The future is fundamentalist?

These past couple of days have been a jolting experience that has left me feeling somewhat disillusioned and pessimistic …
 

An internet newspaper in Pakistan that I read occasionally published an article in which the author called for reconciliation between the Sunni and Shia sects within Islam and a re-examination by Shia of some of their practices – not beliefs, mind you, just practices.  As the author pointed out, in all other cultures and religions, the start of a new year is celebrated with joy, but in Islam the Shia’s commemoration of the battle at Kerbala (in which the Prophet’s grandson was killed) involves not just mournful gatherings recounting the events of the episode, but elaborate and unsightly processions with a very public and bloody display of self-flagellation.  On occasion, these gatherings are also known to hurl insults at figures the Sunnis revere.  The author suggested that perhaps it was time to adopt more dignified forms of remembrance and to build bridges. 

 

I do not want to dwell on these rituals - which, by the way, are not stipulated by the religion, but added, by definition, since the battle took place several decades after the said Prophet’s demise.  What does concern me is the reaction that the article prompted.  (In case any one thinks I have an axe to grind, a quick browse through my blog will tell you what I think of religion and the Abrahamic religions in particular.)

 

Bear in mind that the article was written in English by an American university professor of Pakistani descent; and that it was published in a newspaper affiliated with the International Herald Tribune.  It was not a sermon bellowed by a mullah to a horde of supine congregants at a religious gathering.  I mention these facts so that one gets a measure of the potential audience – supposedly literate, educated, English-speaking and economically able to afford a newspaper or a computer, electricity and access to the internet!  Given the state of literacy, poverty and infrastructure in Pakistan (and the Muslim world in general), this does not amount to a large number.

 

The web-based edition of the newspaper allows for comment and had scarcely received sixteen over several hours when the storm clouds began rumbling on Twitter.  There were expressions of outrage, dubbing the article as a hate speech and accusing it of inciting hatred.  Remember, the man was talking about reconciliation!  Others were scornful of the author and of the newspaper for publishing the article.  There were calls for a boycott of the newspaper, an immediate apology from the author and editor and demands that the article be removed from the website post-haste (I think someone actually did use these very terms!). 

 

It seemed that those protesting were predominantly Shia, but I can’t be sure.  (Traditionally, names are a good indication.)  However, looking at the profiles of those protesting, I was astonished that they included university professors in America teaching science based subjects; journalists in Pakistan and elsewhere, who write for well-known national and international English newspapers; and so-called human rights activists – all people who should be used to and indeed encourage inquiry and debate.  Moreover, normally they like to portray themselves as secular, erudite and cultured, tweeting couplets by Ghalib and Sufi poets like Hafiz and Rumi (as light relief or to display their cultural credentials, who knows now).  Several are even followers of Taslima Nasreen and Salman Rushdie, both, of course, accused by Muslim fundamentalists of blasphemy and for offending Islam.  (Perhaps following them is another badge to display?)

 

However, the feverish twittering of these ‘offended’, supposedly educated people reminded me more of bearded mullahs and imams barking and stirring up illiterate mobs into frenzy over some alleged slight.  Admittedly, there was no flag or effigy burning, but there might just as well have been.  There was the same sloganeering, the same calls for boycotts and the same expressions of being outraged.  For me, it seemed a visceral primitive reaction had torn through the usual veneer of urbanity, to expose a less attractive underbelly which was no different from that seen in fist waving crowds, fulminating and frothing at the mouth like rabid dogs. 

 

But there was another side too: that of a group mindset that thought that only it had the right to decide what could and would be discussed – and by whom.  The so-called sophisticated and educated had shown their true mentality, and it was of the school playground: bullying, tribal and fascist, something one would, in fact, normally associate with the religious extremists and fundamentalists.

 

I went to sleep troubled with the following random thoughts racing through my mind:

 

mafia, bullying, mob, ayatullahs, Lord of the Flies, hypocrisy, a Sikh play in Birmingham that had come under fire a few years ago with calls for it to be banned for causing offence, the stirring up and mobilising of anger by mullahs during the Danish cartoon episode, Egypt and the Muslim Brotherhood, Salafis, Taliban, fundamentalism, Catholic church, secularism and public space, enlightenment, female genital mutilation, Sati, caste system, Mary Whitehouse and the Pink Paper, Life of Brian ….

