Welcome... #1

"We, this people, on a small and lonely planet
Travelling through casual space,
Past aloof stars, across the prairies of the sky,
Must speak the truth, and we must live it." - Angelou.

The greatest freedom of all is the freedom to speak the words you wish, to utter, unabridged, the thoughts you hold dear. The greatest impact of all is for those ideas to soar out into the world, past those aloof stars, and onto the incandescent dinner tables of strangers. Bludgeoned by a culture of reticence and a phantom of censorship, my generation, 'Gen Z', no longer participates in contemporaneous discussion, especially when it is controversial. We are engulfed in political correctness, we flounder in suppression and we drown in silence. To be free, truly free, we must sharpen our tongues and whet our minds with the ink of knowledge and percipience.

Narratives of mistruth not only dislodge us from firm thought, but now social media renders us unable to formulate independent thinking; mainstream media swarms us in dizzying agitprop, concussing our cognition into irrecognisable atrophy.

The collective withering of our sagacity, coupled with the incessancy of our fast-paced modern life, leaves me feeling ill-equipped to express the world I see before me. This blog will be the cradle in which my fervency for writing can manifest into an apposite coherence, from which, you and I can take benefit. And, furthermore, stripping away self-indulgence, this project will allow me to relish topics previously unexplored and imaginings left on the cerebral cutting room floor.

This blog will not be a guide to worldly success; this infinitesimal fissure in the internet will act as a stage upon which the characters of my discernment can perform their soliloquies of confusion and triumph and disaster, of truth and lie.

I will use this platform to voice opinion, reason and experience on social, cultural and political topics; pertinent for the young Muslim traversing this tumult we call modern life.

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I suppose there a few things you would like to know about me.

My name is Issa, 18. Currently, I am in my gap year, although a perennial gap from education currently feels quite attractive. Being a Muslim ideologically frames many of my views, but I do not claim to be a spokesperson for the correct Islamic opinion, on any issue, nor an infallible representative of this beautiful creed.

I hosted a weekly radio show on Heritage Radio; eponymously titled 'The Issa Ishaq Show'. My show focused on social, political and cultural issues through the lens of a young muslim man - sound familiar? Although I no longer host the show, I intend this platform to provide a similar outlet for the exposition and exploration of analogous ideas. I am also the Creative Director of FADHL, a modest menswear brand currently specialising in thobes. Check it out.

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One of my greatest passions is reading. The power of reading, for me, is epitomised in an indefectible phrase by Wilde:

"It is what you read when you don't have to that determines what you will be when you can't help it."

Reading does not simply stimulate the mind nor does it vacate boredom or initiate intelligence; the books we read become a part of us. Like winding wisteria, the knowledge we garner from our years of reading, nourish our growth. Books are not an affixation to our lives but rather we are in a symbiotic relationship with the words we ingest and the thoughts we dispense.

Join me every week, as we free ourselves from the bondage of our greatest oppressor - silence. I look forward to embarking upon this journey with you and forgive me for any mistakes I make along the way.

Issa.