IPCI (Islamic Propagation Centre International) Annual dinner & advice to the Community

On the 19th December 2008, the Islamic Propagation centre International held its annual dinner at the Orient Hall chaired by Dr. Faisal Suleman. Primarily this programme serves as a means to thank well-wishers, and inform the public of the IPCI’s forthcoming activities in addition to serving as a n educational exercise on a broad range of issues. This programme saw the launch of the DVD of a public debate held in Lenasia in November 2008 between attorney Yusuf Ismail and Piet Strydom on the topic –“Origins of Scripture”. DVD’s of this hard-hitting debate are now available to the broader public and all requests for copies should be forwarded to ipcisa@yebo.co.za

The chief guest at this programme was a noted award-winning journalist Shafiq Morton, whose topic ‘Muslims and the New South African World Order’ which in itself was a play on words, encapsulated many in the audience. The thrust of the lecture was that Islam was primarily a universal world faith for peace, governed by universal principles and not limited or restricted to sectarian, linguistic or racial paradigms. In this multi-ethnic open society, the last thing required was for people to fall into insular shells, evident most recently in South Africa in the formation of “Islamic Parties” in light of the upcoming elections. As a bedrock of social morality and justice, it behoves that Islam stood up against the rampant social inequity in the political context of South Africa. The ANC’s shoddy legacy since the advent of ‘democracy’ was exposed, with the audience being presented with hard facts in respect of the disproportionate increase in chasm between rich and poor; government’s embarkment on neo-liberal policies and the general lack of concern by the authorities in terms of what trajectory the country was heading towards. The audience was in tatters when caricatures were shown of local and international politicians in all their ‘naked glory’ on big screen via power-point. At the same time, Shafiq dealt with the fact that Muslims are often too keen to rekindle the “past glories of Islam” without attempting to find and develop “new glories”. This was primarily one of the causes of inertia in the Islamic world and the reason for lack of development by many Muslim governments. Other issues raised were the onslaught of globalization in the world where the centralization of economy and power are driving more and more people down the abyss of both physical and spiritual destruction. The slave-driver mentality wrought amongst governments and multinationals were sometimes transferred down our own communities.

Overall the dinner and address was well-received by the public and the IPCI  endeavours to continue hosting such programmes on a wide variety of stimulating subjects, many of which are sometimes considered ‘taboos’. In this world of hate and misinformation, the role of organizations like the IPCI become even more important now and needed now!

For more photos of the event go to: www.ahmed-deedat.co.za