No Man-Istan

Living in an area that has the best property in Karachi, I wonder if I have been too sheltered. In terms of poverty, I see it every day. In terms of abuse of women, I know it only through tales.

A few nights ago I watched a program on the National Geographic Channel about the lives of women in Pakistan. The abuse that was chronicled was horrifying to watch, yet it was also touching to see fellow Americans helping out. Was the program biased towards Western propaganda? Probably, but that doesn’t take anything away from those trying to make a difference in Pakistan. While not always Muslim in name, people like this adhere to Qur’anic values better than the thugs and semi-literate mullahs poisoning this country.

So what did Musharraf have to say about this? He’s basically resting on his laurels. While his government has given funding to shelters and NGO’s in the past, right now he won’t give more money because the military budget has to remain the way it is. If Pakistan doesn’t maintain its nukes and missiles, how can the country survive? He’s mainly alluding to India, as though they have no other desire than to destroy its neighbour (I’ve noticed how this fear is inculcated into Pakistanis, for obvious reasons). I seriously doubt India is planning an invasion any time soon. Besides, they have their own woman’s rights issues to deal with.

Given the now extensive coverage of Pakistan’s ultra-sexism, it’s easy to lose sight of its achievements. There are women here who live good lives and are in positions of power. I have close ties to a female legislator as well as associates of former PM Benazir Bhutto (sorry, hate to be a name-dropper), and I work with a staff mostly made up of females. Despite the number of women in power, however, the realities on the ground desperately need to be addressed.

I didn’t see much coverage of the assassination of Nawab Akbar Bugti this summer in the US media, but that doesn’t mean it was an insignificant event. A common graffiti statement here is “jeay Bugti” (long live Bugti). The people of Baluchistan already want separation, and this incident didn’t go over well with them. How this will affect Pakistan’s relationship with Iran is another wildcard.

The government put a hit on a well-respected, Oxford educated political leader. (OK, he did start off life as a hitman). Some say that he demanded too much money for the landowners of the gas fields, and he only cared about lining his own pockets rather than the people of Dera Bugti. Others say that the attack was based on a personal feud between Musharraf and Bugti that went back a long time. I don’t know enough about the situation to comment, but I do know that there’s something wrong when political differences are settled with violence. They couldn’t even cover it up effectively. How far from the vision of Qaid-e-Asam this country has drifted!

To give an example, here is a quote about the role of the media by Muhammad Ali Jinna: “I expect you (journalists) to be completely fearless. If I go wrong, or for that matter, the Muslim League goes wrong in any direction of its policy or programme, I want you to criticise it honestly as its friend; in fact, as one whose heart is beating with the Muslim nation.”

Thirty five years later, US-supported General Zia ul-Haqq had this to say: “I could close down all the newspapers, say, for a period of five years, and nobody would be in a position to raise any voice against it. If they try to organise a meeting or procession, I will send them to jail.”

The US and Britain have offered their condolences for the recent bombing of soldiers in Dargai, which is nice. What is not widely discussed is that it was retaliation against a failed army operation to rout out terrorists. Some have pointed out that Musharraf has a habit of conducting these attacks right before the big boys are in town. Many Pakistanis believe he’s just a puppet of Bush and Blair, while some Americans critisize him for not doing more in the war on terror. But what should he do? Wage a civil war in Pakistan? Destabilizing a country with nukes is not a good idea. Should he make another cease-fire deal with the autonomous tribes in Waziristan? We see how well that worked in curbing Taliban fighters, considering how some tribal leaders shelter them and even embrace their ideology. Small scale attacks on militant training camps seem like a more reasonable idea, but it can also backfire, sometimes literally. The chinagai massacre, which killed 83 villagers, most of them children, led to the largest anti-government demonstrations yet in the region and thus helped the terrorists gain sympathy (and probably more recruits). Further, the locals claim that the bombing was carried out by a pilot-less US predator drone, and security officials have confirned that the raid was based on US intelligence. Let me tell you, Pakistanis are pretty much united in their position that they do not want a US military presence in their country.

