Death comes as the End (Or Does it)!

“Men fear death, as children fear to go in the dark; and as that natural fear in children is increased with tales, so is the other.” Francis Bacon

Nothing is certain in life, except death. And we, as a race, have acquired a strange habit of avoiding discussion on or even a mention of this topic. We consider death to be a terrible phenomenon and are extremely uncomfortable with it. As a result, it has become a taboo and even educated people are prone to ignore it as an inevitable reality. We close our eyes in an attempt to wish it away and do our best to pretend that it does not exist.

Recent research has shown that after a patient is diagnosed with a terminal illness and his or her death becomes imminent, there is a marked decrease in visits from relatives as well as the interaction that doctors and nurses have with him or her.  

Such an attitude towards death results in two major problems. One, we do not think about death as much as we should and consequently lose the chance to find out that it is not something nearly as bad as we imagined. And two, we do not have a clue about how to deal with our own death or that of a dear one. We have become a people who are so scared of death that even mentioning it causes feelings of anxiety and uneasiness. If we don’t learn about death, we can never understand life.

Keeping in mind the concept of God and life after death propagated by all religions as well as the elaborate ways in which death was dealt with in ancient societies, it is surprising how the modern world can so easily shut it out of its system.

The main reason for this, in my opinion, is the widening gulf between religion and science. Science was always ridiculed by the religious classes. Priests, Mullahs, Yogis etc. always considered science as a tool of the devil and gave mankind a choice. They could either follow religion and gain eternal salvation or follow science and be led astray from the right path. That the ignorant classes listened to this ridiculous argument and left science is less surprising than the incomprehensible fact that the educated people believed in this crap and pushed religion to the background.

Innumerable scientists have admitted that there are certain phenomena which science can neither deny nor explain. These are the areas where religion comes to our rescue. However, unfortunately we either are proud to believe in science and dismiss anything which science cannot explain as dogmatic or are strict adherents of a particular religious sect and discard anything against its beliefs as blasphemous. This sort of ignorance leaves the world divided between two equally arrogant and stubborn groups always fighting for supremacy.

As Albert Einstein said “science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.” We have to realize that the apparent choice between being lame or blind is an illusion. The only path to truth is by combining both science and religion.

Coming back to the main topic, it is interesting to note, as St. Augustine pointed out, that we do not remember anything about our infancy and yet are so certain about the way we lived and our general attitude at the time, for example that we cried when we needed to be fed. The basis of this knowledge is merely observation; we form opinions about ourselves in that age by watching how other babies of the same age behave. But what about life after death? How can we know about that without observation? Thanks to the useless bickering between science and religion, most of the people today either do not believe in the concept or have an unbelievably irrational and imaginary picture of it.

Isaac Asimov said “Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It’s the transition that’s troublesome.” For anyone with a scientific bent of mind who is interested in making an effort to know the truth of this transition, I will strongly recommend three books as the starting point. The first, of course is the Quran which must be consulted in any quest for knowledge regardless of one’s personal beliefs. The other two are “Life after Life” by Dr. Raymond Moody and “Closer to the Light” by Dr. Melvin Morse. These two, along with their colleagues, have conducted a scientific study of Near Death Experiences in an attempt to ascertain what happens after death. Whoever has had the chance to come across the famous book “Maut ka Manzar; Marney ke baad kya hoga” and felt put off by the fantastic and terrifying tales, must read these books to regain a little perspective on the subject. The conclusions one draws from these researches might vary from person to person, but a study of these books along with the Quran is sure to alleviate some huge misconceptions on the subject and might force the reader to stop avoiding the topic and realize that it is one of the most interesting and important subjects to study for everyone who believes that he will die … eventually.

An experiment mentioned in the book by Dr. Melvin Morse shows that when the lateral sulcus (a structure above the right temporal lobe of the brain and commonly known as the Sylvian Fissure) was stimulated by electrical impulses during brain surgery, all patients claimed having out of body experiences, traveling at great speeds through a tunnel and observing a Being of Light who gave them feelings of extreme peace, calm and pleasure. Some patients even saw a review of their lives from a third person’s angle. Does this strengthen our belief in the soul, God and the Hereafter? I leave it for you to decide.

It is unfortunate that the Muslims have stopped taking any interest in scientific research. This sort of research is also normally ignored by the scientific community; probably because they cannot explain it in terms of the existing scientific data and such failure makes them uncomfortable (scientists are humans too, after all).

I dream of a time when we would stop blindly following religion or science and try to actually get to the truth. As always, the best time to start is ….. now.

Go Ignorance Go!

“If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there.” Lewis Carrol (Alice in Wonderland).

That is our dilemma. Spending all our energies in removing obstacles, we cannot seem to take time out to decide what we want to use the obstacle free path for. During the first half of the twentieth century, the Muslims of India showed unbelievable courage in standing up against the Hindus and the British (or at least that is what we were taught) to get a separate homeland for themselves. They wanted to remove the British and the Hindus from their path. Once that was achieved, we had no clue where to go on the path we had cleared. Hence, after more than sixty years of independence, we are still not clear about whether we want democracy or not, and if we do, should we have a parliamentary or a presidential system, are we an Islamic or a secular state, and so on.

We are always charged up, ready to move, without any idea of our destination. Just look at our behaviour on the roads. If some poor soul takes two seconds to move his car after the light has turned green, he is bombarded with all kinds of terrifying honking sounds from all sides. In fact, have you ever experienced the pain of having to stop at a red light on a road with no traffic except a car right behind you? It feels like you are the dumbest, most laid back person in the world, and that nothing could waste more time than obeying the law. You get an extremely irritating barrage of continuous honking until you move and give the person behind you a clear path to ………. well, probably to a place where he would be even more useless than on the traffic signal.