 

The next day I was shocked to find that the newspaper had given in to pressure and taken the article off its website.  Later, an editor’s apology went up.  So much for its liberal credentials!  This morning I woke to find an apology that the author had, no doubt, been forced to issue and to learn that he had received death threats and been offered police protection.  On checking the time lines of those who had been so vocal in their protest, I was disgusted to find that some had calmly moved on to talk about other topics, others dismissed the author’s apology as mealy-mouthed and dishonest, and still others regarded the outcome as a job well done.

 

As I said, I am less concerned with the issue of Shia beliefs and more with issues of free speech, inquiry and debate and ultimately of intellectual honesty – and the old chestnuts of ‘causing offence’ and ‘inciting hate’ routinely brought up to stifle such debate. 

 

What do these professors teach their students?  How do they teach them if they can’t tolerate any dissent, any questioning?  Indeed, they should first be setting an example by responding in a mature, civilised manner; and second, encouraging just such debate and discussion.  If people like journalists, human rights activists and university professors can’t stomach and encourage a little debate and get offended by a mere article, how do they expect those practicing honour killings or female genital mutilation to consider their ways?  After all, many cultures believe these are required by their god and which to question would be blasphemous and deeply offensive.  Or do they think talking about and criticising such issues too should remain unmentioned because it too might cause offence and be an incitement to hatred?  And what of the notorious blasphemy laws in Pakistan that are supported by just such people who get prickly about any perceived insult to what they regard as sacred?  Do they think the mullahs and imams were right to call for the banning and withdrawing of Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses because it was insensitive and “caused offence”?  Do they think the Danish cartoon protests were justified, again because it “caused offence”?  Do they think the authorities should have capitulated to protests and stopped a play exposing and exploring exploitation within Sikh culture because it “caused offence”? 

 

How do we progress, how do we improve if we are to refuse to examine our beliefs, lay them open to see how well they stand up to scrutiny?  If they do, so much the better, but what is the harm and why get so defensive, even hysterical?   And if so-called educated people show themselves to be so thin skinned and react with emotion rather than reason, what hope is there of tackling the ingrained attitudes, beliefs and prejudices of the illiterate masses?  Given the rise of fundamentalism in the Muslim world, how are we to bring about reform if even the educated are not prepared to examine their beliefs?  (In any case, my confidence in their education is now severely dented and I will never be able to read another missive from them without adding the proverbial pinch of salt.)

 

And so, I fear that the future in Pakistan will be with superstition and ultimately with the extremists and fundamentalists.  The educated can only pretend, for they have lost credibility and have shown themselves to be just what the fundamentalists accuse them of being – intellectually dishonest, hypocrites and cowards.   The extremist uses death as his weapon and is prepared to die for his belief.  Thankfully, education, the Enlightenment and liberalism teach another, better way and one that does not require violence.  Instead, the educated use reason and courage to examine their own beliefs and then have the integrity to change if necessary and so progress.

Unfortunately, the events of the past few days have shown that this appears to be lacking amongst some of the more vocal educated of that country; and that is why I think the extremists and fundamentalists will win: they are prepared to practice what they preach (however mad) and die if necessary.  Meanwhile, the educated suffer from cognitive dissonance.  They are happy to tell others what to do but unwilling to apply those same principles to themselves; ready to judge others beliefs, but unwilling to have the spotlight turned on their own beliefs; happy to pretend to subscribe to a liberal and rational way of thinking, while holding on to a mindset more common to fundamentalists.  And it is this moral and intellectual dishonesty that will be their undoing, for all their pretensions to culture, poetry and talk of human rights.

 

More worryingly, the educated, like the fundamentalists, have shown themselves to possess fascist tendencies, making themselves the sole arbiters of what can and can’t be questioned and discussed, how and by whom.  The extremist appeals to god and revelation.  The educated, for all their intellectual posturing, have shown that they too are chained to similar shibboleths - as well as pretension.  That being the case, I’m afraid my money is on the fundamentalists.  They at least have guts and integrity, whereas the educated have neither.  As the saying goes, I wouldn’t piss on them if they were on fire!

PS.  Just as I was finishing this piece, I received the following tweet:

I am truly concerned for our youth...they seem to have no tolerance for difference of opinion …

Fancy!

(My response was that it was not just the youth that I was concerned about.)

And as I post this, I have just received this from Richard Dawkins:

Journal axes gene research on Jews and Palestinians
http://richarddawkins.net/articles/644179-journal-axes-gene-research-on-jews-and-palestinians

Apparently, people complained.  Were they too offended by the results?  Is there any hope for the future?

 

Note: I have not mentioned the newspaper or the author in question because I do not want to risk endangering the poor man, but believe me, this all did actually happen!  And yes, these people are teaching and working in universities in the west.  Oh dear!

