The World Does Not Occur in Black and White

The Western world is decrying Third World men who marry more than one woman, as they see polygamy as a sex-maniac behavior. Muslims will consider it as an insult because Prophet Muhammad had 9 wives. They despised Prophet Muhammad’s life choice since they were unaware that he only loved 1 woman (Khadija bint Khuwaylid, his first wife) for 25 years of their marriage. He stayed away from polygamy when he was physically young and vibrant, yet, he married his second wife in his 50s, 5 years after the death of Khadijah who was 15 years older than him.

As a direct result of the Uhud War, many Arab men died on the battlefield; their spouses lost their status as wives, and their children were fatherless. Since ancient times offered no job opportunities for women, those widows could not work to earn a living for their children and to acquire appropriate livelihood.

Prophet Muhammad married one of Uhud War’s widows, Zaynab bint Khuzaymah, to alleviate her sufferings. Initially, this marriage was also meant as an example to the men around The Prophet those days to do the same: be the husband of any of these widows and let’s save humanity.

Muslim scholars concluded that Prophet Muhammad’s polygamy was not intentionally designated to avoid adultery (one of the popular arguments to justify polygamy); rather, it was meant to safeguard a widow’s dignity in society.  Unfortunately, we cannot disown a fragment of an ancient civilization that considered widows as the leftovers of somebody else and believed that they did not deserve to be married with not alone to receive a livelihood.

The ship has sailed, and now women have been seeing better days. The background of practicing polygamy has evolved with time, along with the voices reprove it. Amidst the even higher divorce cases today, staying true to your spouse is like gold. Those who believe that monogamy is best will likely get a headache as they witness some women’s lives are just fine under polygamy.

 

Vladimir Putin

Russian President Vladimir Putin has successfully pulled his country out of catastrophic state to reclaim its reign as a world power again. He was named Time’s 2017 Person of The Year for such impressive achievement. At the same time, Putin was suspectedly a dangerous man and not of a decent character, wrote Time's managing editor Richard Stengel.

As Stengel put it, Putin should be cautious as he prioritized stability over civil liberties which Russia needed to get rid of the ghost of the USSR and all those dead-ends where it supposedly lived. He succeeded in doing so, though. Russia’s economy grew tremendously thanks to oil, gas, grain, and other commodities. For 20 years since his polity, Putin left the doors widely open for European and American investments, until he decided it was time to close that door. We are witnessing such a blowing decision in the form of Russian special military ops in Ukraine on February 24th, 2022, as well as thousands of sanctions that follow the attack.

Much like any world leader, Putin has gained some haters long before the first Russian missile hit Ukraine. FYI, these haters are constantly against Putin’s conservative views regarding Russian national identity and family values. Gay marriage and transgenderism are a big no, imprisonment is what you get under Russian laws, relatively similar to some Islam countries’.

Putin’s reason of protecting Russian traditional values and national identity is utterly equitable and completely understandable for almost everyone. Although he aims for a welfare state of Russia, still, numerous Russian young people declare themselves as anti-Putin, including Pussy Riot (a punk girl band from Russia). The band’s vandalism act in 2012 has resulted in two years sentence for each of its two members, of whom were released earlier on granted amnesty by December 2013.

Vladimir Putin’s indestructibility in the Western media point of view inspires hundreds of memes and satirical caricatures, a manifestation of freedom of expression that has pushed us to neglect the fact that Putin is just a human. Born into a harmonic-simple family, little Vladimir was also a naughty kid in the same way like any of us. He was lucky enough as one of his teachers in elementary school translated his naughtiness into qualities of a great leader in the future.

More or less the same as Russian men in general, Putin puts respect and admiration for a woman with the following characteristics: elegant, showing an adequate capability of protecting the family’s dignity, engaging actively in sports, being loyal to her spouse, having good manners, smart, child-loving, and capable in managing household matters skillfully. An authoritative woman or an overpowering one in a romantic relationship, as well as in a work environment, is considered frightening for Russian men. Concerning these “traditional values”, we can grasp President Putin’s opinion on the feminism movement in Russia. Regrettably, in the middle of Eastern Europe geopolitical conflict, this movement is used by Russia’s enemies to attack it from within.

 

The Grey

Any human being tends to feel uncomfortable facing anything that vague, while at the same time, the concept of God is somewhat either cryptic in itself since it only relies on the human’s own belief. Consequently, a group of folks reject such a concept and proclaim themselves atheists.

A religious nation may perceive them as lost children, while a small number of religious people respect the atheists’ life choices. Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, an Indian spiritual leader and yoga guru, defined that whether somebody is good or evil, such quality does not depend on what they choose to believe (paraphrase of its original version).

The American information technology advancement has led to a narrower public personal space, as an algorithm becomes a group of people’s magic wand to control another group’s behavior without undergoing any direct interaction. Breaking into somebody’s privacy may cause a feeling of disturbed, losing freedom, ashamed, and lack of comfortableness; for the sake of the economy they ignore humanity’s right to acquire personal life not necessarily open to the public. While democracy provides extended freedom of economy for us to fetch some profits, isn’t American tech sector employees should be able to evade mass layoffs as their respective companies managed to grow fat on such freedom?

Meanwhile, information technology platforms tell us the stories of those who long to see the truth always win against the devil, the dark world people will be forever sinful; the bright side people are holier than them. As judgment day comes, only good and faithful people deserve happiness - unscrupulous and unfaithful people will suffer for the rest of their life. That those who involve in wars are the blood thirst zombies, and those who don’t are virtuous people. So, on which side is Lockheed Martin in this case?

In a disposition of support for Ukraine, the United States and its European countries-dominated alliance agreed to isolate Russia from getting financial and banking access, trade, energy, agriculture, and technology sector, to international sports competitions, films, and arts since 2022. But why do all of these unprecedented massive sanctions and blockades fail to end the Ukraine war as soon as expected - why did the mass bankruptcies and chaos that should have only occurred in Russia spread out the doom to many places worldwide?

Isn’t a fairer and prosperous world order blossoming when the devil has been severely punished, or is it?