folio

In the Swahili language, the word “dawa” means medicine, treatment, remedy. Some of us may have thought that it has a similar meaning in the Arabic language. However, as popularised by English-speaking activists, it seems to have taken on the complete opposite meaning. It has instead become like poison, killing everything. It has grown into something out of control, with side effects far more perplexing than the cure presumably prescribed. Ignoramuses, thinking themselves learned, parade hither and thither spouting nonsense gleaned from their predecessors, likewise unlearned, wiping out everything good and virtuous, planting only seeds that grow into rampant, bitter, thorny vines, destroying everything in their path. They offer no remedy; no cure for broken hearts, no medicine for the soul, no tonic to soothe inner pain. Daily they dispense poison instead, and daily the suffering multiplies.