Moving to the larger picture, all of us were and still are witnesses to (and some of us are a part of) the country-wide movement initiated by lawyers and joined by a large part of the civil society and political parties. The movement, at its peak, swept all other issues aside and was the only news worth discussing in the country. Slogans of “Go Musharraf Go!” echoed from all corners of Pakistan. A huge majority of us joined in the chorus, believing that Gen. Musharraf was the cause of all trouble and once he went and democracy returned, all our problems would be solved (the exact nature of those problems was always unclear, the only thing that mattered was that there were problems and they had to be solved).

And Musharraf did go eventually, handing over the government to democratically elected representatives of the people led by Mr. Asif Ali Zardari, the new President of Pakistan. And today news report in the leading dailies of the country tell us that emotionally charged lawyers chanted slogans of “Go Zardari Go!” during a rally in Karachi. I have little doubt that this slogan will soon spread all over the country and will probably continue till the President actually goes. Then we just have to wait for the new President so that the slogan can be changed accordingly. I do not want to criticize the lawyers at all. They are doing a tremendous job and have proved to be the only professional community that has the strength and the numbers to start and maintain such a movement for such a long period, as well as the courage and the will to actually put their numbers to use. I just want to do my bit in helping us realize that we have to be absolutely clear about our objectives and the place we want to get to before we can even hope to succeed.

I have often wondered why we show such urgency in removing things that delay us, so that we can get to our destination instantly, only to show the same urgency there to get to the next place. I am no psychologist or sociologist but I think this may be due to a vicious circle of ignorance. We don’t know what we want from our lives, as a result of which we are uncomfortable with our lives and ourselves, as a result of which we want to get out of any and every situation we are in and get to the next place hoping that it might be better, as a result of which we are always in a hurry, as a result of which we have no time to think, as a result of which we don’t know what we want from our lives, as a result of which we are uncomfortable and so on. The most logical way of breaking this cycle of silliness is to stop and think. What do we want? Only after we have the answer to this question, will we be able to differentiate between assets and obstacles. Only then will we be able to decide what should be removed. Only then can we concentrate our efforts on the right job. And only then will we have a clear concept of our next step once the obstacle is removed.

As long as all this is ignored, we will continue to be engulfed in the most time consuming and most worthless of pursuits and the world will continue to look at us with a mixture of amusement and mistrust.

I have a friend who is continuously complaining that life has not dealt him a fair hand. He always has a big problem on his mind, which, he believes, is the cause of all the tension in his life. I have often heard him say that if only this particular problem is solved, he will have no further problems. And those problems do get solved, only to be replaced by others of equal significance and he repeats the same belief about them. His salvation also lies in understanding what he wants rather than concentrating only on why he can’t get it.

Let’s see who learns first. My friend or my nation.

Thou Shalt Shave!

Just when you think you’ve seen the worst, something comes up to make you re-think. It is reported that PIA administration has banned its employees from growing beards. As a ridiculous proviso to this incomprehensible ban, the employees have been told that they can, however, grow goatees. At the risk of sounding clichéd, I just wonder . . . when will we ever learn?

Beards have been a part of the male face since as far back as history goes. In Ancient Egypt, even queens supported a metal beard, which was seen as a sign of royalty. In Ancient India, the beard was seen as a sign of wisdom, while the Ancient Greeks regarded it as a sign of virility. In almost all ancient societies, the beard was a permanent feature of a man’s face denoting various different virtues. Faces without beards were seen as a disgrace and in certain civilizations, cutting off someone’s beard was one of the most severe punishments. In some areas such as Ancient India, people even pledged their beards for payment of a debt.

Almost all religions of the world also have great veneration for beards. The Sikhs consider it an integral part of a male body and Guru Gobind Singh ordained that it was to be kept as an identity of Sikhs. According to Levictus 19:27 “Thou shall not mar the corners of your beard.” So beards are also kept by orthodox Jews as a symbol of their faith and their ancestral traditions. Christians in various parts of the world grow beards either as a sign of their vocation as members of the clergy or their adherence to the Old Testament etc.

Most importantly, Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) said that Muslim men should grow their beards and trim their moustaches. A number of Muslim scholars are of the view that growing a beard is obligatory on all Muslims. Certain other scholars and jurists, however, claim that there is no obligation on Muslims to grow beards, though if anyone does so, it is better since he is following the Sunnah of the Prophet (pbuh). Although photographic depiction of the Prophets is forbidden in Islam, a number of Non-Muslims have shown different Prophets in sketches and pictures. Interestingly, all the Prophets, Saints, Sahaba whenever shown in pictures are always shown with beards, thus signifying that beard has always been associated with a belief in God and adherence to a certain religious belief.

The first historical mention of shaving off beards is found in the time of Alexander the Great. He ordered all the men in his army to shave off their beards for the reason that it could weaken them in the battlefield by giving something to the enemy to hold and pull. Hence, the whole army shaved their beards off. In fact philosophers were the only Macedonians who kept their beards and the beard became symbol of a philosopher. Hence, even in Ancient Macedonia, beard eventually symbolized wisdom.

I will not go into the discussion on the actual importance of growing or shaving a beard. I don’t even want to comment on the authenticity of the saying of the Prophet (pbuh) mentioned above. Let’s stick to mere logic.

A number of beliefs about beards might have been wrong and the modern world does not believe in dogma (the fact that it labels as dogmatic anything that cannot be scientifically proven is a debate for another time). What is universally admitted is that the modern world believes in liberty and freedom. We have seen and continue to see preposterous wars in the name of spreading democracy and religion. We are tired of hearing leaders of the Western world going on and on about how we have to free ourselves from traditional and irrational beliefs and move on with the freedom that only democracy provides. We have had more than our share of leaders who echo these words to show how strongly they agree with the West.

And then. . . .  we come across a ban like the one imposed by the PIA administration. Whereas forcing someone to grow a beard or fashion his face in a certain manner is intolerable, is forcing someone to shave or limit his beard to a goatee any more bearable? Do we intend to grow out of narrow minded dogmatic religious belief into an enlightened state of mind or are we on our way to passing out of one such ridiculous belief into another even more ridiculous one.