There are no easy answers in a situation like this. If it is true that there are sympathizers in the Pakistani government who are actually aiding the Taliban resurgence, as some have alleged, a major overhaul of Pakistan’s system is necessary, because right now these people are accountable to no one. The head of the military is also the president, and there hasn’t been a legitimate presidential election for 8 years. Without a thriving public educational system, which requires steady tax revenue, a reduced military budget, and the elimination of bribery, the poor will continue to send their children to radical madrassahs. This society seems to rely on old feudal models of administration, so change will not happen easily or quickly.

A speaker on Peace TV said that Christianity mistakenly holds that God had intercourse with Mary and incarnated into Jesus. Hindus are mistaken because they believe that God continually incarnates into humans. Perhaps. His main point was that it debases God’s nature to say that “He” can be born, have sex, die, or visit the earth. That is why Muslims regard the Qur’an as a miracle, since it was a pure message sent down by an otherwise transcendent Being (to the Arabs no less, who at time were living in darkness and barbarity, or jahiliyya, according to Muslims). 

As a panentheist, I naturally object to this line of thought. While it might seem like an unimportant abstraction, monotheism has a dark shadow with very tangible and real consequences in history (See Armstrong’s A History of God). Sometimes I wonder if monotheism has done more harm than good. So this seemingly trivial issue may get at the heart of what I consider the major flaw with conventional Islam. Let’s continue.

The presenter argued that “I don’t have to be a VCR to understand how it works.” God doesn’t need to incarnate to know His creation. True enough. The analogy has its limitations though. A person and a VCR both consist of matter and energy, and are subject to the same laws of physics, no? If there was no meeting place in the interaction between a person and tool, the tool could not be operated. This model of a God who creates everything out of nothing, and has no connection, direct or otherwise, to the natural world contradicts everything we know about how the universe operates (I’m very much influenced by Alan Watts in this regard, particularly a speech he gave called “The Nature of Consciousness”).

Shirk – setting-up rivals to Allah - is a grave sin in Islam. There are no equal partners, no incarnations, and no trinity. A Muslim cannot give ultimate authority to human rulers and no authority at all to tribal or lesser gods. In a sophisticated sense, a Muslim discards false idols such as money or fame and centers his or her life upon Divine values. Perhaps, as some contend, this univeralist-salvationism was a rational advance in Arab society (though certainly not superior to, say, advances in Chinese or Indic civilization during the Axial Age). In Islam, as long as one practices the correct form of worship and morality, or at the very least follows a religion based on some divinely revealed message from the One God sent down to humanity, then all are equal before the same ultimate judge and authority. We are also equally accountable and thus should be equally afraid.  

This theology implies that God is an individual and has an ego. This is why there is a strong temptation in monotheism to portray the One God as a jealous being who demands exclusive allegiance, as kings did in the biblical era (as well as dictators today). There is a way out of this rather unflattering and anthropomorphic vision of God, without having to deny God’s existence. Rather than imagining God as one being among others, even the highest being, there is the mystical notion of God as the unity of being, or simply the Only Being (Ibn Arabi’s wahdat al-wujud). It is impossible to compete with God because God is limitless and all-inclusive. This does not negate the holistic wisdom of so-called pagan religions, while not relinquishing the important insights of monotheism. Approached from this perspective, you care less about whether people are worshipping the right deity, and more about laying the foundations for a beautiful world of beautiful people, as Hazrat Inayat Khan put it. The only real blasphemy is to limit God’s being, from ourselves and our world ultimately, and the best way to honor holiness is to act as though we really are breathing, moving, swimming, and moving in the blessed energy of the divine every second of our lives (you know, like Hinduism has been teaching for thousands of years). The best way to glorify the Creator by sanctifying creation, rather than trying to dominate it and make everyone conform to your idea of religion. Unity does not have to mean uniformity.

