Why Ignoring Your Elders Keeps You Weak

I was watching some videos of present day Mahathir. He was born in 1925.

Aloha,

khat. Does that mean?

In a hundred years, the he's gonna be 100 this year.

He's gonna be 100 in July.

May Allah preserve him.

And he's you see, he reached a certain age, you know, and he thinks that he will be weakened or, you know, like on a wheelchair or bedridden or something else, you know, will not protect us all. But this man has reached he's at the doorstep of 100 and Lucid is still standing. He's driving himself

Yeah. Still driving himself around?

You know?

Bicycling?

Yeah. He bicycles. He walks everywhere. He can, you know I don't think that's an equivalent anywhere in the world today of a world with the mental faculties and capacities full, you know, fully functional.

I mean, the thing is is that Mahathir Mahathir, his mind, in my opinion, his mind was so advanced, so far above everyone else. He could deteriorate significantly and still be smarter than everyone else.

Yes. Probably.

And still come across as as, you know, out of everyone else's league, no matter how much he deteriorated.

I was watching a a a recent podcast, by a Singaporean broadcaster. And I'm also it's I'm glad to see him, you know, providing his presence, you know, to these young minds, you know. And I I also value very much that the young people, youngsters out there are are seeking his advice Mhmm. Seeking, you know, his wisdom clearly, you know, and and connecting with him, enjoying their time talking to him instead of just dismissing him as some kind of a relic from the past that has no relevance of bearing on on their, you know, discussion about the future the present and the future. You know?

Because it's he clearly you know, he's been through World War two. You know, he was born shortly after World War one. He's been through World War two. His youth was spent in the, you know, early days of post colonialism. You know?

He's seen the the early formation, the discussion, and the eventual formation of the state of Israel. You know? He's he's familiar with every talking point that's ever been. It's not that period of time.

Yeah. I mean, whatever whatever news or not news, I won't say news. Whatever events, major world events of the last one hundred years he lived through it. Yeah. It's not something he has to research.

He can just remember. That's Yeah. That's tremendous. Yeah. And that's a tremendous asset and a tremendous resource.

Alhamdulillah that he's still lucid, that people can talk to him. Exactly. This is this is much better than, you know, doing some kind of research on the internet. You can actually talk to someone who who lived through those periods of time and who knows what the what was what was how those events were perceived at the time, what the events were that were leading up to it and so forth. He remembers it all.

He doesn't have to Wikipedia it, check on Wikipedia or check Google, something like that, he can just check his own memory bank in his own mind. Your elders are your best resource, should be your best resource, your best asset, because otherwise Like we were talking about This came up because we were talking about Nkrumah and Lumumba. And you said that like someone like Patrice Lumumba was ahead of his time. But in fact he wasn't ahead of his time. The time just got frozen.

The advancement and the development that was supposed to happen was stunted, was artificially stopped, was artificially halted. And now people in 2025 have to relearn all of the lessons that should have been allowed to play out in 1965 or 1955, like with the Bandung conference. You know, all of these things that that like if you look if you look back or or or someone like Lee Kuan Yew. Some of the things that Lee Kuan Yew was saying back in 1965 sound like he's talking about right now with bricks, with the rise of the global South and bricks and so on. And at that time, that should have happened.

And the understanding that those those post colonialist, anti imperialist, independence movement type leaders, the new leaders of the newly independent countries, the types of things that they were understanding about the world and about how power works in the world and how about neo colonialism works in the world and about American hegemony and American coercion and so forth. The things that they were understanding and western western coercion and the and the and the false dichotomy of you have to either choose the Soviets or us. You know, all of these things that that that they were grappling with and that they fully understood and understood the the right way forward. Mhmm. All of that going back now in 2025, looking at it now, it sounds like they're visionary leaders in 2025.

Yeah.

And and and the the the point here is, if you don't know your elders and you don't talk to your elders and you don't learn from your elders, then you're going to be stuck relearning with every generation. With with every successive generation, there's going to be a control alt delete and start over again with every new generation. Start at zero with every new generation. This is why they try to alienate you from the elders. This is why they try to alienate you from the older generation.

And I think that the older generation doesn't have anything to say because they don't know what a meme is, or they don't know the latest internet slang or what have you. But their their level of understanding, hopefully, is is great and their and their like I say about Mahathir, that the memory data bank that they have from lived experience, there's no reason why you have to go without that. You can learn the lessons that they learned without having to go through what they went through. And then you can start from there.

Yeah.

Rather than every new generation has to start at zero, you can start where the last generation left off. That's that's what traditional societies have always understood with keeping this continuum moving forward and and always developing and always learning and building on the knowledge of the past rather than relearning the knowledge of the past over and over again for every successive generation.

You you could have benefited from referencing the elders.

Right.

And then, like you said, build.

Yeah. And because and because the the the control alt delete doesn't apply to everyone. Mhmm. It applies to the masses. It applies to the to the subject populations.

The the people in power don't control or delete the knowledge of the past. They retain all of the knowledge of the past and they do build on where the last generation left off. They don't delete everything from before. They all come up listening, they all have mentors, they all come up listening to especially when you're talking about the, what they call the intergenerational wealth. These rich families, they grow up learning about power, they grow up learning about money, they grow up learning about business, they grow up learning about exploitation and manipulation and colonization, they learn all of that.

How to be successful predators, they learn all of that. You know, just like actually predatory animals, they learn how to hunt. So so do they. But but the masses are taught to disrespect their elders, especially in the West. It's not the case as much in the Muslim world.