The PIA administration is no Alexander either. It does not have any rationale even close to the extremely logical reason given by Alexander for asking his men to get rid of their beards. The most irritating part of the ban is the permission to grow goatees. What is the message here? We are not against beards, but we are dead against Sunnah and freedom to look the way you like.

The only limit on freedom in democracy is denoted by the famous saying “your freedom to swing your arms freely ends where my nose begins.” PIA’s motto seems like “your freedom to grow your hair freely ends where our office begins.” Whereas the first sentence is an understandable principle, the second is an unbelievable stupidity.

Let’s not have any doubts about the fact that we are mentally still slaves. Sixty years of freedom have not liberated us. But let’s not be more loyal than the king. Our forefathers stood up against the tyranny of their rulers, showing courage in the face of hugely unfavourable odds. And we are lying on our faces against the wealth of the West, displaying cowardice even when we have a sovereign state of our own.

We have to start taking notice of such monstrosities and not leave it to the religious parties to raise a voice against it (Jamaat-e-Islami has already raised serious objections to the ban and the PIA administration has promised to give it a second thought). We have to wake up before it is too late. If we are not free to grow a beard in our own country, then it might already be too late. We should be thinking of speaking up against steps such as the ban on scarves in western countries like France and Turkey, being a responsible Muslim nation. We should be preparing ourselves to show the world the real face of Islam, to clear all the misconceptions about our faith.

Instead, we keeping sinking to new lows.

I Will Do Yours!

According to a news report, the SHO of Harrapa and his staff were snubbed by a local judge for insulting, torturing and publicly denuding the innocent girls and other family members of an alleged drug peddler.

Such news report normally make the inner pages of a newspaper and are rarely noticed by readers who concentrate more on the political scene and sometimes on sports and showbiz scandals. Regardless of our preferences such news is very serious affair and must make us stop and think.

Such events are extremely discomforting in many ways. They wake us to the bitter reality of what our society has transformed into. We completely ignore our religious moral and legal obligations while seeming to follow some rules that are incomprehensible to anyone watching and probably equally incomprehensible to ourselves.

I think one of the main causes of this sort of behaviour is our mindset, our habit of forgetting our own duties and taking it upon ourselves to perform the obligations of others. The police force is only responsible to the extent of arresting an alleged criminal and conducting investigations. It is the duty of the Courts to judge him and if found guilty, punish him. However, the members of the police force regularly act as judge, jury and executors, all combined in one uniform. They catch the accused, judge them to be criminals and quite often punish them with torture, insult and sometimes even death (in fake encounters). If you privately ask a police official, he will justify his actions by blaming the corruption and inadequate judicial system for all these actions, an argument which is irrational, absurd and cruel.

And let’s not single out the police force. We are all guilty of the same sort of behaviour. All of us must ask ourselves, are we performing our duties perfectly? If the environment is not conducive for this, it should make us try harder. It does not, under any circumstances, give us the right to take it upon ourselves to do what we are not allowed to, by religion or law and thus harm the delicate balance of rights and obligations on which any society stands.

Whereas we have the right to judge people to the extent to which they directly affect us or others around us, this right is limited to helping us decide how to act in relation to those people. We do not have the right to pass judgement on other people. Unfortunately, we are extremely fond of doing just that.

Consequently, we have become a nation where everyone is interested in doing everything except his own job. The police judges people and gives punishments, the judiciary plays politics, the military is more interested in civilian departments, the religious people conduct bombings, students indulge in crimes, sportsmen are unfit and on drugs, lawyers spend more time on the street than in the courts, judges are more interested in hanging on to their seats than in providing justice, doctors run businesses, quacks prescribe medicine, intelligentsia just discuss stuff in their drawing rooms, journalists blackmail people, the list could just go on and on.

We must realize that the stature of a person depends on his own actions and thoughts. Proving the others to be worse than us and trying to show that we can do someone else’s job better, only degrades us. As long as we, as a society or as the human race, do not start respecting ourselves and each other and minding our own business, we just cannot criticize the police or any other small group of individuals for not doing the same.

Once we acquire the habit of respect for all, the law enforcing forces would have to mend their ways too. I dream of the day when events like that in Harrapa will become a rarity and when they do happen, they will make the front pages of the newspapers, and the judges won’t be satisfied with just snubbing the culprits.

Mind Your Language!

Naqsh Faryadi hai kis ki shokhi e tehreer ka

Kaghazi hai pairahan har paikar e tasveer ka

Honestly, how many of the educated Pakistanis know what this means, or even have any idea what this is. These are the first two lines of Deewan e Ghalib, the only collection of poems by a poet considered by many to be the greatest in Urdu language. An understanding of the deeper meaning of what Ghalib tried to convey here is probably best left to Urdu scholars, but an ignorance of the literal meaning of the words should be a little embarrassing since it shows our lack of interest in our language. As for the educated people who don’t even know where these lines come from, there is cause for alarm.

Try another one

Sunaa hai ho bhii chukaa hai firaq-e-zulmat-e-nuur
sunaa hai ho bhii chukaa hai wisaal-e-manzil-o-gaam
badal chukaa hai bahut ahl-e-dard kaa dastuur
nishaat-e-wasl halaal-o-azaab-e-hijr-e-haraam

This is Faiz Ahmed Faiz. For anyone who is wondering, let me clarify that I don’t know what this exactly means either, and yes I am embarrassed. We might explain our ignorance of these gems of Urdu language by saying that we studied in institutions where the predominant mode of education was English. To that, I have two questions. One, does studying a foreign language give one the right to ignore your own? And two, are you be in a better position to explain the meaning of a piece of writing by Shakespeare or Wordsworth?

The truth is that language is one of the greatest gifts given to mankind. According to the Quran, when the Angels questioned Allah about bowing in front of Adam, Allah simply taught Adam names of things and when Adam named everything Allah had asked him to and the Angels could not do the same, Allah did not need any further arguments. Language is one of the main factors that make us superior to other beings. A nation that ignores its language ignores everything about its culture.