A common social activity at night is to go out shopping. There are three good malls that I know of, one of which I went to this weekend. My favorite store is Liberty Books. While the book walas (sellers) on the streets have a few gems, at cheaper prices, their selection is not as varied, and the books are not in as good condition. At the religious section I expected to find nothing but Islamic stuff. Most of it is, but I was surprised to see books on Buddhism, Yoga, Hinduism, Christianity, Kabbalah, and even Wicca. Perhaps most surprising of all was the display of Richard Dawkin’s new book of unabashed atheism, The God Delusion, a few books down from Dershowitz’s equally controverisal The Case for Israel.

Musharraf ’s autobiography, which I’ve mentioned before, is rather pervasive in stores. I was also glad to see Muktaran Mai’s memoir In the Name of Honor at Liberty Books. I had heard that this book was not going to be printed in Pakistan. Musharraf already stuck his foot in his mouth when he suggested that women lie about being raped because it’s a “money-making concern” and allows them to get travel visas or asylum (why they would want asylum in the first place, he doesn’t say). If her tale makes Pakistan look bad, and it is indeed a truthful account, that is the fault of those commiting these atrocities, and those in power allowing it to happen.

What complicates matters is that the western press eats up stories like this to bolster a certain worldview – Asia is backward and can’t modernize without the West. The former US Attorney General John Ashcroft once said that certain peoples of the world, such as Asians, don’t have a “temperament for democracy, and probably never will.” America is a “benevolent” empire because it rules the world only to save it from itself! To aid this perception the media sensationalize the bad things that happen in “developing” nations, and in the process degrade the people who actually live there. Rather than genuinely sympathize with victims, they are treated like a political football to further arguments rather than as real people (and real equals). One example is how some justified the Iraq war in the name of women’s rights, as though there were no feminists or educated women in Iraq before. Did these supporters assume Iraqi women all wanted American troops to march into their country? Apparently they didn’t consider that Iraqi women gained rights under Ba’athism above many others in the Arab world, and the mullahs in the Iranian regime have been eager to see a similar government next door that would usurp these rights.

There was a brilliant article in Dawn about how Musharraf’s self-promotion only hurts the country (“Competitive (dis)advantage”). Indeed, it seems as if Musharraf is largely to blame for making the country look bad. He makes it sound as though Pakistan can’t make it without his dictatorship lest all the fanatics take over. Thus, people think most Pakistanis are fanatics. I’ve actually heard educated liberals in the US say that everyone in Pakistan hates Americans. And instead of developing resources and exporting them competitively, like China and India have, Pakistan relies heavily on US aid. There are many beautiful areas with millennia of history, but there’s not going to be tourism when people are deathly afraid of visiting the country. What’s worse, this fear will only discourage trade and investment.

To be sure, Al Qaeda, Taliban insurgents, Kashmiri guerrillas, and other radicals are part of the country. But there is another side, if only they could market it successfully. Ghuzzals, qawwali, folk-art, literature, dance – this is the Pakistan I know. Just the other night I watched a wonderful program on classical Indian/Pakistani love stories. Yes, Pakistanis fall in love too.

Some people believe that the environment is having its revenge on us. Fundamentalist Christians and Muslims say that God is punishing us (and usually for the wrong reasons, ignoring the real lessons behind these tragedies). Last month was the one year anniversary of the earthquake in northern Pakistan and India. The effect of earthquake, particularly in Pakistan, was devastating. Almost 100,000 people were killed and millions became refugees in an area that already has the largest refugee population in the world. After billions of dollars, the necessary reconstruction is nowhere near complete and at this rate will take decades to finish. Like Katrina, human incompetence exacerbated the damage. It probably didn’t make the survivors feel any better to see planes drop off plentiful supplies for the US military in Afghanistan. Unlike Katrina, this was not a phenomenon which could be linked to climate change.