"Pakistani children out of school due to malnutrition"

My response to an article by Musa Mussadaq in Pakistan's Express Tribune:

http://tribune.com.pk/story/185978/30-of-pakistani-children-out-of-school-due-to-malnutrition/

When will the government learn – and when will the people realise their own folly? The government is happy to spend billions on arms that only help the western economies and massage the egos of army generals. The argument of defence is rubbish – if it’s India we’re worried about, we needn’t be. India is far too sensible to want to be lumbered with Pakistan’s population. If it’s Afghanistan, then perhaps we should stop meddling and thinking we’re a ‘player’ in the region. We’re not and acting as if we are has only encouraged gangsters and crime within Pakistan. With even a fraction of the defence budget, we could have – and still can – provide a decent education and credible opportunities to the next generation. Perhaps then we could also tell the sodding Saudis where to stick their money and not have the problem of madrassas and rampant fundamentalism within our borders.

Come on, we’re a happy, tolerant and reasonably clever people – let’s not waste our most important resource, our people. Never mind the government, what are the more affluent within the population doing? Buying property around the world? Shopping? Is anyone interested in setting up schools? Where are our own Rowntrees and Shaftesburys?

Charitable giving & education - Islam and an investment model of morality

Call it synchronicity, call it mere coincidence, call it an over-active imagination, but - 

Not long after my recent post on lifelong learning, I went to a Quran reading for a friend’s deceased parents held at a London mosque.  The mosque was  frequented mostly by Pakistanis, was an impressive structure and, given the leaflets and notices on display, seemed popular and well run. 

I assumed that it had been funded by money from Saudi Arabia, but a lady assured me that it had, in fact, been built through donations from the local community.  She went on to explain how her husband, a veteran fundraiser, had discovered over the years that money was always forthcoming for mosques, cemeteries and Quran schools.  However, when he had tried to raise money to build ‘ordinary’ schools 'back home', few seemed interested.  This struck me as strange – and depressing. 

Later, I reflected on the short sermon given by the imam at the end of the reading.  Apparently, according to the Prophet, such Quran readings generated extra credit in the deceased’s ‘good deeds account’ on Judgement Day - or in common parlance, brownie points to aid entry into Paradise.  Sweet.  (So, if your parents end up in hell, it'll be your fault for not holding enough Quran readings on their behalf!)  This triggered a chain of thoughts:

-> hadiths quite often link the doing of a particular deed to benefits on Judgement Day –do this and X sins will be forgiven, do that and you will receive so many good deeds, recite this so many times ... ->

-> The religion appeared to have a rather low opinion of its adherents if it felt that moral behaviour could only be induced by offering these ‘bribes’ – as if there was no other reason for doing good.  (Granted, Islam is not alone in this and it is common to most religions.)  ->

-> I remembered a saying I had heard quite often as a child: paradise lay at the feet of your mother.(No, I was not horrid to my mother nor particulary naughty!)  Thinking about this now, I find it shocking – what kind of people need to be bribed (with heaven or anything) to love their own mother? 

More generally, how might this trade in good deeds shape their view of morality?  And what does this say about the religion’s ability to win the moral argument? (Some would argue that it had long since lost it by the morally dubious if not plain ridiculous 'pricing' of martyrdom at 72 virgins, but we will leave that for another post!)

Of course, the Prophet was a trader by profession, so perhaps the metaphors of bargaining, pricing and returns came naturally to his thinking.  Perhaps the people he was preaching to also had trader mentalities, although this dents somewhat the much-trumpeted claim that Islam is a universal religion for all time.  Moreover, given that Islam was a new movement, spreading the word and bringing more people into the ‘fold’ were no doubt important.  (There are several hadiths regarding the benefits of building mosques, with one even promising an equivalent house in paradise.) 

But 1400 years later, Islam is a global religion with a significant presence.  The problem for it and Muslims today is not quantity, but quality.  There might be more than a billion Muslims in the world, but the vast majority are illiterate and live in countries that rank as the most dishonest, corrupt and dirty, with appalling human rights - hardly a recommendation for the religion now, is it? 

Schools on the other hand, are more ambiguous.  While the Prophet might have urged his followers to travel as far as China in search of knowledge, as far as I know this didn’t increase one’s chances of getting into Paradise.  So, like canny businessmen, were people merely following earlier advice that offered the best and surest  ‘returns’ in the next life?  And with morality so firmly based on rewards in the afterlife, no wonder the Prophet made such a fuss about the importance of believing in a heaven and the next world!  

