Conforming to stereotypes

WHEN Karen Armstrong came to Pakistan recently, her lectures became a social rather than a serious or scholarly event. At least this was so in Karachi where everyone who mattered went to hear Ms Armstrong speak. ‘Are you going to the Armstrong event’? Society ladies rang up one another to ask. The next morning it was: ‘Did you go to the Armstrong event yesterday? I didn’t see you.’

It became an occasion to see and be seen, and the audience overflowed into additional rooms to hear Ms Armstrong on television screens.

Very flattering no doubt, but how many of those who listened to her really understand what people like her are trying to suggest — mainly, alas, in the West? In her autobiographical ‘The spiral staircase’, Ms Armstrong writes: “In my history of Jerusalem (one of her books), I learned that the practice of compassion and social justice had been central to the cult of the holy city from the earliest times, and was especially evident in Judaism and Islam. I discovered that in all three of the religions of Abraham, fundamentalist movements distort the tradition they are trying to defend by emphasising belligerent elements and overlooking the insistent and crucial demand for compassion.”

Many of those who formed Ms Armstrong’s Karachi audience undoubtedly believe in an Islam that is tolerant and moderate. But how many of them look at Islam and religion generally as having “compassion and social justice” as the central theme?

The elite who go to listen to Karen Armstrong and read her books must be particularly dismissive of her use of the phrase “social justice”. The emphasis has been on Islam as a combative creed, an image upheld by the military types and religious leaders out to create political space for themselves. But social justice and compassion? Where have they figured either in the policies of successive governments or the counsels of political parties and political leaders? On the other hand, we have witnessed and suffered from the spectacle of the religious parties trying to outdo each other in their attitudes of belligerence and militancy.

The same thing has happened to that other Abrahamic religion, Judaism, where the state founded in its name has, far from compassion and social justice, become a monstrous occupier of other people’s lands, a source of terror throughout the region, and a ruthless killer of women and children. It is especially galling to see that religion of peace par excellence, Buddhism, assume the violent shape it has in Myanmar and Sri Lanka.

In our case, even the terminology of political leaders has been full of fire and brimstone and is devoid of any rational or peaceable content. Their discourse is often meant to appeal to the least tolerant of our instincts. The Jamaat-i-Islami, whose founder was accepted as a scholar whether you agreed with his interpretations or not, in the early years developed some social programmes and won support among the educated middle classes. But soon, probably from its sponsorship of the Objectives Resolution onwards, it began to adopt an intolerant creed, campaigning against the Ahmadis and agitating for separate electorates. It has transformed itself into a party forever angry with ordinary Pakistanis for their daily deviations from the JI’s version of Islam.

If you hear of the party now on campuses, you hear of it in the context of its harassment of couples seen talking or walking together. Then you hear of its “danda (stave)”-bearing brigades on New Year’s eve patrolling outside hotels, clubs and even private houses. Its opposition to the Women’s Protection Bill also reflects neither Ms Armstrong’s compassion nor her sense of social justice. How can a measure designed to prevent social and sexual exploitation of women be opposed by any religious party? But the JI is insistent in its opposition and is mounting pressure on other components of the MMA to resign from parliament in protest against the bill.

The Jamiat Ulema-i-Pakistan (JUI) is an offshoot of the Jamiat Ulema-i-Hind which, under the leadership of Maulana Hussain Ahmad Madani, was a partner of the Congress Party in the struggle against the British and thus had at least an anti-imperialist orientation. But the ideology and religion-loaded political atmosphere in Pakistan soon took care of the JUI, and its anti-imperialism converted into the kind of fundamentalism that eventually led it to patronise the violent and reactionary Taliban movement. It was also an active partner in the anti-Ahmadi agitation. It is interesting to recall at that one time it had described the Jamaat-i-Islami as an agent of imperialism and sided with the People’s Party of Mr Z.A. Bhutto.

Most of the other religious parties are wholly sectarian in nature and nurse their own militant constituencies. The link between some of the parties involved in sectarian politics within Pakistan and some of the organisations operating from our soil that have been active in Kashmir was accepted by the government only reluctantly and only after 9/11 cleared minds of some deeply entrenched ideas that came close to be seen as reflecting a crusading zeal on our part. Even now some of the same tendencies seem to persist in our military and intelligence community’s attitudes to Afghanistan and the Taliban factor. In short, the image of Islam that we present in practice, apart form whatever Gen Pervez Musharraf may say to the contrary, is of a religion concerned solely with agitation against things that the religious leaders, with many politicians as their lackeys, consider to be anti-Islam.

