consumerism

is the starting point of being lost in

your needs when you have to find your

way

in your being.

Remember to tell the people you love that

you love them. Life is

fragile.