Swine Flu..The road to ignorance?

Yesterday, the Ministry of Education announced another postponement of the new school year from next week to mid October meaning kids who finished the last school year in late May early June will have had over 4 months off!

I can imagine 6-8 year old kids who have just started learning how to read and write, have by now forgotten everything they’ve learned!

One of the main reasons for this delay is to help train teachers how to act in the situation of a child or fellow teacher catching the disease in school, and the other is waiting for the new H1N1 vaccine to arrive in our slaughterhouses-err I mean hospitals.

Now, reports have surfaced that this new vaccine is linked to some neurological disorders that can affect children and their development.

(Yes, the repetition in the middle is annoying)

Still affected by the spiritualities of the holy month of Ramadhan, a hadith by the Prophet Mohammed Peace Be Upon Him about some of the minor signs of the Hour (Judgement Day) sprung in my mind:

Anas ibn Malik said, ” I shall tell you a hadith which I heard from the Messenger of Allah (May Allah shower peace and blessings upon him), and which no-one will tell you after me. I heard him say “Among the signs of the Hour will be disappearance of knowledge and the appearance of ignorance. Adultery will be prevalent and the drinking of wine will be common. The number of men will decrease and the number of women will increase until there will be fifty women to be looked after by one man.””

This hadith was reported in the two Shahihs from the hadith of Abd Rabbihi.

So would children taking this vaccine be the beginning of the appearance of ignorance and and the ones smart enough not to take the vaccine simply die of the disease?  Very far fetched and Hollywood-ish but you never know..