Thus our agitations are mounted mostly on issues such as alleged blasphemies committed by western authors or commentators or politicians or measures such as the women’s bill. It should be a matter of shame for all of us that let alone religious parties, not even the so-called liberal parties thought it worthwhile to stage street demonstrations against the recent Israeli atrocities in Lebanon and Gaza. Religion as exploited by most of our political-religious leaders seems to be wielded as a weapon of hate rather than as a means of creating a compassionate and caring society.

This negative approach has failed to be countered by even those politicians who would consider themselves to be secular or liberal — or even by generals who have come and strutted and fretted their hour on our political stage posing as moderates and open-minded reformers but who have actually encouraged reactionary and militant trends. Thus we have what the historian Prof Mushirul Hasan has called the failure of “Muslim modernism” to confront the conservatives who have seen reforms and innovation as a threat to what they believe to be their Islam.

We can have a Hasba bill to control our morals, but not a bill to deal with unemployment or the plight of physically or mentally handicapped people. We seem constantly to be on the lookout to separate good Muslims from bad Muslims. We depict every political development in terms of religious orthodoxy, thus missing the actual expansionist objectives behind some of the events that are taking place today in the world around us. America’s occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan is reduced simply to religious terms and its political implications ignored.

So, actually, while we blame others for presenting a wrong picture of Islam, we tend to forget that we may ourselves be guilty of the same aberration. And since we have closed on ourselves all doors to dialogue and democratic debate and rational discussion of religious issues, we cannot even produce concerned scholars like Karen Armstrong to underline the compassion and the element of social justice in Islam. If the West has a stereotype of Islam and of Muslims in its mind, then we by our acts of omission and commission only conform to it and strengthen it.

One of the great virtues projected in relation to Islam was that it had no priesthood. Now religion in Pakistan is totally dominated by priest-politicians and imams and owners of seminaries who form their own priesthood and yet are at war with each other and have divided their followers into almost irreconcilable sects. The more we seek to glorify militancy, the more we fall into the trap set for us.

By the way, has any mosque imam ever pondered over the anomaly that while on the one hand he invokes in his prayers God’s curse on the “ahle-yahood” and the “ahle hanood”, he seeks, on the other hand, blessings for Abraham’s progeny?

Indian Muslims’ backwardness

“‘WHAT is truth?’ said jesting Pilate and would not stay for an answer.” Francis Bacon’s opening lines in his essay, Of Truth, reflect man’s inability to face facts.

On the contrary, in the changed atmosphere of the present day, if we ask, “What is the destiny of Indian Muslims?” we have to stay to hear the answer despite what it may do to the individual and collective psyche of Muslims all over the world, particularly the Muslims of India.

In 1997, when I took the first group of school boys from Pakistan on a goodwill tour to India the chairman of my old school, Major-General Virender Singh (retd), asked me, “Why do Muslim boys and girls in India shy away from schools? If they do attend one they are almost always poor performers.” Of course, I was offended by the remark at that time and made it clear that, as a Muslim, it had offended me. But as one who had spent the first 42 years of his life in India, I knew that there was much truth in the general’s remark.

This fact has now been conceded by no less a person than Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh who declared, “The main factor responsible for the backwardness of the minority communities, particularly the Muslim community, is the lack of their access to the common school system.” He not only called for increasing the opportunities for education for Muslims but also declared that Muslims should get their fair share in civil service jobs. He opined that differences in education and job opportunities between the majority and minority communities were a major cause for frequent religious strife and communal riots in India, which claimed many precious lives.

It is generally recognised that all Muslims, and specially the Muslims of India, must adjust themselves to the various trends of the modern age to the extent to which they are not in conflict with their fundamental philosophy of life. Indeed, they should make it clear to themselves that the precept, which they received from their religious preachers, of resistance to learning and of utter contempt for material wealth and comfort, is based on a wrong interpretation of Islam’s teachings.

It has to be examined whether the chosen life of poverty is on account of abstinence and self-sacrifice or due to laziness and apathy. While the former is worthy of praise and reverence the latter is disgraceful and condemnable. Most such people are beggars and parasites of the rich, or if they happen to be a little adventurous, criminals of society.

A historical factor, which has contributed to the economic backwardness of Indian Muslims, particularly in the north, is the fact that the means by which the Muslims earned their living were confined to the jagirdari and the zamindari systems, and the civil and military service. Some worked in rural areas as tillers and in the cities as artisans. Economic depression for all these groups had set in during the days of the decline of the Mughal empire. After 1857, all these avenues of livelihood were closed to the Muslims. A large number of their fiefs and freehold lands were confiscated on the charge of conspiring to overthrow British rule. Taking and giving of loans for business affected the Muslim traders because Islam prohibited such a practice. With the arrival of machines, the artisans also lost their means of livelihood.

