Tariq Ramadan – Ramadan Chronicles #27 Consumerism
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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.