The Dole

For those unfamiliar with the concept of a charity state, Australia is one of them. England is the best charity state that's why they have lots of immigrants.

Anyhoo. Here, if you are a resident/citizen and unemployed for any reason you will get an allowance from the government. You will get $1000 paid fortnightly. Which is $2000 a month (and significantly more than our MARA scholarships as a student dulu ye).

Since I now pay taxes (and a lot of it, too) I do not mind having my hard-earned money to pay for people who cannot work because they have a disability, a mental illness or have to care for their sick family members. In fact, it's a nice way to make sadaqah.

BUT. I cannot stand that the money I worked hard to get goes to people who are LAZY and USELESS and don't even bother to go find a decent job and get money for their own use. Instead they use the money to buy cigarettes, drugs, booze and then become so good-for-nothing that no-one in their right mind would want to employ them. And these people rock up to the hospital (because it's free, if they went to a clinic they'd have to pay) drunk or recently overdosed or allegedly in pain because they want free medications.

Unfortunately I see a lot of these kind of people as patients. It just makes me seethe. How would you feel?

I have lived with LESS than that amount of money when I was a student. Yes it was tight but you won't die from starvation. You could still have a comfortable home and good food. You could still go out once in a while and have things you like. You can save up and buy things that you want or go places. We got an allowance but we had a "job" too. Our job was to study. If we didn't have enough money, we sold things, made things and sold them, get a casual job and lots of other ways.

So if someone is unemployed and getting easy allowance every fortnight, then what to they do all day? Able-bodied people just staying at home doing nothing...what do they do? Wallow in self pity with booze and cigarettes and smoke and lament about their pitiful life yet do nothing to improve that life. Then they become depressed, try to commit suicide, abuse their family/children, get assaulted during a drunk episode.

Save up for a training course for something, at least. Clean yourself up. Sober up. Volunteer. Study, read, learn. Improve yourself. The idle hands are the devil's hands. There are lots of work opportunities for everyone who wants it. It's just a matter of wanting it or not.

Indeed from all this I understand why Allah says He does not change those who do not change themselves.

Whenever I see people like that I always think of the story of Abdul Rahman ibn Auf. He was the richest man in Makkah. When he migrated to Madinah, he had nothing. He was in poverty. But what did he do? He looked for a business opportunity. He found that no one sold firewood at the market. So he went out in the heat to look for firewood to sell at the market. He was prosperous again in no time.

These days, people are allergic to hard work.