When you see bad things happening in the world - and they always have and they always will - do something.

Do what?

Speak out! That will rock evil to its core.

Bad people - those who do bad things, whether that is your aunt or my uncle - operate in the shadows.

And they generally like to cover up what they do.
So they lie.

They lie before they perform their dark deeds. And they lie after they perform them. And they lie right through even as they are in the act of performing their bad, dark, evil and terrible deeds.

Deeds of murder, mayhem, torture, plunder, brutality to the meek and oppressed among their fellow humans!

And lies!

For, that is who they are: Perpetrators of bad things in the cover of darkness, protected, they think, by the shadows of their lies and deception.

But what they don't know is that their lies will out. If not today then they will tomorrow.

But out they surely will.

If not here in this world then there in the next world: when God Almighty will sit in judgment on all deeds human, big and small, overt as well as covert.

Our record will be in front us there in the presence of God. God's angels will testify against the perpetrators of bad deeds.

Our own body parts - our hands, eyes, feet, you name it, even our own skin - will provide testimony about all the bad things we did and where and when and how we did them.

The world will then spit on the perpetrators of bad deeds.

Their power will turn to dust under the feet of a raging humanity.

Their wealth will become a liability as the keepers of their stolen riches and ill-gotten gain will turn against them to save their own skins.

The world will then disown them, shun them and call for their arrest, prosecution and punishment.

Ordinary but outraged and long voiceless citizens will wait for them wherever they go, with handcuffs in their hands, to effect a Citizen's Arrest.

Nations of the world will issue signed warrants for them. And they will hide from the uplifted hand of justice in their narrow retreats.

They will fear to travel to places where they think the cold fingers of justice will take them in their grip.

These are the torturers of the world.

They are the war criminals of the world.

These are the people who did these things themselves or ordered, authorized and assigned others to do them.

And they lied about these things and tried to cover them up.

What they did not realize was that blood will out; murder will out; torture will out.

That an outraged humanity will someday catch up with them.

But what about ordinary citizens? What about people who think they are without a voice and without recourse? What about them?

And that is where the fallacy lies. It lies in believing that people are without power or voice or recourse.

It is blasphemy to think that God in Heaven made People on Earth and left them in this world to fend for themselves.

And it is the biggest lie of all: to think God abandoned us after he created us.

To the contrary!

God made us humans. He gave us eyes and ears with which to see and hear.

He then gave us a brain to guide the activities of our senses.

And he then fitted us with a conscience to keep our life on an even keel of right as opposed to wrong, on the gentle plain of truth as opposed to the rocky road of falsehood.

And then he equipped us with the power of speech, so powerful that it can take nations to war or bring them to peace.

And he told us to use that awesome force of speech to benefit all of God's creation. And to advance the cause of truth and justice everywhere.

For, truth is from God, while falsehood is from the Devil.

It does not matter what race we are or what religion we follow. The fact is lies and liars are of the Devil, while those who speak and stand for truth are with and of God.

So, the simple test to which God Almighty subjects humanity is this: Can you or can you not tell right from wrong, and truth from falsehood, and if you can, then on whose side are you?

Then comes a higher test: Can or can you not speak up - for truth and for justice?

Our speech then changes the world. It becomes the arbiter of our world's destiny.

It deals a deathblow to the old order of lies and deceit and injustice and cruelty and ushers in a new era of peace and justice and truth.

And of equality: without the superiority of nation over nation, race over race, and group over group.

That is the kind of power God has placed in our speech.

But when we make ourselves blind to injustice and deaf to truth, and play dumb when we must speak out, then the world catches up with us and God's justice takes its own course.

As someone said:

First they came for the Communists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Communist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Jew.

Then they came for me
but then there was no one left to speak out for me.

We saw 80 million men, women and children of Egypt hurting under the heel of Tyranny for 30 long years. We did not speak out, even though our speech was given by God the power to change the world.

We heard their screams of pain under 30 years of military, emergency and police dictatorship of the most brutal kind, and we did not speak out, even though our speaking out would have put an end to the suffering of these forgotten millions.

Or at least made a dent in it.

We knew of the torture chambers of Egypt, and Tunisia, and Morocco, and Algeria - and a whole range of other places - and we decided no one will notice.

And we went to our churches and mosques and synagogues and temples and tried to pull wool over God's eyes through mumbo jumbo we thought were our prayers.

Little did we realize God was on their side, not ours. That he was with the oppressed and not with the oppressors and tyrants.

That he was already spoken for, by the oppressed and the dispossessed, by the meek and the downtrodden, and he had no ear for the liars and the dissemblers and the perpetrators of injustice and cruelty and torture on his defenseless, voiceless children.|

We could have saved ourselves - and the world - by speaking out.

We did not.

But God is a God of love and compassion, even though he is also the God of vengeance, wrath and most terrible retribution.

Nothing pleases God more than an errant human returning home.

He is happiest when a prodigal turns to him and says sorry.

Saying sorry is the key. There is no entitlement in God's Kingdom.

Let us then not waste any more time. Let us not throw away any more chances.

Let us not remain silent any longer in the face of raw injustice and cold cruelty.

Let us not let our world become a world of torture and let us not let our time lapse into an era of disgrace to our very humanity.

Let us, therefore, speak out - at least now. Against all the injustice and all the cruelty and all the torture in our world.

For, God has put his power in our speech. And our speech can change God's world.

His is the word.

And his is the glory and power.

*****

Dr. Pasha is an educator and a media specialist. To contact Dr. Pasha please visit www.islamicsolutions.com.