Imran Idris

I was listening to a technology podcast the other day and the conversation turned to exploding pagers and walkie-talkies in Lebanon, a terrorist act widely acknowledged to be the work of Israel. One of the guests on the podcast almost waxed lyrical about the (years of) planning and precision behind the attack, as if it was something commendable instead of reprehensible. He brought up the usual argument about Israel i.e. that it is the most discerning army, always striking with surgical precision in order to minimise civilian casualties while taking out their enemy.

I wonder what he had to say the very next day when Israel massacred at least 492 people in Lebanon following wide-ranging air strikes on the country.

I wonder how he would feel had the same thing occurred in homes and supermarkets in America instead of Lebanon. Would he have adopted the same admiring tone?

This reminds me of the extreme mental gymnastics required, on the part of Americans mostly, but also to a certain extent, amongst people in many other Western countries, to defend the indefensible. It’s a kind of cognitive bias, where people who appear reasonable at first glance, can condone so much violence in order to hang on to their false idea of Israel as a benevolent state. I’ve been listening to this podcast for years, and I know that the people on the podcast are decent individuals, people who cared about their families and about the impact of technology on society. These people would never hurt a dog, let alone condone its torture or murder.

How then, do you square this with their willingness to give Israel a free pass to kill so many innocent people in Palestine, Iran, and Lebanon? This is such a monumental failure of ‘practising what you preach’ that completely beggars belief.

Indeed, the whole argument becomes so ridiculous and uncomfortable that another guest on the show quickly suggests a change of topic! Everyone laughs, somewhat nervously, before shifting the conversation to ‘safer’ topics like social media and artificial intelligence.

People in the West are fond of reminding the rest of the world about their lofty principles of freedom, justice, equality etc. It’s ‘our way’ or the highway, yeehawwwww!

But when push comes to shove, when evidence continues to mount about the sheer scale of atrocities committed by Israel on helpless people in Gaza, where is the condemnation from America? Where is the outrage from the UK? Most humiliatingly for Muslims, where is the concerted effort from Muslim countries to stop this from happening?

Throughout this conflict, the elephant in the room is the deafening silence from leaders of many Muslim countries when it comes to the Middle East crisis. I struggle to see how people in such privileged positions can keep quiet while all of this is happening. Do they not care at all about their fellow human beings? Worse still, do they not fear the reckoning of Allah SWT on Judgement Day, when they will be asked about how they have discharged their duties?

How else can we explain the fact that Israel still enjoys some level of diplomatic immunity despite clear evidence of wrongdoing? In fact, not too long ago certain Muslim countries were even considering normalising ties with Israel, something I pray that my own country Malaysia will never ever contemplate!

What I am saying here is not new. In fact, many others have said the same thing before. Tellingly, many of them have been accused of advocating violence or anti-Semitism, by the very same people who loudly proclaim freedom of speech when insulting Islam and the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh). These are lazy excuses to avoid addressing the root of the problem: the hypocrisy of Western governments when dealing with the conflict in the Middle East.

Needless to say, I am not in favour of violence towards innocent people, no matter who they are. But we cannot continue pretending as if Israel is the shining beacon of democracy in the Middle East while this terrorist state continues to massacre people in Gaza and lately, in Lebanon as well. I don’t have much hope that the American or British government will change their ways, but I pray that the leaders of Muslim countries will come to the aid of Palestinians with more concrete measures to secure a just and lasting peace, inshaAllah.

From the river to the sea, Palestine WILL be free!

Change is scary, but change is also an opportunity for growth. When I turned 40 earlier this year, I made a promise to myself to make the best use of whatever time I have left on God’s earth.

That means reassessing where my strengths are, what I’m passionate about, and where I can do the most good for society. It also means asking myself really difficult questions, such as: Do I really want to be doing X for the rest of my working life? Or, if money wasn’t an issue, what would I still be doing anyway?

The answer, for me at least, would be seeing patients in the ward or clinic. I think that’s where I do my best work, helping people understand what ails them and how we can make them better.

Unfortunately, doing this also means saying goodbye to a few things I love but are no longer sustainable. Leaving UM is tremendously difficult, as this was where I ‘grew up’ as a doctor. I have had the opportunity to work with so many kind and excellent doctors, nurses, allied health staff etc. during my time in UM and I pray that Allah SWT rewards them abundantly.

Ultimately, clinical neurology is a labour of love for me. Today, I’m starting a new chapter of my life at Sunway Medical Centre. So if you know anyone who might benefit from seeing a neurologist, I’d be very grateful if you could consider referring them to me.

About 2 years ago I picked up one of these beautiful clothbound editions of Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, and since then I’ve made it a point to buy another one of these clothbound novels every few months or so. In fact, one of the reasons why it took me so long to finish writing up my DPhil thesis was that I had to finish reading Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace first! Talk about procrastinating…

My latest purchase was the novel Hard Times, again by Charles Dickens. The story itself was interesting, but a few lines from the Introduction really caught my eye:

…it operates as a critique on certain forms of education, particularly those that set out to fill a child full of ‘useful facts’ rather than to introduce them in any way to the world of the imagination, to concepts of aesthetic pleasure removed from functionality, and to the idea that compassionate understanding of the lives and circumstances of others is of infinitely more use than the accumulation of knowledge.

I love the phrase ‘compassionate understanding of the lives and circumstances of others’ because it accurately sums up what is often missing from today’s classrooms. Even in Malaysia, I see a lot (too much?) emphasis being put on exam results, as if schools are factories for producing A grades. I hope this trend will not continue.