Towards the end of the summer there was a freakish occurrence of heavy flooding in Sindh in a period of a few days, a region which on average receives a few inches of rain a year. Parts of Hyderabad were so drenched that it formed ponds along the road that can still be seen, no doubt due to the lack of a drainage system. Some people’s homes were ruined. This of course breeds more mosquitoes, and there has recently been an outbreak of dengue fever. It’s bad enough there is malaria to worry about. The government says it’s now under control. I hope.

The hot water heaters in the house have malfunctioned twice so far. A few times I have had to heat water in a plastic basin and bathe the old-fashion way.  I’ve also taken a few cold showers, which is fine when it’s really hot, but uncomfortable as the days get cooler. It reminded me of my football days. After practice we had to take group showers, often cold or lukewarm. These spartan conditions train men to be warriors!

The first book I read when I arrived here was a history of the Crusades. In my previous blog, my first, and quite lengthy, entry was about the issue of asceticism in religion. The book brought up another dimension of asceticism I didn’t consider before. In Christianity, at least Western Christianity, asceticism acquired a martial ethos during the dark ages and latter was part of the pattern of Holy War. I previously thought that the Protestant downgrading of the monastery had a negative effect in that it took away the space for Christian mysticism and channelled the reservoir of religious energy into world-conquest. If you are a fan of capitalism, and you believe Weber’s take on the Protestant work ethic, you would not see this as a bad thing. Whether it was a good development or not, it’s undeniable that the Reformation changed the destiny of Europe, and the world, ever since. Since Calvin made God so remote from the world, and predestination was held to be unalterable by any human effort, people paradoxically developed a more worldly perspective. The world is a theater in which everyone should go out and try to prosper, and in this way we can see who God favors. The values of sobriety, patience, and sacrifice in the monastery were applied to the market place. Whether this development was really religious in nature or based on other socio-economic or political factors, this zeal for domination was a major change of outlook. Or was it?

Maybe European colonization, although based on secular factors, was just part of the earlier pattern of Christianity’s missionary zeal that was set long before. The first crusade, at least financially, was a bust, but it had a unifying effect on Christendom. Many thousands of soldiers, of their own volition, endured horrible conditions and died painful deaths in their long trek to recapture Jerusalem. An outward version of the monastery, this was a holy journey to contact the Holy Spirit.

I arrived in Pakistan during the month of Ramadan. On the first day I was a little frightened when I heard an air raid siren because I thought there was some emergency situation going on, and I was relieved to learn that it was just a reminder for prayer. Normally there is an azan (call to prayer) five times a day, which used to be done maually from the top of a minaret, but is now obnoxiously blasted from loud speakers. The siren is an added feature of Ramadan. The country practically shuts down for most of the day and people spend more time inside with family and friends. During the last 10 days the more pious followers may choose to enter into seclusion and spend a majority of the day doing extra prayers and meditations upon the Qur’an. However, Muslims are not allowed to fast longer than the month, presumably so this sacrifice doesn’t become an egoistic game of ascetic competition. Similarly, Sufis are not supposed to show off their practices and should appear normal and comfortable in front of others.

The earliest Muslims adopted the Jewish day-long fast of Yom Kippur, done before the start of the Rosh Hashana to atone for sins of the past year. The purpose is to learn ethical discipline through control of the body. Lent is also a time of repentance, and in Europe was traditionally more severe than it is for most Catholics today. The idea is that this suffering, like Christ’s passion on the cross, burns away sins. Muhammad later changed the fast from a day to a month, done during daylight hours. Though it is a repentance (the root of the word Ramadan is “to burn,” and it was also the month when the Qur’an was first revealed), its purpose is to induce humility and gratitude by acknowledging our dependence on God (and on others) as well as empathy for the poor and destitute.

From dawn till evening Muslims during Ramadan abstain from food, drink, sexual intercourse, and smoking, as well as refraining from swearing, gossip, and slander. Those who are pregnant or ill, elderlies and children, and travellers are all exempt from the physical fasting, although all Muslims should observe the other restrictions.

