Whosoever intercedes for a good cause shall receive a share of it; and whosoever intercedes for an evil cause shall share in its burden; and God is Sustainer of all things. (An Nisaa, 85)
I've been thinking a lot lately about lived ethics. In the past, I've often dismissed ethics as either an obvious and flat discourse of faith (e.g. be a good person, do good things, etc.), or as way of condemning undesirable social habits in a more palatable way. However, I've come to realize that ethics involves a very deep and critical engagement in the everyday. This ayah is another classic example.
The role as intercessor in this ayah presupposes that individuals have the agency and responsibility to decide where they put their energy and time. What does this mean for those of us engaged in industries where processes or end-goals are undesirable for society? Even within the field of academia, I think about how knowledge is used politically to further a neoliberal project striving to maximize power and profit unevenly across global and local contexts. Is trying to subvert the larger economic and domination projects, through individual acts of pure intentions enough? Are we really acting as intercessors if we don't strive to take down systems, or at least try our best to not participate in the strengthening of oppressive systems?
These questions remind me of Audre Lorde's challenge, which has stuck with me as a familiar discomfort I can't seem to shake. Lorde asserts, " For the master’s tools will never dismantle the
master’s house. They may allow us to temporarily beat him at his own
game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change." Her call for genuine change has also made me reflect more on the legacy of Muhammad Ali, since his passing from this world. Despite his unapologetic resistance at every turn, in his death, the system has reasserted its dominance by rewriting what he stood for. This is very well covered by Mehdi Hasan here.
How then, do we intercede toward good when we are mired in systems serving the false idols of money and dominance?
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