bro, having seen Muslims jazbati feedback at various events - right from the advani rath yatra to the demolition of Babri Masjid to just about any and every social and political event concerning Muslims generally or Sunnis in particular - i only have one thing to say all these emotional feedbacks are generally meaningless after a couple of days or weeks and even good niyats of/for any grand plans just stay there. unless and until something, no matter how insignificant and small is internalized as a part of our DNA, no major or minor plan will work. it's the same thing when someone one day realizes he's overweight and then does everything from gym to intermittent fasting - for 3 whole weeks - and then after shedding a kilo or two goes back to his same old same old! or imagine an introverted loner who loses his job, and then suddenly he starts "networking" with friends and business associates and all in the hope of finding something soon. compare him to the guy professionally & socially well connected for the last 10 years. i would prefer teaching basic abcd and english grammar to poor 9 yr old madrasa kids as an inculcation into the Nizami curriculum rather than endeavor to somehow give some urdudan mufti sahiban a crash course in shakespearean english and AI and plato and cryptocurrency in the hope that 2 yrs down the line, they'd beat the next javed akhtar! as the saying goes - الاستقامة عين الكرامة that's the reason DI & SDI have made strides in delivering Sunniyat to the common man. small, baby steps, incorporated into daily life will always work greater wonders than reactionary, ad hoc grand plans. that, and yes book writers and translators are the elite of the learned folk, yes, it's a beautiful and special favor from Allah - but the way to the common man's heart and the way to mobilize the masses is nothing other than oratory. period. our orators need to learn to speak on more topics than just bashing devbandis or narrating karaamaat, and this oratory part rests on the stuff i mentioned right before this.
In reality, we do have capable people but they probably don't get the right support that they need. And we don't create enough capable people. In reality, what we need: 1. To send our intelligent kids to the become scholars rather than sending kids who are misbehaving so you take them out of the local school and hope the ulema can rectify him because you have your own hands full. Not to say there are no intelligent kids enrolled in dars nizami etc of course 2. The capable graduates should be supported in advancing their studies such as enrolling on a philosophy masters programme or anything that would be useful so they have exposure to subjects beyond their dars nizami training, and they can then carry this forward into future writings or talks etc 3. Sunni public should be funding such people and relevant projects rather than just donating money to langar. I would argue that the western sunni public should be especially smart with their money. For example, people complain that we don't translate enough barelwi works into Arabic. But we could literally pay someone in Pakistan like... £100 a month to work full time as a translator from urdu to Arabic for any work that is deemed sufficiently important. All it requires is for someone to take the time to create an organisation focused on this, recruit qualified people and ensure funding is sustainable. Could also fund original works e.g. Research into crypto, lab grown meat, etc. 4. Another possibility could be to hire graduates full time to work on dawah projects such as against atheism etc in urdu or English, boost their social media presence etc... Again, wouldn't actually cost much in the grand scheme of things. This kind of arbitrage happens in business e.g. Where western companies outsource call centres to Pakistan and India because it's cheaper.
Backdrop is javed akhtar debate, but this Syed sahib has articulated my thoughts and feelings almost all of them Ma sha Allah he also mentions Mawlana Abdul Aleem Siddiqui Towards the end, after 22 mins onwards he even tacitly addresses overzealous trigger happy Sunnis who throw accusations of sulh kulliyat at whim at people like Asrar Rashid and others.
