Let us suppose that you are working on an article or research paper related to Economics or Sociology or Physics etc. Someone around you floats a quote that he claims originate from Adam Smith, Max Weber or Feynman. What will you do?
- Search for it online, verify it and then use it with proper referencing.
- Consult related books, find and verify it and then use it with references.
- Believe in it and use it.
Now let me ask what you will do if you receive some piece of information from a preacher, a zakir, Dr. Zakir or the imam of your local mosque.
- Consult anther preacher etc. for verification and then use it.
- Search for the authenticity of information in literature, verify it and then use it.
- Believe in it and use it.
Let me say that for the first case, acting upon the third option will definitely create a great failure out of you. You will lose your credibility in academic circles and who knows what else (I’ll personally like to have your degrees revoked). How about the second case?
Are you capable of easily distinguishing between religious doctrine, jurisprudence, local traditions, tribal/clan culture and nationalism? You claim to do so? Let me ask you something. If you go for your weekly prayers on Friday, which dress do you wear? Is this dress similar to the one you wear on other weekdays? How about everybody else around you? If you prefer to wear your national dress for your Friday prayer then can you please illuminate me the religious rationale behind it? Is it a part of the ritual to wear a specific form of dress? Does it originate from religious jurisprudence? Isn’t it correct that you have successfully (for me horribly) amalgamated religion with nationalism and local/regional traditions and you are virtually unable to separate them.
Why should not I claim that you are a blind follower of your traditions, may those be religious, national, cultural and tribal and you do not have a single clue regarding the sources of these traditions? Who would take the pains and spare time out of watching “Saas – Bahoo” comedies, Premier league matches or the immensely popular entertainment shows such as Capital Talk, Bolta Pakistan etc.
Do you think that racism is only a western issue? How many of you are ready to marry out of your caste, sect or ethnicity? How many of you have got parents who won’t shudder at the idea of having their children married to someone out of their caste and more than that to someone from an incompatible caste? Don’t you take pride in your clan culture? I am not talking about the proletariat? Its you, the educated and prosperous, who does not feel shame in promoting people of your own clans and castes for employment and other opportunities whenever you get a chance, who do not refrain from uttering derogatory remarks about Sindhis, Punjabis, Balochs, Muhajirs, Pakhtun and Saraiki . Don’t you always forward me those humiliating Sardar and Pathan jokes? Don’t you vote for the political candidates of your clan? Why do you still tell each other the amazing tales of young man from a lower caste working his way towards progress when “lower castes” are not supposed to exist as I was told in my Social Studies book that it were native Hindus who divided population of the subcontinent into castes and the invading Muslims brought social freedom to this land? Tell me then why do you always whine about the racism and hate crimes that you have to face in Europe and USA?
Can you tell me why do you always demand that Non- Muslims should be removed from the bureaucracy and high offices? Why it is that a minority student at a higher education institute is still a peculiarity for you? Don’t you feel ashamed when you expel 23 students from a public sector educational institute based on the sole reason that they belong to minority [1] [2] ? Should not a state provide equal opportunities to all of its citizens regardless of their ethnicity, race, sex and religion? If you can consider all Non-Muslims as your enemies, disloyal to state and conspirators then how can you complain that West considers all the Muslims as terrorists? Don’t you pray every Friday that God may destroy the Christians, Jews and Hindus? Why complain then if they come to destroy you?
You struggled against Military dictatorship, right and left together against the regime. Let me ask all of you from the right side. Do you really oppose authoritarianism? Do you really believe that democracy is the only plausible system of government in this century? If yes then why a Sunni Muslim (pardon me for going sectarian here) believes that Saudi Arabia ruled by monarchs is a perfect state to live in? Why do all my Shiite brothers/sisters consider the theocratic totalitarian Iran as a paradise on earth? Why do I see city walls filled with graffiti that democracy is Kufr and those who vote are infidels ? Are these sentiments, prejudice or simply denial?
Your greatest achievement in creating inter-faith solidarity and unity was quite evident when I had to fill my profile database and security clearance forms for a brief service to a public sector organization. I was not to be cleared to serve my state unless I specifically declared whether I was a Sunni or Shiite! No liberal, moderate workaround. Even face-book founded by neo-conservative Christians provides me better options than this!
My conservative friend! Why it is that your morality starts and ends at women? Why it is that a girl wearing jeans is more of a serious issue to you rather than the impoverished state of the lower class, the law and order, the social injustice, widening class difference, the energy crisis, and scarcity of business and social ethics. Have you eliminated all these social evils from our society? What is your biggest achievement? Is it the conversion of this country into a sectarian and religious battleground? Is it the dreamland where mobs kill people on the instigation of religious clerics [3][4] ? Where burying women alive is in accordance with tribal traditions [5] ?
What are these tribal traditions, regional traditions and national traditions? Where do these come from and where will they go? I have told you that you are unable to separate religion from traditions; you have made your national dress a part of the rituals and you are confused even if you never acknowledge it.
My question to all of you is whether you are ready to find out how many tribal, regional and national traditions you have made a part of your daily life along with religion? How you are going to find out is up to you. What you need is to spare some time for study and consume some grey cells to reflect. You all have your brains with you and you can always get sufficient time if you skip the next exciting episode of Saas-Bahoo, Indian Idol and Capital Talk.
Notes
6 comments
Comments feed for this article
September 3, 2008 at 1:16 PM
The Disection | ALE Xpressed
[...] Masood, a UET alumnus, a Software Engineer and a close friend of mine to the Pakistani BlogoSphere. Checkout one of his interesting posts where he discusses the blind following and conservative nature of [...]
September 4, 2008 at 12:12 AM
ALE-Xpressed
Welcome to Pakistani Blog-o-Sphere and what a nice post to kick start the job. Hope you continue blogging and provide us with such quality stuff
Loved to read the post and relieved to know there are people who think like me
September 17, 2008 at 12:14 AM
kattwinson
good post keep it up
i am from Pakistan n would like to see such postings daily.
thanks.
httP;//www.worldoffashion.wordpress.com
September 21, 2008 at 1:36 AM
ALE-Xpressed
The changes in the design/layout are good, looks better now. Try adding the ‘Read more link’ widget to the posts, it will improve loading time of the blog.
October 2, 2008 at 10:56 PM
The Disection | Tea Break
[...] Masood, a UET alumnus, a Software Engineer and a close friend of mine to the Pakistani BlogoSphere. Checkout one of his interesting posts where he discusses the blind following and conservative nature of [...]
November 12, 2008 at 8:24 PM
naveed
The answer to all of your questions is very very simple:
“We have converted Way Of Life (Arabic: Deen) to Religion (merely a set of rituals and dogmas)”. Unfortunately this happened in the course of centuries.
And you know religion, by definition is not flexible. So here we go …
Study your book (Quran) with an open and critical mind, you would reach the conclusion that it never talked about religion, never argued over traditions/rites/rituals/dogmas/individual salvation/priesthood/monarchy etc. In fact it presented a challenge to all these.
Since mankind requires guidance about permanent values (otherwise these values come from within the society which itself is a chaos because people differ), so it just gives you the basis upon which you have to build a system using your intellect.
But as I said, priesthood and monarchy in its own benefit changes the original message. This happened with Christianity, Jewism and with Islam as well. In case of this book (Quran) though the original language was not changed, but wordings and terms were made to lose the splendor they so beautifully conveyed in the original form. (Mostly through traditional/cultural philosophies and baseless/fabricated stories)