We don’t become experts on the English language just by making English our medium of education. Our culture and our language is our identity, and it is surprising how we can live comfortably while totally ignoring it. People who don’t respect their own language cannot respect any other either.

Now, a little about out religion, which we feel so strongly about; we are so touchy about the subject, so sensitive about the Holy Quran, making sure we don’t touch it until we have fulfilled certain criteria of cleanliness, reprimanding anyone who turns his back or worse, his feet towards it, kissing it day and night. But there is one important thing we must remember. The Holy Quran is in Arabic. As I said, since we have no respect for our own language, how can we give due importance to any other. We just do not realize the importance of such an obvious fact that if you want to read a book, you must understand the language it is written in. We are more concerned about interpreting the book, fighting against people who have different interpretations, judging people and condemning some to the eternal fires of hell just because we think we know about Islam, and in all this hustle bustle we forget that we don’t even know the language.

If you want to have an idea of how much importance we give to understanding the Quran, here’s something that might interest you. Yesterday, in the Punjab Assembly, Ms. Nighat Nasir Sheikh demanded an increase in salaries of Quran teachers in Madrassahs from Rs.250 per month (no, it is not a typing error) to Rs.1000 per month. After a long debate, the House passed a resolution to increase the salaries to Rs.500 per month. Law minister Rana Sana Ullah opposed the resolution saying that such a step would incur a burden of Rs. 9 million on the exchequer. By the way, a minister of the Provincial Assembly draws a monthly salary of Rs.41,000/- and this is excluding all the various allowances and a hefty daily sum for attending the session of the Assembly (I wonder, if they get an additional sum for attending the session, what is their salary for).

My father always told me that I would fail in life if I did not get my priorities right. I wish our nation had a father too. 

What The #%@(!!

What a conundrum! I am totally confused. I am not even in a position to write a coherent piece on what is going on in this country of ours. Let me just get some facts straight.

• The Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan starts with the words “Whereas sovereignty over the entire Universe belongs to Almighty Allah alone”

• The Objectives Resolution (a part of the constitution) mentions that Pakistan shall be a state where “the principles of democracy, freedom, equality, tolerance and social justice as enunciated by Islam shall be fully observed”

• Article 203D (1) of the Constitution says that the Federal Shariat Court “[either of its own motion or] on the petition of a citizen of Pakistan or the Federal Government or a Provincial Government, examine and decide the question whether or not any law or provision of law is repugnant to the injunctions of Islam, as laid down in the Holy Quran and Sunnah of the Holy Prophet.”

• Article 203D (3) goes on to say that if any such provision is held by the Court to be repugnant to the injunctions of Islam “such law or provision shall, to the extent to which it is held to be so repugnant, cease to have effect on the day on which the decision of the Court takes effect.”

• Article 227(1) says “All existing laws shall be brought in conformity with the Injunctions of Islam as laid down in the Holy Quran and Sunnah, and no law shall be enacted which is repugnant to such Injunctions.”

The words within inverted commas are directly taken from the constitution. With all these and numerous other provisions present in the Constitution as well as various other laws in force in Pakistan, I wonder what is going on in Malakand. According to news reports in all the leading newspapers of the country,

• The NWFP government abolished all un-Islamic laws in Malakand division.

• According to the NWFP Information Minister “In this judicial system, Shariah Muhammadi, the details of which are available in books of Islamic Fiqah and based on the Holy Quraían, Sunnah of Prophet Muhammad (SAW), Ijma and Qias will be in force and no decision against it will be acceptable.”

• The Chief Minister of NWFP explained to the media that this system “meant to provide speedy and cheap justice.”

What bothers me is, firstly, that the government has admitted that un-Islamic laws existed in the district of Malakand, and consequently, virtually admitted that such laws also exist in the rest of the country. Secondly, that the constitution of Pakistan and the other laws and courts of the country are not capable of mending the situation and a whole new law is required to enforce Islamic laws. Then why do we have such provisions in the first place?

I am not an expert on the subject, hence the confusion, but I feel that this step is a mockery of the supreme law of the land. It has been our dilemma since the creation of Pakistan that we have not taken our laws seriously. We are a sovereign state, nobody can force us to legislate in a particular manner. Our legislative assemblies are free to make and amend laws as they please, and yet, we continue to make laws that either cannot be implemented or that we have no intention of implementing.

I don’t know where the fundamental fault is, not because I can’t see a fault but because I see too many of them. Our legislators are more interested in mud slinging and ministries and perquisites than their actual job of legislation. We can pass laws to right a number of wrongs but for some reason we do not (take the case of the reinstatement of the Chief Justice, for example). When we do make laws they are mostly ill-drafted and unclear resulting in making little difference to the situation since they just cannot be implemented. And when, once in a while, we do pass a legislation that is clear and according to our wishes, we do not implement it anyway.

In short, I feel that we, as a nation, are unclear about three things. What we want, why we want it and how we can get it. Blame it on our centuries-long legacy of being ruled by others, or on our dismal education system or whatever you feel like. The fact is that we, as individuals also suffer from the same indecision. We plan things, make rules and then break them ourselves.

Bad laws, bad implementation, bad execution, I can take all these, mistakes are a part of life. But a constitution that is not enough or is forgotten. That speaks volumes of us as a nation. And, for the record, I am still confused.

Unquestioned Answers!

Enlightened people (and nations) spend their lives pursuing unanswered questions. They search and research, form theories, conduct experiments and leave their findings for future generations. However, doomed people (and nations) spend their lives following unquestioned answers. They are told something by their elders, or the media, or they read something, and start blindly following these things without questioning them.

Look at our lives. Questioning religion, questioning our parents, questioning our habits are all forbidden, to the extent of being labeled sins. We have become so accustomed to avoiding questions that we just cannot bring ourselves to question anything without feeling extremely scared and uncomfortable. We have lost the ability to rationalize things or to try and make some sense out of what is going on.