It's not as much in the case that's not as much the case in the East. Mhmm. You know, I I don't know if that's the case in Africa or not. But in the Muslim countries, there's still respect for your for your elders. Yeah.

But it shouldn't be it shouldn't be hopefully it's not just Superficial. Etiquette. Yeah. Superficial deferential. Yeah.

We just show respect Yeah. Without actually respecting. Because if you if you if you just show respect and you're not actually respecting, you're only hurting yourself. The elders don't need your respect. But you need to respect them because that that's a rich rich resource of information and knowledge for you.

That if you if you don't appreciate it Mhmm. Then you're you're, like I say, you're going to be starting at zero while the people who are trying to oppress you are not starting at zero. They're way ahead of you.

See, the thing is that I'm even wondering how this will reach someone who doesn't even have a concept of this. Know? Like, we both understand the value, and so it makes sense to us.

I mean, I grew up with great respect for my grandfather, and he wasn't a political person. But I learned a lot from him about how to behave, just about how to behave, how to carry yourself, and how to deal with difficulties in life and so forth. Like, as a as a life mentor, my grandfather was was great at that. I mean, not everyone has access, you know, but that's just within a family. But even if you're talking about like, we're talking about like with Mahathir.

Alhamdulillah, Mahathir, can say, is like the father of of of Malaysia. Everyone has access to this man. Everyone has access to his knowledge. Not just like, you know, because he's actually willing to go on people's podcast. But I mean, all of his knowledge is out there.

He's written books. He's he's he's done countless interviews. You know, there's there's endless amounts of information or or footage. Interviews, footage, writing, so on of of Mahathir over the years. And again, you can go back to people who aren't with us anymore, like Nkoma, like Patrice Lumumba, or, you know, even like Thomas Sankara, obviously, or or in America, you have Malcolm X, you have Martin Luther King, you have these leaders, and you have the civil rights movement wasn't that long ago.

So if you're like in the African American community, you've got relatives that were part of the civil rights movement, and they can tell you how it goes, how it went, how the government responds, how the society responds, and so on and so on and so on, you know? But if you don't listen to them, or or you you think that they don't have something to tell you, you don't think that they have information for you, they don't have wisdom to pass on to you through their experience, you're a fool. You're a fool, and you're determined to be a fool, you know. And believe me, you will reach your middle age or your old age wishing that you had listened. Wishing that you I I should have listened, and you'll remember some of the things that they told you, And you know, and you'll remember some of the things that they told you, and you'll say, you know, uncle so and so was right, or auntie so and so was right, but I didn't listen because he or she was old, or because he or she, you know, was out of fashion, or or what have you.

You think that you think that because someone gets old they get out of touch.

Yeah. Can't keep up with the trend. I I I don't know what is the thought process here because there's a kind of an overbearing dismissiveness that I detect online. Yeah. In real life, okay, maybe because we're in this part of the world.

So it's not so prevalent. But online is like, you know, mainly dominated by the western English Mhmm. Westernized English people. It just seems a little bit, you know.

Yeah. It's very stupid. That's that's very stupid. It's it's it's something that's so stupid that only a young person could do it.

It's very silly, you know, and shortsighted. Really myopic of you to dismiss somebody who's who's nine years ahead of you.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean I mean, like I said, the the the your seniors, the the elders, don't need your respect. We don't need it. You're the one who needs the knowledge.

We've already been through it and we're on the way out. But you're heading into it. And it wouldn't it maybe would be useful for you to to have someone tell you, just like just like, you know, if you're talking about literally going into a place you've never been before and someone else has been there, they can tell you, well, if you walk this way and then you turn left, you turn right, and then you'll find something useful for you, go another way, this I can give you all those instructions, I can give you all those directions. You don't wanna listen, that's up to you. You wanna just wander and bump your head on things, that's up to you.

It's it has no effect on me whatsoever. Just realistically, cold hard reality. What is a 20 year old gonna tell a 20 year old? What have you got to say? You live the same amount of time.

What what do you have to to contribute? What do you have to offer? What do you have to say that this person that's valuable to this person? When you've lived the same amount of time, and roughly had probably the same amount of experience in the world. But someone presents themself, you know, like, because because when you're in your twenties or what have you, or your teens even, you know, you're wandering around trying to get some kind of guidance from here or there or the other.

But if you're rejecting older people who actually have more lived experience than you, who've been through way more than you, and who have learned, so many lessons from what they have gone through. If you're gonna reject that, and you wanna go to someone because they look like you, or because they are quote unquote in touch with the things that you're in touch with, Okay. This is the blind beating the blind. This is this is this is this is, you know, this isn't even a toddler teaching a newborn how to walk. It's it's like a newborn and a newborn.

A newborn trying to tell another newborn how to walk. You don't know anything either. We're both crawling along here. It it needs someone who with some experience to come along, you know? The the it's supposed to be protege and mentor type situation, where the mentor is actually the one who has experience and the protege is the one who doesn't.

But now with the with the culture, these people are like proteges acting as mentors. Why also, Allah says again and again, to respect your elders, to respect your parents. And parents by extension means those who are older than you. To show to show and and and the same when Allah talks about reflecting upon the people who came before you. Okay?

You have access to do that with the people themselves. In just the generation that came before you, and if they're still alive, the generation before that generation, you have access to those people and to their knowledge and their experiences and so forth. And that is that that can end up making it like you're a 20 year old who has the knowledge of an 80 year old. You know. Maybe you were born in 2000, but it but but you have so much information and so much knowledge and understanding you might have been born in 1960.

Yeah. Because you've been able to access all of the things that those people who went through. So then you're not starting from zero every generation. You're starting where they left off.