If you relied upon the British Media for news, you would think that there was no other news in the world, the way that it has covered the royal wedding. What a distraction!
The people hardly noticed the 60 protesters murdered in Palestine, or the injured who number nearly two and a half thousand. There was almost no discussion about the Zionist occupation forces bombing of Iranian targets in Syria.
These far away places seemed even further away during the hysteria surrounding the wedding.
The royal wedding was a well-choreographed distraction, but even appeared to be a welcome one for so many who put their lives on hold to soak up its happy atmosphere.
People forgot the drudgery of daily life. They forgot that they exist to serve a greedy capitalist machine. They marvelled at the glamour of the wedding pomp, while forgetting that even with their own subsistence level of income, the extreme British taxation system ensured that they had paid for all that excessive luxury. They forgot how British police cleared the rough sleepers away, so that the world’s media would not notice them, or this wedding spectacle can cost over £80 million, but for the sake of saving a few thousand pounds, the safety of Grenfell tower was ignored, at the cost of over 80 ordinary people’s lives.
They forgot how many of their own relatives and ancestors had given their lives for king or queen and country, so that the royals and their aristocratic friends could amass such wealth. With such an atmosphere, it is easy to forget that those sacrifices have never really been for queen and country but only ever for king and queen.
What became starkly apparent is just how subjugated the British people, and still many in the former British colonies, are to the British crown. British people are still officially considered subjects after all.
This is the consequence of subjection. Your value and worth is only what the lord you have submitted to is willing to offer. We become like slaves, especially when we have accepted that subjugated status with our hearts and minds.
With minds that can think, we ought to be careful who it is we subjugate ourselves to; whether he will lower or raise our status and worth.
Allah says,
قُلْ أَغَيْرَ اللَّهِ أَتَّخِذُ وَلِيًّا فَاطِرِ السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضِ وَهُوَ يُطْعِمُ وَلَا يُطْعَمُ ۗ قُلْ إِنِّي أُمِرْتُ أَنْ أَكُونَ أَوَّلَ مَنْ أَسْلَمَ ۖ وَلَا تَكُونَنَّ مِنَ الْمُشْرِكِينَ
Say, “Is it other than Allah I should take as a protector, Creator of the heavens and the earth, while it is He who feeds and is not fed?” Say, [O Muhammad], “Indeed, I have been commanded to be the first [among you] who submit [to Allah] and [was commanded], ‘Do not ever be of the polytheists.’ “ [Al-An’am: 14]
Bukhari narrated from Abu Huraira: I heard Allah’s Messenger (ﷺ) saying,
يَقْبِضُ اللَّهُ الأَرْضَ، وَيَطْوِي السَّمَوَاتِ بِيَمِينِهِ، ثُمَّ يَقُولُ أَنَا الْمَلِكُ، أَيْنَ مُلُوكُ الأَرْضِ
“Allah will hold the whole earth, and roll all the heavens up in His Right Hand, and then He will say, ‘I am the King; where are the kings of the earth?” (Bukhari)
وَمَن يُسْلِمْ وَجْهَهُ إِلَى اللَّهِ وَهُوَ مُحْسِنٌ فَقَدِ اسْتَمْسَكَ بِالْعُرْوَةِ الْوُثْقَىٰ ۗ وَإِلَى اللَّهِ عَاقِبَةُ الْأُمُورِ
And whoever submits his face to Allah while he is a doer of good – then he has grasped the most trustworthy handhold. And to Allah will be the outcome of [all] matters. [Luqman: 22]
If we recognise the folly of subjugation to other men, we must question the inequality caused by the capitalists in the world. We must question the extreme poverty outside of the capitalist west, and how jealousy they guard their ill-gotten wealth here. We must point to their inhumane and racist immigration policies, their hostile environment for immigrants, their nationalist way of prioritising their interests over all others.
With this wedding, we were expected to believe that the world was on the brink of fundamental change. That the love of these two could bring all the disparate people of the world together.
But, now the drug of distraction is wearing off a little, it is upon Muslims to remind the world that neither this royal family, nor any of the capitalist elite will share their wealth with the world. Without Allah’s guidance, they will not spend on the people to lift them out of poverty, just as the Islamic Khilafah State did for centuries. They will continue to behave as colonialists, greedily taking the wealth for themselves, for the next luxury yacht, palace of pompous distraction or wedding.
