Tag: malala

From Christopher Columbus to Malala Yousafzai‎

Columbus to MalalaParallax errors of selective historical and contemporary view points

A simple definition of Parallax would be “an apparent change in the position of an object resulting from a change in position of the observer”. By some accounts on October 12 Christopher Columbus arrived in the Americas [1]. 521 years later a girl, Malala Yusufzai, from Swat, Pakistan met President Obama. President Obama stated “Across the globe there are girls who will one day lead nations, if only we afford them the chance to choose their own destinies.” Both Pakistan and Bangladesh have had women Prime Ministers. A lady has never been elected to the President’s office in the US.

In 2007 30% of Iraqi elementary school children attended school [2] as opposed to 75% previously. Between the 1990 and 2005 the increase in infant mortality in Iraq of 150% was the highest in the world, a period that saw inhumane sanctions and a war based on greed [3] , an IMR had by contrast declined from 120 per 1000 in 1960 to 45 per 1000 in the late 1980’s. Some charge Muslims with trying to take over the West, forgetting conveniently that Iraq alone has lived the nightmare of foreign takeover multiple times. A 1920 “uprising” was crushed by Churchill through the RAF with Winston itching to use chemical weapons [4] and authorizing a brutal bombardment [5] of the “enemy” who happened to be the native of the land being occupied. The exact death and destruction from Iraq from first gulf war is still an obscurity in the media, so there is no surprise that the mortality and morbidity from the latest fiasco is manufactured in to a question mark. The Lancet study[6]  concluding 650,000 excess deaths and by some counts well over a million are disputed by the same media that John Kerry uses to drum up support for yet another war, this time in Syria shoulder to shoulder with Al-Qaida [7], backed by “numbers” pouring in thick and fast. Fortunately, the sanity of American people prevailed over a proxy war between Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Israel, USA against Iran and Russia presented as yet another divine call to protect the weak by the media.

Stringing it together – “Rediscovering” Columbus:

In school curriculum by our colonial masters, we found the names Christopher Columbus and Ferdinand Magellan. One of the first things to relearn about Columbus is that he was by no means the only one who believed that the earth was not flat. Second and more importantly, he conducted a shameless genocide of the indigenous population. In the schoolbook version in Pakistan and the US[8], he was an intrepid explorer, inspired by his faith as much as curiosity and “discovered” the “New World” because the Ottomans had blocked off the land route to India, the latter an assertion challenged by some as it was a money making venture for the Ottomans. In this day and age of connectivity it is hard to keep old myths alive let alone build new ones. One finds that Columbus was welcomed by an indigenous population only to return with arms and annihilate them. The “New World” was already home to an indigenous population, 90 to 95% of who would be wiped out in a single generation. The cause of this remains controversial and although disease from the “old world” did play a role, genocidal violence had very clear role as well, the people of the old world having the advantage of newer weapons unknown to the indigenous. In American Holocaust, David E. Stannard writes that in 21 years after Columbus came to the Caribbean, it went from a population of 8000,000 to be being desolate. The numbers and causes seem to get more obscure the more inconvenient they are to the myth of a linear unblemished history. The war on the natives was not despite faith but done in its very name as “the Requirement” would be read out to natives, imploring them to recognize the Church and Pope or be ready to face war declaring explicitly that women and children will be taken as slaves. Only a fool would use this as a reference to approach Christianity in general yet a similar bias is used for Islam daily in the media.

The current Palestinian-Israeli conflict becomes just another chapter, overlooking the fact that at the time Columbus sailed from Spain under Isabella Ferdinand, one of the most luminous chapters of coexistence [9] were coming to an end, that is the Spain under Moorish rule which was not perfect, but would still make us question the world that we are shaping since 9/11. In Spain Christians, Jews and Muslims had come together to make advances in art and science that Europe would owe its emergence from the dark ages to. Under Isabella and Ferdinand in Spain came the Spanish Inquisition, Jews and Muslims were expelled, even co-religionists were persecuted on suspicion of being fifth columnists. By contrast Jews and Christians had freedom of religion under the Moors [10] [11] and in fact many Jews were forced to flee to Ottoman lands.

