While I was reading a sport news paper my attention was drawn by an interview with a soccer player, the journalist asked him why the defeat of his team (USM Annaba soccer team division 1) against the USM Kolea in the Algerian cup tournament, the player did not go far in his explanation, he simply said (it was predicted by god) I remained speechless at that and decided to write an article about the issue.

First of all lets talk about the soccer player, either he knows nothing about soccer game (although he is a professional) to ignoring the fact or the reasons (techniques, tactics, psychology) of the defeat (that’s what I doubt) or maybe unconsciously does not want to accept or admit the mistakes to exculpate from the defeat . It is easier to relate his defeat to god, as though the god decided about the score results of a simple soccer game, in fact this case where the fate is brought up to justify ,explain is also used by the rulers, for them its clear its just a trick to make fun of us, they hide their lack of skills and mistakes behind the god’s will , whatever happens its never them, when they can not blame the poor people, they use “ it was the god’s will “. Its almost if they don’t blame god to be responsible of our misfortunes and disasters. Isn’t blasphemy?

During the floods of Bab-El-Oued in Algiers in 2001,where hundreds of people died or disappeared, without taking into account the property damage, one of our rulers officially reported that “it was a god’s will “It’s a way to exculpate the government and push away the real cause, as though he wanted to say “ that’s not us, but something to do with god” although every body knows that if there was not a human carelessness about the blocked water drainers, the water would not flow through the streets. At least not that much.

During the earthquake of Boumerdes in 2003, we had the same old answer ‘it was the god’s will”, sure earthquake is not dependent on the humans will, it's a natural phenomenon, but the buildings are. After the earthquake of El Asnam in 1980 some actions have been taken to ensure that the new buildings comply with the anti-seismic standards, but it was quick to be forgotten and the government was careless about that, we could not prevent the boumerdes earthquake to happen but a lot of lives could have been saved if the buildings were kept safe. Here the error and carelessness are due to human.
We are not short of examples where the god’s will is challenged, to believe that god does not stop dogging us, and the poor people gives up and accept the fact of “ god’s will” to what they feel weak and helpless! How can we make progress when hiding behind the god’s will? How can we make progress when we don’t even bother to use our brains? Maybe for many saying majority thinking causes headaches because our school does not teach how to think even worst, how can we make progress if we are maybe not aware that any effect has a root cause that only needs to be identified. That’s the way to heal and move forward. Thinking in that way locks in lifelessness.

All this makes me think about another expression that precedes the former one in use. This is << In challah>> (<< if god wants>>). No promise, no commitment, no appointment, etc… Without one condition: “ if god wills it”. If the promise, the commitment were not fulfilled, they tell you << Allah Ghaleb>> (<< god is powerful, god had the last word, he decided otherwise>>). That’s how everyone can exonerate and wash the dirty hands of the blame. There is a loophole . So why constraining to be strict, rigorous...

The worst is when the rulers use abuse of the expression. They plan, they aim, they schedule but << if god wills it>>. Its like, they want to exonerate in advance in case nothing is going well. In this case, they will tell us << it was not decided by god >> .Him, he really wanted to. But god decided otherwise. Isn’t a blasphemy when we relate things that people failed to do or maybe does not want to happen or just lack of the proper knowledge to god?

I believe that the lack of development of Muslims in general and Arabs in particular lies in the explanations given above. Only a minority is excluded from this analysis due to some reasons that I will not state in this text. Because its not the purpose of my writings. I have already written above that we could not make a move, progress, if we systematically use the “god ‘s will” to justify our mistakes. The fact of relating the realization of a project or whatever to god's will creates a lack of conviction and self-confidence in its initiator, from the moment we put << if god wills it>> at the front, we submit to god’s will that we expect to show up. So, with this way of thinking, the motivation, determination, the required effort are almost passed out of existence. And if we reason out that way it will certainly not happen.

To conclude, this way of thinking produces a behavior that is characterized by wait-and-see policy, resignation and even fatalism, especially when richness and poverty are also attributed to god’s will. As long as we stick to the god's will and ignore science. We will never get out of the hostel.

Translated from french by L.F