Here is the question: Can a principle or concept be brilliant, but its implementation flawed? The general answer is: Yes.
We come across many examples in our day to day life of this duality. Many people try cookbook recipes for baking a cake. Not everyone's cake comes out perfect. Let's take it a step further: let's assume some people never read the recipe but look at the picture of the cake in the cookbook and try to bake it. Of course, when the cake is completely screwed up they can't blame the cookbook.
Let's take another everyday example. Many people show up for a written driving exam without having read the driver's handbook published by the government. They may pretend that by observing traffic on the street they have learnt enough about the rules of the game. Once again, they can't claim that the written exam is faulty, or worse that the handbook - which they never really read - is wrong.
I could go on with other examples, but perhaps you catch my drift.
The Islamic society today is also a very good example of people who haven't read the instruction manual but blame Islam as being backwards, or extremist or close-minded, or archaic (there is a wide choice of titles commonly peddled these days). Worse still, many blame the Quran as also being out of date or simply irrelevant.
There is a double-whammy hidden in this. On the one hand, these "enlightened" folks have not bothered to read the instruction manual that was provided as a timeless moral GPS unit; their understanding of what is in the Quran is second-hand or often based on popular media's depiction. On the other hand, this blame game takes them farther and farther away from the actual solution - that is, understanding how this moral GPS works and actually putting it to use.
The simple fact is that human interactions and societal linkages do not change substantively over time - these interactions are the major subject of the Quran, which provides fairly explicit guidance on how to manage these. The key approaches outlined therein can be better understood if we reflect on the truism that history repeats - it is as applicable today as it was five or ten centuries ago and therefore Quran's finding are no less contemporary today than they were originally. Nations and countries prosper, gain power, abuse power, fall into degradation and whither with quite predictable patterns. The qualities that lead nations to the rising part of this bell-curve are also common: honesty, openness, innovation, hard-work, dedication to a cause, fiscal prudence and having internal peace (for those of you who read my earlier blog "Who is an Ideal Muslim?", this may sound familiar).
The Islamic countries - 56 the last time I was counting - can also prosper if they also adopt these qualities. The irony is that all these instructions are already there in moral GPS and its at our fingertips. But we have blind-folded ourselves and let half-literate mullahs define and interpret the Quran for us. Certainly a bad choice. The current situation of depravity, impoverishness and utter chaos in the Islamic world can only turn around when our thinking about the Quran will change. Secondary impacts, like democracy, rule of law, basic justice and economic prosperity, can only take hold when the fundamentals of society are sound.
09 July 2011
11 January 2011
A Tale of Two Cities
This tale has two unlikely cities: Tuscon and Islamabad. Cities that sit in the shadows of towering mountains - Mount Lemmon and Margalla Hills. They are unlikely to be compared under normal circumstances. But we live in abnormal times -- religious and political extremism abounds. Rightist forces in all societies are resurgent and carrying significant political capital.
The two cities are linked together by two horrific acts of violence against politicians. People generally don't fall in love with politicians, and often it is easy to despise them. People in this line of profession do a lot of wheeling and dealing - both in public limelight and in shrouded backrooms. But it is impossible to justify violence against them in democratic environments.
The incidents I refer to were separated by barely four days: On 4 January, the Punjab Governor Salman Taseer was assassinated by a member of the elite police force - Malik Qadri. On 8 January, Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was critically injured by a gun-toting nut-case - Jared Loughner. In the latter case, Loughner proved more deadly because he managed to also murder six other people including a 9-year old girl and a judge.
The similarities in what took place and what it means to politics in the US and Pakistan is uncanny. In both cases, zealots carried the day by successfully carrying out acts of violence. These acts, among other things, were meant to frighten political oponents and to "send a message." In both cases, a consequence will be muffling of opposing political voices. One might hope that the US polity is strong enough to rebound eventualy, although I have my doubts given some recent trends. For Pakistan, the situation is much more dire. The implicit encouragement for political violence -- as manifested in the shape of hordes of narrow-minded zealots openly supporting the act of Mr. Qadri -- can open the door to perpetual unrest, and in the worst case, a civil war.