Lessons from the Columbian myth: 

One has to be careful of the lessons learned from Columbus, just like one must not reduce Malala’s wonderful story to a conspiracy theory despite the undoubted exploitation by some. In a time of unprecedented propaganda we can fall to the temptation of our own parallax error – of creating our own “other.” However, we have to advocate that West and Islam question sincerely our biases, from a distorted history of the Crusades to the temptation of a religious transference.  The historical place of women in Islam and their roles are very different from what the exploitation of Malala would suggest. It is overlooking that just like early Christians, early Muslims were persecuted and the first martyr of Islam was Sumayah (May Allah Be Pleased with her) was a lady, killed when a spear was thrust through her private parts. It was the background of such victimization that Quranic verses of retaliating were revealed.

Most importantly, Columbus was a myth built over 500 years but took a few days of research in this day and age of the technology to dismantle. Those trying to reduce the violence of the last dozen years, both by a lunatic and fringe that has killed more Muslims than anyone else as well as by elected governments taking their people to wars based on lies, to the face of a young girl need to learn that the world does not lend itself to such a convenience any more. Muslims also need to learn that increasingly our struggles are intellectual. As a Muslim living in the West one can have many fears about disagreeing with the media narrative, being labelled a Taliban apologist, a closet extremist, a person mired in 1400 years of hateful history that never was, but perhaps the single most insincere thing that one can do to the society that we now live in is not share our perspective.

What Malala is not:

It is interesting how passionate a debate Malala has generated. Perhaps the most laughable was Bilawal and Bahtawar Bhutto (Last name Zardari?) saying they want her as their Prime-minister. This after unprecedented corruption by the Bhuttos as well as the Sharifs followed by Asif Zardari, a man known internationally for his money laundering and corruption, being installed as the President of Pakistan by the powers that be in and out of Pakistan, A fact Condoleezza Rice narrates in her book ironically named “No higher honour.” It is this manipulation of the fates of millions that breeds resentment against the US that leaves others robbed of their dignity and yes, also leaves the US a scape goat for one’s own failures.

One has to wonder about the stunning figures of mortality among children from US policies in just the last 2 decades, not to mention the malnutrition, internal displacement, destruction of families and lost opportunities for education, the thousands of innocents killed in drone attacks and the contrast of parading Malala. She was a face of the children of Pakistan but has been projected as a mask for the atrocities of the West. Even a partial list of children killed in drone strikes speaks of another reality [12].  The media uses her to obscure that Aisha (May Allah be pleased with her) is one of the most prolific narrator of prophetic traditions (Ahadith), that the colonialism has exploited women as much as imperialism does now, that bigots like Lord Cromer in the early 1900’s in Egypt criticizing Islam were opposing women’s right at home in England [13]) and that a French General had concluded“If you convert 100, 000 young indigenous girls to our civilization …. these young girls, who would naturally become the privileged wives of the most important men of their class will, forever guarantee the subjugation of the country and be the guarantee of its future assimilation. [14]” Malala is a daughter of Pakistan, a young girl among many who suffer in a country plagued by feudalism, lawlessness, corruption and economic mismanagement, all factors that have helped the US government manipulate Pakistan to its interest while the media keeps people misinformed by creating out of one life what it has denied to millions.

Why Malala is a real princess:

Some months ago my daughter had asked about Princess Diana when she watched a video of Diana visiting the Shaukat Khanam Cancer Hospital in Pakistan, one of the biggest philanthropic ventures in Pakistan that serves all Pakistanis regardless of race, religion or color. I told her she was “real princess.” I will teach her the same about Malala for her courage is truly phenomenal and makes me question what I have done to build a better world. I think the biggest lesson this young girl taught me is that if you believe in something then you should be willing to stand up for it. There have been many satirical blogs and articles about how Pakistanis see a conspiracy behind her including by a minority of Pakistanis whose parallax is the convenience of picking a (often profitable) side in a black and world narrative, conveniently overlooking that in the last 10 years Pakistan has seen unprecedented violence, the influx of Black water mercenaries, the interests of its own people sold by the corrupt elite and the likes of Raymond Davis literally getting away with murder. That Humanity in the midst of the never ending war on terror has decided to handle collective affairs on anything other than on power is bound to draw skepticism.