Does Ramadan have a martial aspect as well? Bin Laden, for example, prepared for military training as a young man by taking excursions into the desert and braving its harsh conditions. The revolutionary pattern of Islam is a very old, going back to the Prophet Muhammad himself – remove oneself from the corrupt society, experience some transformative or fortuitous event of destiny, come back to the world to (re)conquer it in the name of rightiousness.

I’m sure critics of Islam could find a connection between Ramadan and militancy. Normally, critics focus on jihad, sharia, dhimmitude, klalifat, etc. but the five pillars of Islam, its foundational expression, are not as heavily deconstructed. Islamophobes could certainly take issue with the pillars, however. A secularist might consider iman (faith) in holy books, angels, an afterlife and moral judgment as useless superstition or harmful theology. A capitalist might say that zakat (charity) encourages a culture of dependency and paved the way for socialism in the Middle East. Those who call for more scrutiny and survellience of mosques would contend that since some of the money gets into the hands of terrorists, the dangers of zakat outweigh its virtues (as though terrorists have no other way to get funds).

A major magazine, I believe Newsweek, recently had a feature about Ramadan with a picture of a pack of sinister looking dogs. I’m not sure what point they were trying to make. My first experience of Ramadan in a Muslim country was beautiful, more like the private contemplation I’ve known in my experience with other religions, but as the cliche goes, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

I try not to lecture people about their food choices. As long as people are well-informed about nutrition and health, they should be able to eat whatever they want.  

There was a debate on Peace TV between Hindus and Muslims about whether humans are allowed to eat non-vegetarian food. There were good arguments on both sides. The issue I have is the way the question was framed in the first place. The unspoken assumption is that health and ethical issues must be ultimately decided by an anthro-centric God. (To use the lion analogy again, if they had their own religion, I’m sure they would have a lion-centric view of a deity, with a theology that other animals, even humans, were created to serve lions as food and labor.) The natural wisdom of our body is ignored; instead a divine father figure must tell us what to eat and how we should feel about it. Forget reason, science, or intuition, and just do what the good book says.

In this worldview nature is our slave. Of course, we should act as a benevolent master, but animals are still our servants, just as, in this hierarchy, we are God’s servants. While God may be transcendent, humans exit within a larger biological ecosystem. Despite our high opinion of ourselves, our survival is bound up with every other living creature. Stripped of our technological armor, we are just as vulnerable in a natural setting, in fact, more so.

Why is it forbidden to kill anything, even an insect, during the Hajj? Why in Islam is there a limit to how much weight you can load on a camel’s back? Why did the Prophet go out of his way to be nice to animals? As a speaker pointed out, Islam gives rights to animals. This implicitly acknowledges their status, does it not? Perhaps we can see ourselves in the face of the creature who desires not to be killed, and this sense of empathy is a gateway to wisdom. The importance of ahimsa, the ethic of non-harm or non-injury, in moral philosophy is something the Dharmic religions figured out long ago.

Someone asked a speaker on Peace TV, who earlier gave a good sermon about human rights, whether Islam is against evolution. He answered that the Qur’an states that humans are the pinnacle of creation. Human beings are not animals. We don’t call a horse a buffalo, so why call a human a primate? Apparently he doesn’t understand the biological classification system. Two different animals will have different names, but that doesn’t mean they’re not both animals! Organisms can be in the same kingdom, phylum, family, genus, or species. The more categories they share, the more they have in common.

His argument was based on the premise that humans are not animals because Allah says so. I’m sure if, say, lions formed an organized religion, they would believe lions are the pinnacle of creation. People who think this way play loose with the facts to make them fit their preconceived notions rather revising their ideas to fit the facts. Maybe metaphysics can work this way, but this is not how scientific theories are formed.