In both cases, cooler heads need to prevail and the voice of reason needs to overcome extremist perspectives. The partisan and polarizing rhetoric must be toned down. We see some signs of that in the US, with the likes of former president Bill Clinton taking an outspoken stance on this. How effective he will be remains to be seen. We don't see any signs yet of such conciliatory efforts in Pakistan - rather, the voices of reason seem to have gone silent (in fear, perhaps).
The situation in Pakistan is quite ironical. The assassination is seen by some as an act that somehow "protects" Islam. That couldn't be farther away from the truth. In my previous blogs (see "A Note to Islam's Apologists" and "Who is an Ideal Muslim"), I have written about how Islam's basic concepts and fundamentals revolve around peace, humility and harmony. The Holy Quran explicitly prohibits fasad - a state of anarchy and violence. It reprimands those who try to wrap fasad inside the foil of religion; that state is deemed worse than murder.
It is challenging to devise ways to have an open dialogue on issues that involve religion. In many cases, the ones that need to be engaged in an open dialogue are also the ones who are emotionally attached to their religious (or sometiemes political) views - often to the extent of being blind to any logic or rational conversation.
In the case of Islam (and the situation created in Islamabad), we must therefore revert to the logic and reasoning that is embedded within the Holy Quran. The divine word can hopefully carry the day.
The two cities are linked together by two horrific acts of violence against politicians. People generally don't fall in love with politicians, and often it is easy to despise them. People in this line of profession do a lot of wheeling and dealing - both in public limelight and in shrouded backrooms. But it is impossible to justify violence against them in democratic environments.
The incidents I refer to were separated by barely four days: On 4 January, the Punjab Governor Salman Taseer was assassinated by a member of the elite police force - Malik Qadri. On 8 January, Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was critically injured by a gun-toting nut-case - Jared Loughner. In the latter case, Loughner proved more deadly because he managed to also murder six other people including a 9-year old girl and a judge.
The similarities in what took place and what it means to politics in the US and Pakistan is uncanny. In both cases, zealots carried the day by successfully carrying out acts of violence. These acts, among other things, were meant to frighten political oponents and to "send a message." In both cases, a consequence will be muffling of opposing political voices. One might hope that the US polity is strong enough to rebound eventualy, although I have my doubts given some recent trends. For Pakistan, the situation is much more dire. The implicit encouragement for political violence -- as manifested in the shape of hordes of narrow-minded zealots openly supporting the act of Mr. Qadri -- can open the door to perpetual unrest, and in the worst case, a civil war.
In both cases, cooler heads need to prevail and the voice of reason needs to overcome extremist perspectives. The partisan and polarizing rhetoric must be toned down. We see some signs of that in the US, with the likes of former president Bill Clinton taking an outspoken stance on this. How effective he will be remains to be seen. We don't see any signs yet of such conciliatory efforts in Pakistan - rather, the voices of reason seem to have gone silent (in fear, perhaps).
The situation in Pakistan is quite ironical. The assassination is seen by some as an act that somehow "protects" Islam. That couldn't be farther away from the truth. In my previous blogs (see "A Note to Islam's Apologists" and "Who is an Ideal Muslim"), I have written about how Islam's basic concepts and fundamentals revolve around peace, humility and harmony. The Holy Quran explicitly prohibits fasad - a state of anarchy and violence. It reprimands those who try to wrap fasad inside the foil of religion; that state is deemed worse than murder.
It is challenging to devise ways to have an open dialogue on issues that involve religion. In many cases, the ones that need to be engaged in an open dialogue are also the ones who are emotionally attached to their religious (or sometiemes political) views - often to the extent of being blind to any logic or rational conversation.
In the case of Islam (and the situation created in Islamabad), we must therefore revert to the logic and reasoning that is embedded within the Holy Quran. The divine word can hopefully carry the day.
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