Pakistan air force now has women pilots and women have served in the police for years and that many teachers in Pakistan are ladies. I celebrate  Malala, like  my grandmother, a physician who went on to participate in the Pakistan movement, My mother a physician who practiced in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, my sisters who went on to successful medical careers and my wife, yet another physician in the family.  Today more than ever it is easier to retrace history. To celebrate Fatima Al-Fihri, a Muslim woman who established the first University in the world and perhaps even dare suggest that Columbus Day be renamed Bartolome De La Casas Day who unlike Columbus had the courage to see the humanity of the “other” and said:

“What we committed in the Indies stands out amongst the most unpardonable offenses ever committed against God and mankind and this trade [in American Indian alaves] as the most unjust, evil and cruel among them”.

References:
1. Columbus day: Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbus_Day
2-3. The War Machine and Global Health, A Critical Medical Anthropological Examination of the Human Costs of Armed Conflict and the International Violence industry
4.   Winston Churchill’s Secret Poison Gas Memo: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article999.htm  
5. Iraq, 1917: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article6337.htm
6. Lancet surveys of Iraq War casualties: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lancet_surveys_of_Iraq_War_casualties
 7. Does Obama know he is fighting on Al Qaida’s side: http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/does-obama-know-hes-fighting-on-alqaidas-side-8786680.html
8, 10. Lies my Teacher told me, James W. Loewen
9. Ornament of the World, Maria Rosa Menocal
11. State, Society, and Law in Islam: Ottoman Law in Comparative Perspective, Haim Gerber
12. A List Of Children Killed By Drone Strikes In Pakistan and Yemen http://www.policymic.com/articles/24164/a-list-of-children-killed-by-drone-strikes-in-pakistan-and-yemen
13, 14,The Miseducation of the West, How schools and media distort our understanding of the Islamic world, Joe Kincheloe

A Method in The Madness?

Attacking a girl who expressed her will to educate herself and others like her is a crime most heinous is something every right-minded human being would assent to. There is, quite unsurprisingly therefore, an absolute consensus among Pakistanis and the rest of the world about the reprehensibility of the act_ and that certainly tells us our hearts are still in the right place. It is also a given that whoever is behind this attack is evil.

Thinking thus is not leftist or rightist, or liberal or conservative or religious or secular. It is just common decency. But I must risk being controversial beyond the facile narrative of this episode. There are vital questions that need to be asked. For one, who would do this, and why really? I am told it is the thing called Taliban. But I must be cautious against unproven assumptions. Not because I am a Taliban sympathizer, but because I do not know enough to make that conclusion other than the fact that one Ehsanullah Ehsan claimed it was the Taliban. He also tells me he wants her killed because she ‘promoted secularism’ and had the shamelessness to quote to me the Quran and the Sunnah to justify the most despicable act. Indeed, the devil can cite scriptures for his purpose.

I would really like to know and condemn whoever is behind this in the strongest possible terms. But I cannot but put my finger on a murky, dubious and elusive entity that is called Taliban. I do not know what that is, except that it is an umbrella-term for something far more nuanced and complex than the term implies; used more liberally, loosely and expediently than it should- by both those who call themselves the Taliban as well as those who use it for others. Because while it originally described a popular defensive struggle against warlordism and civil strife in Afghanistan and thereafter against the US occupation of the same, it is now adopted by a band of sorts, consisting of mercenaries, petty criminals, hired assassins, agency funded terrorists, double agents, spies and pathological fanatics. Their link with the original Pashtun resistance by this name in Afghanistan remains unclear and questionable, and often denied by mainstream Taliban leadership in Afghanistan.

The skewed up mindset I read in the letter by Ehsanullah Ehsan is sickeningly diabolical. I stop and think what kind of a mind would call for the killing of a mere child using a completely irrelevant, ill-fitting and utterly out-of-context sacred text to justify the point-blank targeting of a female child who had come to mean so much for so many. Even if one cannot expect moral scrupulousness from the Taliban, this sounds like a masterstroke of grandiose stupidity in terms of political consequences as well as psychological repercussions. It is an absolutely suicidal move on the part of the Taliban, given the fact that the very natural and very expected sympathy for the innocent victim will bring utter condemnation and ruination to their cause. It is only natural that a pretty little girl wanting to educate herself and getting shot in the head by misogynistic terrorists for it will deflect any sympathy there may have been for what the Taliban fight for and will provoke the ire of all feeling hearts.