Theory is a much abused term. Creationists in America often say, well, if evolution is nothing more than a theory then that means it is just an opinion (you’ll notice they are no longer relativists if you suggest that other religions have their own creation stories too). Maybe evolution is how we got here, or maybe we were created by the Flying Spaghetti Monster. The problem with this notion is that a theory, as it relates to science, is an explanation of testable facts.

You would think these issues were resolved long ago, but apparently people still don’t get it. Even the Vatican got with the program eventually. This is indicative of a deeper problem. Islamic empires were initially pioneers of science. This was partly a result of their worldview. The world of matter is important as it is God’s creation (but it is also crucial to remember that God is superior to the world). The Qur’an puts little emphasis on the past, except as a reference, and more on the present circumstances of life on earth, as well as the afterlife. If you lead a good life in an Islamic sense, then you are allowed to enjoy the material fruits of God’s creation.

Unfortunately, several Islamic kingdoms started to decline around 600 years ago. The timing could not have been worse as Europe had a renaissance and Muslims fell far behind their remarkable achievements. Trying to catch up has been a confusing experience. If this change was revolutionary and violent in the West, it was even more drastically felt in lands where it was not a home grown affair, particularly in regard to colonialism.

Some religious people feel that if we give up the notion that humans have a divine status, the last peg of human dignity is taken away and there will be no basis for human rights. Another way of looking at it is that selfish attitudes lead people to exploit others, and technology is a tool of exploitation when used selfishly. The idea that the ruler of the universe gave us the earth as a toy to play with might make us feel special, but it’s a morally bankrupt vision. Putting science under the authority of these believers will not improve the quality of life.

Pakistan already has an educational base. The literacy rate is lower than in places like Egypt, but the situation is largely the same. There are many engineers, doctors (many of them female) and tech workers. However, there is a noticeable lack of industry for research or scholarship. As Khaled M. Abou el Fadl has pointed out, too many Muslims would rather build buildings than build minds. Adopting scientific thinking does not automatically mean accepting scientific-materialism or atheism, which are philosophical perspectives. Plenty of religious people carry out scientific research. Science, at its best, requires flexible cognitive skills, the very antidote to the religious radicalism. 

Besides the internet, one device that connects me to my former life in America like nothing else is television. Several channels are in English, with about a dozen American channels (through Arab-owned subsidiaries) including HBO, the National Geographic Channel, the Disney Channel, and the Discovery Channel. I can watch The Simpsons, Seinfeld, Curb Your Enthusiam, and my other favorite shows. The rest of the channels are Pakistani or Indian. There are a lot of soap operas, filmi music, sports (mostly cricket, soccer, and field hockey) cooking shows, MTV Pakistan, Bollywood, and qawwali (devotional Sufi music). There is quite a bit of news, including BBC, CNN, Sky News, al Jazeera, and Fox.

Most of the commercials are quite plain, except for an amusing X-Box ad where players have these exaggerated video-game characteristics (computer graphics are fun, aren’t they?). I also noticed a commercial in which a dark-skinned young woman looks sad until she puts on a skin-lightening cream (greatly enhancing her chances of getting married, her main purpose in life). In fairness (no pun intended) there is lightning cream for men as well.

Pakistan International Airlines provided me with a good flight on the way here. One of the first things I noticed, as a precursor to my later viewing experiences, was the ambiguity between public and private religious expression. The seats on the plane all featured a screen from which you could watch movies, play games, or go online. Since I was not in the mood to watch “Everybody Loves Raymond,” I clicked onto a science program about the wonders of the human sensory system. I quickly found out, however, that this was not a learning tool for science, but Islamic propaganda about why this miracle cannot be attributed to evolution (read: random selection) and why atheism is wrong. If this happened in America, whether the company was from the public or private sector, they would surely get sued. 

There are at least a 1/2 dozen Islamic channels, and Peace TV is supposed to be one of the more moderate ones. Then again, it’s the only one in English, so I can’t understand the others. I will comment more on this later.