The Muslim youths’ aversion to technical education further compounded their economic misery. When training in different crafts started along scientific lines, the Muslims, who had learned their trade the traditional way, were driven out of jobs since they lacked both general and technical education. Looking down upon all kind of manual and blue-collared jobs despite their financial difficulties prevented the rise of the children of the Muslim middle class in the field of technology and industrial engineering.

The backwardness of Indian Muslims in higher education has now aggravated. This spells danger not only for their economic but also their cultural, moral and spiritual life. Without higher education, Indian Muslims cannot tackle the difficult task on which depends not only their progress but also their very existence.

To meet this challenge, it is necessary for the men of perception and action among them to make a firm resolve to devote all their attention and efforts to educational reform and progress as Sir Syed had done in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. But in so doing they would have to take a lesson from the successes and failures of that time and adopt a course of action in accordance with present conditions and needs.

The movement for creating in the Muslims an awareness of the need for higher and technical education at all levels has to find resources for giving financial help to students. The majority of Muslim students who have the capacity and the desire for higher education would have to be given stipends and for this a huge sum is required. Any plan for a renaissance of Indian Muslims would be incomplete and ineffective without bringing the Muslim masses within its purview.

Far from starting any movement of social service on their own initiative, Indian Muslims have not taken any part in the great campaign of constructive work launched for the welfare of all communities, without any distinctions of religion or race. Their educational movements were confined to the upper and middle classes only. Indian Muslims devoted all their collective energies to political movements, which aimed at the protection of the special rights of their upper and middle classes.

No attention was paid to the plight of the Muslim masses or the betterment of their economic, social and cultural condition. The result was that upper classes, that wanted to sit firmly on the slope of history, slipped down while the poor people, whom social inequality had kept at a low level, remained where they were as the world and India moved ahead.

Even now, if the Indian Muslims can hear the call of the present and profit by the experience of the past, they must begin the task of reconstructing their social life by strengthening the foundations, which may be weak but are certainly not rotten.

Top-secret torture

BURIED within a recent government brief in the case of Guantanamo Bay inmate Majid Khan is one of the more disturbing arguments the Bush administration has advanced in the legal struggles surrounding the war on terrorism.

Mr Khan was one of the Al Qaeda suspects who was detained in a secret prison of the CIA and subjected to “alternative” interrogation tactics — the administration’s chilling phrase for methods most people regard as torture. Now the government is arguing that by subjecting detainees to such treatment, the CIA gives them “top secret” classified information — and the government can then take extraordinary measures to keep them quiet about it.

If this argument carries the day, it will make virtually impossible any accountability for the administration’s treatment of top Al Qaeda detainees. And it will also ensure that key parts of any military trials get litigated in secrecy.

Mr Khan is one of 14 people transferred to Guantanamo earlier this year from the CIA’s secret prison programme. After his transfer, lawyers seeking to represent him asked for an order granting them access on the same terms as lawyers representing other detainees. The government objected on two main grounds. It contended that the court lacks jurisdiction because of two new laws that strip federal courts of authority over detainee matters. That may well be correct, and Judge Reggie B. Walton agreed last week that any consideration of counsel access should wait until the court of appeals rules on the jurisdictional question.

But the government also argues that Mr. Khan is different from previous Guantanamo inmates; their lawyers are cleared to see information classified at the “secret” level. The CIA programme, however, involves top-secret information, so lawyers for Mr. Khan would have to be cleared at a higher level — and access would have to take place under more restrictive circumstances.

The trouble is that at least some of the secrets the government is trying to protect are the very techniques used against people such as Mr Khan — and its means of protecting them is to muzzle him about what the CIA did to him. CIA official Marilyn A. Dorn said in an affidavit that Mr Khan might reveal “the conditions of detention and specific alternative interrogation procedures.” In other words, grossly mistreating a detainee now justifies keeping him quiet.

The problem with this argument is not just its Kafkaesque sheen. If the courts accept it, it would have vast practical implications. The integrity of any military trials of the high-value detainees will depend on their excluding evidence obtained by unduly coercive means. By the logic of the government’s argument, however, all of that litigation will have to take place in secret.

Detainees are also supposed to be able to appeal their status as enemy combatants to the federal appeals court here in Washington. The government’s logic would all but assure that the bulk of any such appeal would be secret as well. So accepting this theory would mean that no claim of torture could be resolved in a transparent and accountable fashion.

Given the importance of open trials for the high-value detainees, it’s hard to imagine a principle that would more thwart the effort to bring them credibly to justice.

—The Washington Post