But perhaps there is method in this madness? For one, the episode came to light right after Imran Khan’s peace march against drone strikes had managed to draw attention to this issue that ails the heart of many Pakistanis, and just when there was talk of creating grounds for an operation in North Waziristan. A news report in ‘The Express Tribune’ on September 17, 2012 entitled ‘North Waziristan Operation to Stay Under Wraps’ quotes a Pakistan government official saying that Pakistani authorities plan to create a ‘necessary environment’ for the Waziristan operation. Moreover, soon after the attack given the overwhelming public sympathy there is conspicuous effort to swing opinion in favour of the necessity to use drones to hit targets in the region and the necessity to begin a military operation in North Waziristan agency. This had been a demand from the White House since some time. I must be allowed to wonder who really is the beneficiary of it all? The pattern I detect is a familiar one. Before the Swat operation some years ago, opinion had been swung in support of it after the screening of a video that showed the Taliban lashing a yelping woman. Months later, a small news strip revealed the video had been a fake one. It did not matter then, for the deftness of the forgery had come in handy to justify the operation and to give an inept regime reasons for self-congratulation over something the Former Dictator had failed to do: rally public opinion before a military move into the restive, bleeding north.

Last month’s joint report by Stanford and NYU on the impact of the drone strikes in Pakistan calls them ‘damaging and counterproductive’ as opposed to the false US narrative of these being ‘surgically precise effective tools’ to hit specified targets with minimal collateral damage. The report documents 2562 to 3325 casualties by drone strikes since 2004, out of which 474-881 are civilians including 176 children. The number of injured is roughly between 1226 to 1362 individuals. The report includes harrowing narratives of survivors and victim communities in a region where the ‘free media’ of the country cannot dare to tread.

I may be dubbed a hopelessly ‘illiberal’ fanatic for linking up the Malala incident to the drones when I say that the sympathy generated for Malala must also be for all victims of terror, drone strikes, sectarian and ethnic killings, indiscriminately. We cannot discriminate between dead bodies just because it may not be ‘politically correct’ to question and condemn the cause of the deaths of some, depending on who the killer is. However, the necessary link between Malala and the drone strikes is best drawn by an anonymous lady holding up a most unforgettable placard that confounds the senses: ‘Drones kill so Malala can live.’ I commend her scathing honesty. Few can put so succinctly the political agenda behind the state-sponsored media campaign for Malala and the vital link that does exist between the two. It is, in fact, quite ordinarily a strategy of psychological warfare to generate favourable opinion and support for a planned military offensive which may otherwise be opposed and questioned on moral grounds. In American military terminology, this vital strategy is called PSYOPS (Psychological Operations). Wikipedia explains:

“Psychological operations are planned operations to convey selected information and indicators to foreign audiences to influence their emotions, motives, objective reasoning, and ultimately the behavior of foreign governments, organizations, groups, and individuals.The purpose of the United States psychological operations (PSYOP) is to induce or reinforce behavior favorable to US objectives. They are an important part of the range of diplomatic, informational, military, and economic activities available to the US. Strategic PSYOPS include informational activities conducted by the US government agencies outside of the military arena.”

So now again I hear talk of military operations with renewed vigour while public outrage is toned down and muted. Hawks who cannot see beyond a military solution to the complex, deep-rooted phenomena on the rampage in the tribal north must be patting themselves on the back for yet another tawdry, meaningless triumph. I shudder to think of the possibilities being contemplated.

And I wonder if this really is all about girls education as it is being made out to be? How effective will this be to further the cause of education for the girlchild in this country? Or will it blow to smithereens more lives, generate more terror wreaking havoc on human lives and keeping little girls away from school? And I think of those other victims it is not good manners to make mention of: those battered anonymous and unsung lives connected to so many other lives; of children whose dreams of brighter futures die away and recede into the falling debris; and of my religion audaciously sinned against and made a malleable ploy to the whims and unholy ambitions of evil self-appointed guardians of it.

But if we wish to reach solutions we must be ready to understand, ask questions and wonder why, really? If it is really an ideology that motivates the Taliban’s diabolical moves, I wonder why the ideology never drove these misogynistic Pashtuns into paroxysms of fury and frenzy when Swat hosted tourists and many young honeymooning couples a decade ago? A friend born and raised in Swat speaks of the cheerful, chivalrous, hospitable people with well-knit and warm community lives. My mother who went to school in Nowshehra and Peshawar reminisces of ruddy chivalrous Pathan youths escorting groups of girls to school and of bright-eyed Pathan girls following their dreams into high school and college, many of whom graduated as professionals. So where exactly has it all turned awry? Ideologies do not take birth instantaneously; but vengeance does.
And, if it really is an ideology that motivates the madness, can the use of wholesale, blind brute-force that does not discriminate, defeat it? The answer is a most basic lesson of history it would serve us well to learn.