For instance, how many of the love birds who celebrated Valentine’s day with great fervour, have any clue about what this day is about? I am not against the occasion. It is good that people, at least for one day, concentrate on spreading love and exchanging gifts instead of the usual depressing stuff. But I do feel that if we follow something with the enthusiasm seen on this day, at least we should know what we are celebrating.

One of the legends I came across while trying to find out about the day has this explanation for its origins. “the Christian church may have decided to celebrate Valentine's feast day in the middle of February in an effort to 'christianize' celebrations of the pagan Lupercalia festival. In ancient Rome, February was the official beginning of spring and was considered a time for purification. Houses were ritually cleansed by sweeping them out and then sprinkling salt and a type of wheat called spelt throughout their interiors. Lupercalia, which began at the ides of February, February 15, was a fertility festival dedicated to Faunus, the Roman god of agriculture, as well as to the Roman founders Romulus and Remus. To begin the festival, members of the Luperci, an order of Roman priests, would gather at the sacred cave where the infants Romulus and Remus, the founders of Rome, were believed to have been cared for by a she-wolf or lupa. The priests would then sacrifice a goat, for fertility, and a dog, for purification. The boys then sliced the goat's hide into strips, dipped them in the sacrificial blood and took to the streets, gently slapping both women and fields of crops with the goathide strips. Far from being fearful, Roman women welcomed being touched with the hides because it was believed the strips would make them more fertile in the coming year. Later in the day, according to legend, all the young women in the city would place their names in a big urn. The city's bachelors would then each choose a name out of the urn and become paired for the year with his chosen woman. These matches often ended in marriage. Pope Gelasius declared February 14 St. Valentine's Day around 498 A.D.” (Source : www.history.com/content/valentine/history-of-valentine-s-day)

By the way, an internet site, while explaining the history of Valentine’s Day, has this to say about its celebration in the eastern world “Thanks to a concentrated marketing effort, Valentine's Day is celebrated in some Asian countries”

Today is the Urs of Hazrat Ali Hajvery (popularly known as Data Ganj Bukhsh). He was undoubtedly one of the greatest saints of this area. Very few people are aware of this occasion, (hardly anyone outside Lahore and its adjoining areas knows about it).

I see people celebrating the death anniversary of St. Valentine with a fanatic zeal and I see the same people not even noticing Data Sahib’s Urs and I wonder. Who are we? Pakistanis, Muslims, nobodys? Who? I also wonder how we can ever judge our direction, our goals or the standards of good and bad, when we just follow, without thinking. Adam and Eve were tricked by the Devil who used all his guile. We, on the other hand don’t need any elaborate scheme, all someone requires to do in order to destroy us is to simply tell us to plan our own destruction, and, at the most, combine it with a good marketing strategy. We will just follow, and not question.

Good News!

Pick up a newspaper, switch on a news channel or enter into a discussion on current affairs with anyone, the result will be the same. You will end up depressed, hopeless and frustrated by the goings on in our country. In such a gloomy environment, we have acquired the habit of either ignoring the good things (believe me they still happen though they’re alarmingly few) or casting doubts on the authenticity of and intention behind anything good that happens. So, I feel it necessary to spread good news whenever I get one.

Yesterday, the Federal Shariat Court passed a judgement stating that sub Article 4 of Article 151 of the Qanun-e-Shahadat Order, 1984 was against the principles of Islam as laid down in the Quran and Sunnah. The Court advised the government to repeal the said law within six months. In case the government fails to do so, the said sub article will automatically cease to have effect after that time.

Article 151 of the Qanun-e-Shahadat Order, 1984 lays down ways in which the credit of a witness can be impeached. The other sub articles discuss logical and understandable means such as proving that the witness has been bribed or showing that the witness’s earlier statements contradict his evidence etc. However, sub Article 4 shows an unbelievably twisted way of discrediting a witness. It states that “when a man is prosecuted for rape or an attempt to ravish, it may be shown that the prosecutrix was of generally immoral character.”

So, if a poor woman is raped and shows an unusual amount of courage to actually go to the Court for justice, this law allows the defendant to tarnish the moral character of the woman as his defense. This provision completely ignores the Islamic principles that no one can cast a doubt on the moral of character of a woman under any circumstances unless he can provide four credible witnesses to confirm his allegation. If anyone does this without four witnesses, he is liable to be punished for Qazaf.

That such a law continued to exist for almost 25 years is a cause for concern. But the fact that this monstrosity will now be removed should be relieving for us all. I know that most of us (including myself) were not even aware that such a law existed; still this decision cheers me up for two reasons. First, that all is not lost yet. At a time when Islam is being ridiculed and abused all over, and when narrow-minded groups with selfish motives have been given the responsibility of interpreting and implementing its principles, at least somewhere the voice of reason and logic survives. And second, that our courts are still capable of redressing the wrongs at least to some extent. The judiciary just needs people to trust it, have confidence in it, and keep a strict check on it. Our judiciary may not be the best we can have, but it is the only one we do have. It is up to us to transform it into the best.

We are experts in criticism and watch every step of the government cynically. But this decision provides a reason to forget the state of governance and judiciary in the country for a moment and salute the FSC for a sensible verdict. A word of thanks is also due to Capt. (Retd.) Mukhtar Ahmed Sheikh whose petition brought the obnoxious law to the notice of the Court.

Oscar Sherpao!

What was the two nation theory again? I am always confused on this issue. Pakistan came into being because the Muslims of united India wanted a separate homeland where they could freely practice their religious beliefs and avoid persecution at the hands of intolerant Hindus. The diverse cultural backgrounds of the population did not matter since Islam was the uniting factor and under its influence we were supposed to form an ideal state, where Muslims as well as other minorities were free to act on their respective faiths.

 

Where is that state? Who are we? Westernized enlightened moderates or Talibanized fundamental terrorists? Or simply confused don’t-know-what’s?

