Q&A with Sami Yusuf

What is your way to respond to injustice and oppression?

I frequently get asked “What is your way to respond to injustice and oppression?” And I want to answer that question now.

Anger is one way to respond. Some people believe strongly that the anger that naturally boils up in us when we confront injustice can be positive. They believe anger fuels action that brings about positive change. I don’t say that their way is wrong, especially if it doesn’t just shift injustice from one side to another. It’s their way. My way is different.

My way is drawn from the example of luminaries whose works for peace led so many out of oppression and into a new life. One of them, Nelson Mandela, the great South African leader, described leaving prison after twenty-seven years of confinement. He said, “As I walked out the door toward the gate that would lead to my freedom, I knew that if I didn’t leave my bitterness and hatred behind, I’d still be in prison.”

For far too many people around the world injustice and oppression aren’t just abstract concepts. They are part of daily life. Take the recent example: the ceasefire just reached between Israel and Palestine may cause reporters to pack up their cameras and move to the next “hot spot”, but that doesn’t mean the very real problem of what to do with the anguish people feel over what just happened goes with them.

Whether it’s happening to us directly or it’s happening to others whose stories touch us deeply, our reaction to injustice can be a wound in itself. 

My way to respond to injustice? I’d say to start we must hold on to our human dignity. Resentment and bitterness are poisons that affect us first. We mustn’t lose ourselves in the darkness of negativity around us. It’s my belief that any actions we take against injustice and oppression can succeed if they are free of the intention to oppress others. History teaches us that works based in unity and peace endure; those bred of violence never do.

My response is to put aside the dead end of tribalism with its attitude of exclusion, rejection, and ‘us against them’ mentality. What is injustice but a lack of balance? We see all around us the imbalance that tribal attitudes cause: violence, war, and now disruption in the very web of life that sustains us all. Our faiths and traditions teach us that by cultivating love, not by nurturing violence and hatred that poisons us as well as others, but by finding wisdom, tolerance, and purity of soul within ourselves we will start to find that balance, that justice, that we’re all seeking.

And so for myself, I continue to have hope in the face of injustice. That’s because I absolutely believe what Nelson Mandela expressed so clearly, “No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion. They must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.”