The chasm that must not be bridged

LIVING in close proximity to a religious fanatic has its drawbacks. Communication isn’t easy when lifestyles and value systems differ so fundamentally and when the potential for conflict simmers ceaselessly below the surface. What you have, in a nutshell, is a clash of cultures rooted so far apart that a middle course just isn’t possible. This is a chasm that cannot be bridged nor, for that matter, should it be.

The religious bigots on one side, I say, and all decent right-thinking people on the other. Why show tolerance when the extremists (not just the ones with guns) don’t know the meaning of the word? Why be apologetic if your life choices harm no one else? Scoff openly and laugh in their faces. This is Karachi after all, not some backwater. Live a little or die wondering.

Until lately I had opted for the anthropological view, hoping to make the most of the peek afforded into a different and dreadful world. But no more. The first son of a bachelor who dares come over all self-righteous with me will have to deal, first-hand, with a full and unabridged recital of ‘The Wasteland’.

“In the mountains, there you feel free. I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter.” And more, much more, along those lines.

If poetry doesn’t cut it for you, act as you see fit but make sure the point gets across.

Call me narrow-minded but I have no patience with people who want to shove their religious values down your throat. What’s their beef anyway? For better or worse, this is not Maoist China where freedom of worship was stomped on in no uncertain manner. People here are free to go to their mosques, to adorn the regalia of religion for whatever reason and live their personal lives in accordance with their own values, arrived at rationally or otherwise. There is no bar on blind faith in Pakistan, nor should there be in any society.

Yet, somehow, this is not enough. Forgetting the good word that there is no compulsion in religion, the fanatics believe that everyone should think and behave like them. Make an effort to disabuse them of this hubris, this sense of superiority. You’ll be surprised how many can be stunned into silence, for they are not used to backchat. There is the off-chance of course that you might be shot dead in the process. But then some things are worth a fight.

The problem is that our default setting is to be respectful of religious-looking people. Perhaps some of us were brought up that way by parents who lived in a purer age when at least the basics could be taken at face value. But this no longer applies, for the uniform of religion is now worn (in addition to the few truly pious) by criminals, wife-murderers and perverts of every description. In a time of unbridled hypocrisy, the devil finds it ever more profitable to quote scripture.

Our mindsets have to change. There is no plausible reason other than fear why we should accept interference in our lifestyles by semi-literate busybodies who have nothing better to do. To turn the other cheek, to not make your disdain known, is to admit once and for all that the age of reason has well and truly passed us by. Or that you are a coward. Shirking confrontation, in this context at least, is tantamount to empowering the lunatic fringe.

Spinelessness, not the lack of good intention, will be the undoing of the broadminded. Reclaim the space. Can’t be bothered, want to leave well enough alone? Well, things are not “well enough”, in case you haven’t noticed. And you are wrong if you think the loonies will not come unravelling your cocoon in due course.

Soon Ramazan will be upon us. It would take someone far more informed and scholarly than myself to comprehend, let alone explain, the true spirit of the holy month. But this much even the untrained eye can see, year after year. Ramazan is used as an excuse not to work, to scowl even more than what is the norm in the concrete jungle, and to let it generally be known that you are doing the world a favour by fasting. Tempers fray easily until the sugar buzz kicks in at sunset.

Even the sleaziest of cops with murder on their hands become self-righteous in Ramazan. Restaurants are shut during the day but samosa and sandwich joints mint money. The official booze shops down shutters for a month but bootleggers do a roaring trade at jacked-up prices. I could be wrong, I frequently am, but all this seems just a shade hypocritical. But then hypocrisy is a pillar of society in Pakistan and makes us what we are today.

One day, perhaps, we shall overcome the self-righteous. Fight it out with words for that is the way forward. No more deals and no quarter given; the majority should remain silent no longer. Show the hypocrites, their surma-ed eyes and their ornamental skullcaps no respect for they deserve none. We need not taint our souls by accommodating, in any way, the lowest of the low.

Enough said, for now.

imalik@dawn.com