Yesterday, the Chief of the Pakistan People’s Party (Sherpao Group) urged the government to implement the Sharia regulations in Swat claiming that this was the only way to restore peace in the region. Mr. Sherpao seems like our very own Oscar Wilde who said that “The only way to be rid of a temptation is to yield to it.”

Regardless of his personal beliefs, I have a much simpler (and consequently, much more difficult to answer) issue bothering me. What Sharia laws does he have in mind? If he means the actual laws ordained by Quran and Sunnah (which I am sure he doesn’t), why implement them only in Swat? We didn’t get Pakistan to implement Islam in one district. The Islamic Republic of Swat was never our dream. And if he means the Sharia Laws as ordained by certain misguided, self-serving, self-proclaimed mullahs, and if he believes that that sort of sharia is not suitable for Pakistan as a whole, why give in to the fundamentalists in even one district?

When will we learn? As soon as we united the Muslims of eastern and western India to form one country, we have been making blunders which have continuously alienated the different cultures that form Pakistan. We have geographically alienated one half of the population and psychologically alienated all the other groups. So it is my appeal to Mr. Sherpao to come up with an idea that solves our problems and not, like most of our current and previous messiahs, give suggestions that would, at the most, replace our old problems with new and worse ones.

I am not naïve enough to expect Mr. Sherpao to listen to this request. I am just wishing and waiting for a time when we, the common Pakistanis, realize what a big waste of resources this country is becoming. We have to start thinking. At least we should be clear about the way of life we want for ourselves. Do we want Islam? Do we want western style secularism? Do we need freedom and if yes what kind? Do we dream of being ruled by the west or by Taliban? Do we have an iota of self respect which asks us to be the masters of our own destiny?

Most importantly, do we have any idea of the meaning and significance of national integration and cultural identity? Do we know anything? Do you? 

A Tale of Two Assemblies!

Three main points were discussed in the Punjab Assembly yesterday, the 9^th of February 2009. The opposition raised a lot of hue and cry over the snatching of a mobile from an MPA of PML (Q). For those who are unaware of this incident, some robbers in police uniform (aren’t most of them?) opened the door of Ms. Amna Ulfat’s car and snatched her mobile on the traffic signal in front of the Punjab Assembly. The PML (Q) MPA complained that none of the large number of police officials on the scene took any interest in the proceedings (as if it was an unusual occurring) and her driver had to (unsuccessfully) run after the robbers. She also complained that when she raised an alarm, one police official came and instead of taking her cries seriously, simply asked her to move her car out of the way so that the traffic could move on (talk about taking one’s job seriously). The law minister responded by saying that the SP Civil Lines had been asked to come and listen to the MPA’s story. He wondered why the poor lady was still upset. Come to think of it, the worthy law minister is right, she shouldn’t be upset, in fact she should be pleased that Pakistan is becoming such a fair country where an MPA is treated in exactly the same way as a normal citizen (Eh! Mr. Khan, it seems the Tehreek-e-Insaaf is succeeding in some manner at least).

The second main point of discussion was raised by Ms. Joyce Ruffins, again of the PML(Q). She reminded the government that it had not fulfilled its promise (in case anyone is wondering, this promise was not Quran or Hadees either) of providing separate quotas in jobs for Christians. The treasury was surprised at this since it had advertised several posts of sweepers which were especially for Christians (what else does an educated Christian need?). After this, the House went into a long discussion of how PML (Q) could also not take care of minorities (which obviously absolves all other parties of any such obligation) and how the PPP’s nationalization of educational institutions (which, by the way, happened more than 35 years ago) harmed the Christians.

In the end a little time was dedicated to the blast in Mianwali and a resolution was passed showing sympathy with the bereaved families. Of course, the time spent on this breach of security was much less than that spent on the mobile-snatching issue. But this was natural, since the blasts are already being taken care of by the war on (t)error.

I am not going to comment on these proceedings any further. For those who are confused and want to know why the hell I wrote all this, read on.

In the House of Commons on the same day, i.e., the 9^th of February, the main points of discussion included the future of the Child Support Agency, a five year strategy on offender management aimed at protecting the public and reducing re-offending, the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill, Delegated Legislation, the Northern Ireland Arms Decommissioning Act, the School Finance Regulations and the Regulatory Reform (Forestry) Order among other things. More than a hundred speeches were made, not one of them containing irrelevant or meaningless material.

Just ask yourself. Why such a huge contrast? Are we incapable, uneducated or downright stupid? Think about it. And you just might get to the conclusion that it’s none of the above. We’re just indifferent. We don’t care what happens in the assemblies, and the people inside the assemblies usually don’t care what happens outside. Democracy is the government of the people, not government of the elected representatives of the people. This seems like a small distinction but it makes all the difference. Our choice is clear. Either own your government and take responsibility, or put up and shut up. If you feel there’s nothing you can do, then act on that feeling and don’t do anything. Think of some other topics for your drawing rooms, or better yet, leave Pakistan to those who care and let them do what they think they can.

There are three kinds of Pakistanis. Those who rob their elected members in front of the assembly, those who get robbed and those who ignore the robbery and ask the victim to move their car and then wonder why the victim is making such a fuss. There is a third kind living in Pakistan, those who don’t even know what’s going on and couldn’t care less. The question is, are this fourth kind just a type of people who live in Pakistan or can they actually be called Pakistanis?

Heroes!

According to a news report published today, “The government is considering filing an appeal against Islamabad High Court’s verdict declaring nuclear scientist Dr A. Q. Khan a ‘free citizen’. According to Government sources the court decision might be challenged because of concerns expressed by the United States and the United Kingdom over the ‘release’ of Dr Khan.”

I just want to refresh the memory of my readers a little.

1998 - Pakistan conducted nuclear tests in response to India’s tests a few days earlier. Dr. A.Q. Khan was hailed as a hero who brought the nuclear technology into the Muslim world. The President of Pakistan (Rafiq Tarar) awarded him a gold medal for his contributions in this field.