Or am I just being cynical? 

But what are the effects of such a view?  Ostensibly, the strategy could be seen as clever – a win-win situation: the donators get into heaven, and the money brings in not just more recruits but hopefully observant Muslims that benefits the rest of society.  Unfortunately, it hasn’t worked out that way.  I think this is due to a combination of adopting a narrow view of what constitutes religious practice and of education generally.

In his book Desperately Seeking Paradise, Ziauddin Sardar mentions an encounter with a minister for science and research in one of the Gulf states.  Mr Sardar was anxious to discuss the ministry’s research, but always received the same response:  “‘Why bother about it when we can afford to buy it?’” (p120)  (This cavalier attitude hasn't dimmed over the years, it seems.  Amidst the recent Arab Spring of protest against oppressive regimes, the Saudi king announced huge increases in stipends for Saudi citizens - no doubt to buy their loyalty and acquiescence.)  With such an attitude, it might explain why these ‘nations’ import architects to design their hideous and inappropriate buildings (that are built by labourers mainly from the Indian subcontinent and who are treated almost like slaves – not much after-life credit to be gained in being humane to them, I suppose?); and why the tar on roads – developed for a different climate - melts and bubbles in the intense heat.  They couldn't be bothered to use the few brain cells they have to come up with their own solutions to their own problems.

Meanwhile, it is well-known that that same wealth funds a significant (if not major) part of the madrassas (religious schools) in Pakistan (and other parts of the world) - in the name of spreading Islam!  However, the issue is not of madrassas, per se - for these establishments can be a force for good.  Rather, it is the narrow notion of education that is limited to a religious context defined by the self-appointed 'clerics' or 'ulema'.

On 4 January 2011, the governor of Punjab in Pakistan, Salman Taseer, was assassinated by one of his own bodyguards for attempting to reform the obnoxious blasphemy laws in the country.  The next day, the BBC World Service’s News Hour featured an interview by Owen Bennett-Jones with Tariq Khattak, the editor of an English daily The Pakistan Observer.  Mr Khattak saw nothing wrong with the murder, thought the governor had it coming to him and appealed to the opinion of certain mullahs in Pakistan to support his outrageous view.  It is worth mentioning that for an editor of an English newspaper, his command of the language was rather poor.

Mr Bennett-Jones questioned both the rationale for killing merely for dissenting, the issue of differing interpretations of texts and the editor’s acceptance of the views of men whose education was limited to a theological framework.  Limited only according to him, the editor replied defiantly, but in their eyes (and presumably the editor’s) these mullahs were sufficiently educated.  And there the matter rested. 

Had it been just the editor, one could have dismissed him as a lone idiot, but there are many in the country who support his view.  More alarmingly, a significant number of lawyers were keen to defend the murderer in court.  One has to question the moral reasoning of such lawyers - to say nothing of the quality of education they received - to want to defend such cold-blooded murder.  What hope is there of building a civil, law-abiding society - something sorely lacking in most Muslim countries. 

Alarmingly, this attitude is not confined to the backstreets of Pakistan, but is alive and kicking in London as well - as is evidenced by the sickening story of a Religious Education teacher beaten up (and almost killed) by four conservative Muslims - who remain unrepentant.  (see http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-13566526 )

So, on the one hand it is heartwarming to see Muslims giving so generously to help themselves, even if motivated by self-interest - especially, given the huge amounts of money governments spend on defence compared with education, unaware that their biggest enemy is not India, Israel or Zionists, but the ignorance that festers within their own borders and their own minds. 

However, would it not also be admirable if thought were given to how that generosity is employed?  If morality is to be based on an investment model (and I am not suggesting that it should), is it not advisable for investors to periodically check the performance of their ‘portfolio’?  Is it not incumbent to ask if the enterprise conforms - and continues to conform - to what the religion claims to uphold?  And if the charity benefits the giver, is it not also incumbent that it does likewise to the receiver too?

Or do the givers prefer to remain blissfully unaware of the havoc it wreaks on others?  Is that havoc also part of the credit system and religion they subscribe to? Do they think they get a ‘commission’ on each atrocity committed – the better to secure their entry into paradise?    

But wouldn’t it be ironic if on the Day of Reckoning, their accounts were shown to be swollen by misdeeds – misdeeds generated by the money they gave with Paradise in mind, and now good only to propel them in the opposite direction?  No number of Quran readings, then, would be of any use.  Unfortunately, it would also be too late for the country and of little comfort to those whose lives have been ruined by this sordid trade in ‘good’ deeds.