1999 - The government changed and Gen. Musharraf came to power.

2001 - The U.S. government was becoming wary of Dr. Khan and was afraid that he was trading nuclear technology to N. Korea (without any real evidence). Under U.S. pressure, the Pakistani government announced that Dr. Khan was to be dismissed from the post of Chairman KRL. In the face of huge public outcry, Gen. Musharraf, being the great tactician that he was, appointed Dr. Khan as Special Science and Technology advisor to the President. The public became satisfied at this, little knowing that this move achieved its purpose anyway, which was to remove Dr. Khan from KRL.

2002 – U.S. alleged that Dr. Khan was providing nuclear technology to Iraq, an accusation that has been subsequently proved wrong by the failure of the US forces to find any WMDs in Iraq (not that anyone noticed).

2003 – US alleged that Dr. Khan was supplying nuclear technology to Iran and Libya, again without any real evidence.

2004 – Dr. Khan was dismissed from his post as Advisor to the President “to allow a fair investigation into the alleged proliferation”. About a month later, Dr. Khan inexplicably confessed on TV and was pardoned by President Musharraf the next day and put under house arrest. There was no US reaction to this pardon.

2006 – Dr. Khan was diagnosed with prostate cancer and later with deep vein thrombosis.

2008 – The Government changed again and President Musharraf resigned. Dr. Khan alleged that he was forced to confess by Musharraf and that actually the President was the mastermind behind the proliferation.

2009 – Dr. Khan was released by the Islamabad High Court and made a ‘free citizen’. But the government stated that, under US pressure, it intended to appeal the decision.

I don’t want to comment on the above details. A lot has been and will be said on that. Neither do I want to judge Dr. A.Q. Khan. I just want to remind the naïve members of our society (and our government) that the only country that can ever sincerely want what is good for Pakistan is Pakistan itself. It does not matter if Dr. Khan is a hero or a villain. What matters is that we identify our people as heroes or villains according to the whims of other countries, which is absurd.

Who is a national hero in Pakistan? Based on what I see around me, anyone who acts against the interest of Pakistan cannot be called our hero, and as for someone who acts in the interest of Pakistan, and consequently becomes a threat to some other country, we are not allowed to call him a hero. So the only ones we’re left with are those who do not act at all. Maybe that is why most Pakistanis find it so hard to get off their asses. We want to be heroes, and the only way we can do that is not act for or against Pakistan. Way to go Pakistan! Wonderful people, don’t do anything yourselves, keep waiting for extraordinary people so that your can waste them when the US says so. 

Justice!

Justice is the most fundamental of human rights and injustice the cause of all trouble. A head of state must be a just man, though we, in Pakistan would probably settle for someone who is just a man (at least).

 

Mr. Asif Ali Zardari is on a visit to Peshawar where, today he announced a relief package for the Tribal areas. In his address to the tribal jirga in Governor House, Peshawar, he stated that 610 tribals have been killed during the war on (t)error. I presume that he missed a zero somewhere in that figure. He announced a package of 280 million rupees for the area. If I have my calculations correct, this amounts to about 3.5 million dollars which comes to about $5,810 for each person killed (even if the death toll quoted by the co-chairman is taken to be accurate).

 

Compare this to the amount of money and power one person gained from another person killed on 27-12-2007. This is not justice, Mr. President. 

Don’t blame me blame SOCIETY!

Thoreau -- “Rather than love, than money, than fairness, give me truth.” 

We do not choose our parents, or our brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles and so on. In short we do not choose where we are born, just like we do not have any say in the time when we enter this world. If astrology is to be believed, our time of birth and the position of the zodiac have a tremendous influence on our future lives. Similarly, if genetics is to be believed, the genes we inherit from our parents are equally if not more, influential. The kind of person we are in the extremely early years of our lives are almost totally dependant on our genetic make up and the zodiac, neither of which did we choose with free will.

 

Next begins the period when we grow or are brought up. Besides the above-mentioned factors, certain others contribute in this phase. These include our family, especially parents, the environment, which includes the climate as well as the financial, social and mental status of the people around us, plus what we eat, what we hear, what we see etc. and obviously we do not have any control whatsoever on any of these. As we grow up we start making friends. Although this might seem like a free decision, it is actually dominated by the influences of all the above factors as well as the school, if any, that we are enrolled in. The choice of school is again not our own. What we learn in the school or from the street is again not our free choice. We perceive whatever is thrown at us without our permission, and learn from it based on our personality traits, none of which are of our own making. To cut a long story short, we get to the age of maturity with a personality that has been formed by factors that were beyond our control.

Once mature, we start taking decisions that, apparently, are a manifestation of free will. But are they really free? Are they free from all the prejudices that have been produced in our minds by our earlier years when we did not have any freedom to choose what was happening with our lives? I am afraid not. What we perceive as free will is so greatly influenced by our genes, what we learnt in our earliest years, the education we got, our social circle, our experiences and our observations that in view of the fact that we do not get to choose any of the factors, it cannot be termed as free at all.

 

And we don’t stop being influenced by forces beyond our control. We start doing what is acceptable in the society and abstaining from what is not. We try to move on a path set by the people at large and make efforts to get ahead of everyone else on this path. It is paradoxical that such a huge number of people follow a certain way of life because the others are following it. If that is the reason why every single one of us follows it, would it not be relevant to ask who these ‘others’ are. Would it be necessary for all to change the path at once if it has to be changed at all?

 

On a different note please do read the lyrics of the song Society by Eddie Vedder from the soundtrack of movie (true story) Into The Wild which is also a must see J

 

Society

 

Oh it's a mystery to me.

We have a greed, with which we have agreed...

and you think you have to want more than you need...

until you have it all, you won't be free.

 

Society, you're a crazy breed.

I hope you're not lonely, without me.

 

When you want more than you have, you think you need...

and when you think more then you want, your thoughts begin to bleed.

I think I need to find a bigger place...

cause when you have more than you think, you need more space.

 

Society, you're a crazy breed.

I hope you're not lonely, without me.

Society, crazy indeed...

I hope you're not lonely, without me.

 

There's those thinkin' more or less, less is more,

but if less is more, how you keepin' score?

It means for every point you make, your level drops.

Kinda like you're startin' from the top...

and you can't do that.

 

Society, you're a crazy breed.

I hope you're not lonely, without me.

Society, crazy indeed...

I hope you're not lonely, without me

Society, have mercy on me.

I hope you're not angry, if I disagree.

Society, crazy indeed.

I hope you're not lonely...

without me.

Free Slaves!

“Man was born free but everywhere he is in chains” said Jean-Jacques Rousseau in is treatise on the ‘Social Contract’, and how right he was! Although slavery stands abolished in most of the modern world, unfortunately this abolition is limited to the slavery of one man to another. We still have masters, more than a few of them, and the slavery to these masters is worse than that practiced during the ancient or medieval times. This is for two reasons. First, these masters are not tangible or as easily perceivable than the human masters. And second, this slavery is not forced on us, at least not in the sense that the word is normally used, we choose it and accept it, we even believe that it is a necessary part of the existence of a modern man. Most of the time we don’t even notice that we are slaves. 

To fully comprehend this lack of freedom, all we need is a glance at the life of any random person or group of persons. For want of a better example, lets take a normal working day in the life of a normal modern middle class man. We’ll call him Mr. X.

Mr. X is jerked out of his sleep at seven o’clock in the morning by the blaring alarm of a clock by his bedside. He does not want to wake up but feels that he has to lest he is late and consequently left behind in the race that is our world. Frequently, he does not get out of bed instantly, he stays in it for as long as his nerves will allow him, constantly feeling the passage of time as if it were a physical phenomenon and finally has to get up against his body’s cries for a little more relaxation. Already getting late, he rushes through the rituals of a bath, a shave and other related activities essential for his hygienic upkeep, followed by a quickly gobbled breakfast, essential for his physical health. He immerses himself in the rush hour traffic and crossing the exact same route that he has been crossing for the past many years, gets to his office. Although he almost always gets to his office on time, he still spends his journey with a constantly nagging fear that he might be late. The thought never crosses his mind that if and when he does get late, the actual effect on the organization he works for, or the universe in general will be minimal to the extent of being trivial. He does not like this fear or the route or the rush hour traffic but feels that all these things are necessary evils. He spends his working day going through more or less the same routine as every other day, but this fact does not prevent him from giving an unsettling amount of importance to what he is doing. He does it because it is necessary for his survival in the job.

On his way back from office, he once again becomes a part of the evening rush. He hates the other traffic on the road just as much as they hate him but he can’t help it. It is, he knows, a necessary evil. Once back home, he has to fulfill his obligations to the family and the society. He has to attend dinners and weddings, make social calls or receive guests, take his family shopping or just spend quality time with them. He also must keep himself fit so he has to have an exercise routine. At the end of the day, if he has some time and energy left, since he must also keep himself abreast with current events as well as ensure that he gets some entertainment, a channel surfing session begins where he watches a little news, a little song and dance, maybe reads a little and then dozes off into an exhausted and mostly comfortless sleep, some time way after midnight. The clock keeps ticking and at exactly 7.00 a.m. the next morning the alarm blares again and the routine continues for an indefinite period.

Change a few facts here and there and this depiction fits almost any life. Notice the words in italics in the above account. ‘Necessary’, ‘essential’, ‘must’, ‘has to’, ‘obligations’, all betray an absence of free will. They depict acts done on the pretext that they just have to be done. Look at your own life, how much time do you spend doing things that you want to do? And that does not include the things that you have long accepted as necessary evils and then convinced yourself that you want them.

We spend our lives as slaves, with many masters. Social pressure, time, routine, law, family, peer pressure, traditions are just some of our masters. If any of the readers feels that he or she does not live this kind of life but is a free individual whose decisions are solely based on free will, I would suggest that do read the next part in our next issue and we’ll see if this feeling was justified.

 

Cheap Coolness!

Environment is the second biggest concern and challenge that our generation is facing and if not cured today it will be something that will hurt us badly in the coming years. There is a lot that we can do to at least minimize the deterioration on a personal level. But living in Pakistan I have met only a handful of people who are actually willing to compromise their lifestyle just to help resolve this issue. For most of us it is just not a priority or may be it’s not so cool to care.

Speaking of cool there is a large number of people in Pakistan who are benefitting the environment just by driving their cars on CNG as opposed to petrol. However, the main intent is to save money, not to reduce emissions, & this fact is what makes it so un cool. Only cheap college students and people with too many family members drive on CNG not cool people.

Miley Cyrus the teenage pop sensation just bought a black Prius a hybrid car made by Toyota and not a Porsche or a Ferrari because these days in west it is cool to do so media and celebrities make compromises look cool. Why didn’t we position our unaware CNG drvers as the IN CROWD. Or maybe during this year declared by our government as the year for environment we can do something, its never to late.

As of right now I drive on petrol because I think that I am cool (as ice since have a diesel burning machine as wellL).      

Teaching How To!

A couple of days back a friend of mine was collecting money for a person who came to him for help. I offered to pitch in a thousand rupees however, the interesting thing about his fundraising was that one could not contribute more than hundred rupees. Idea being not burden donors and also to make as many people possible to be a part of this effort. At the end of the day he managed to raise enough to buy a filled fruit cart to that person, so he can immediately start working and begin to sustain himself.

More or less the Zakat concept, which got me thinking that the trend of dispersing Zakat that I see around me is more of giving charity to hospitals, orphanage etc. which is good too. But we hardly focus on making the recipients self sustainable.

Should we consider encouraging more spending on sustainable help as opposed to quick fixes? You know the teaching how to fish thing……