And somewhere, this simplistic narrative I must believe, just does not cohere.

The pointer here is that maybe this uncontrollable hydra of insane extremism and terrorism is the work of our own fumbling, bloodsoaked, sinning hands? Maybe it is the inevitable result of the dirty deals we brokered and the unholy alliance we forged in indecent haste and sinister hush? And maybe the monster will not be tamed and cut down to size unless we dare to understand that violence begets violence, and the victim does not forget or forgive; that drones don’t see the faces in the dust nor hear the moans in the darkness, but that the faces are people and lives and stories forever knitted into several other stories with the silken ties of love. And by being complicit in this unholy mission, we make these sad stories ugly, grotesque, haunting, terrifying, vengeful. And our own story of ignominy and annihilation is writ indelibly by the Moving Finger.

Malala and The Justified War of Terror – II

I got in to the car and in the hour long drive back I reflected on the hopeless failure for dialogue. There has been endless condemnation of 9/11 from the “Muslim world” but the propaganda of the last decade drowns it out. Somewhere along shouting out support for such sacred morals as “freedom of speech” the west drowned out its own conscience as conveniently as it blocked out the “Muslim world” asking it, “what about the right to be heard?” I pause and reflect at the flow of my own thoughts. I realize how I have succumbed to “generalizations” while claiming to raise my voice against this very evil. Perhaps the propaganda of our times is best reflected by the quote noted below, and attributed to Confucius with some variations:

“If language be not in accordance with the truth of things, affairs cannot be carried on to success. When affairs cannot be carried on to success, proprieties and music will not flourish. When proprieties and music do not flourish, punishments will not be properly awarded. When punishments are not properly awarded, the people do not know how to move hand or foot.”

While the domestic narrative in the US is one of their military being out to do wonderful things, reinforced over and over again by  blacking out the body bags coming back from the war zones but soldiers returning to propose on camera, giving parents a surprise, helping disabled teens cross finish lines are etched in the minds. I wonder if the lady I had met just moments ago could name even one of the Iraqi or Afghani children that died in the 90’s or a million Iraqis that died as a result of war based on lies. She will likely not remember the names of the Iranians who will be killed by the sanctions in the coming years and in all likelihood yet more that will be killed as a war that “breaks out” in the coming years. I wonder if she ever switches off her television and reflects on the disconnection with Iraq’s experience. Churchill was threatening to “gas” them in not so remote history, followed by the deliberate destruction of infrastructure like water purification plants, during the first Gulf war, followed by crippling sanctions, followed by a full scale invasion that has killed at least a million more and displaced millions internally and externally. I wonder if she could name a single civilian killed in Pakistan during the drone strikes or if she knew the names of the victims of Raymond Davis, who shot people in broad daylight.The US government subsequently, in the mother of all ironies, flew him out of the country based on loopholes created by their cronies in Islamabad on the very Sharia they demonize. The only legal consequences he received were due to a brawl he got in to after returning to the US.

I wonder if she knew the 16 year old Tariq Aziz, a boy from the tribal areas of Pakistan who had volunteered to learn photography to begin documenting drone strikes near his home. He had come to Islamabad to protest. A few days later he was murdered – in yet another drone strike. I wonder if she could name a single Pakistani soldier or civilian killed by these terrorists – over 40,000 dead. Above all I wondered if she realized that for Pakistanis and Muslims it is a two way struggle of responding to American imperialism and the lunatic fringe. Of course, in Pakistan we have to do this in the absence of any governance since our saviours in Washington are probably already working on an exit plan for their current servants in Islamabad. I wonder if this lady had even an inkling of understanding of the how much better people outside the US understand America’s own history. It is therefore, no surprise that George Bush could stand in Philippines in 2003 and talk about his plans for the Middle East and no one in America questioned the almost comical historical contrast. No one in America cares about history especially if it doesn’t fit right in to American exceptionalism. Naturally, there is no need to think about USS Maine.

My mind shifts back to Malala. A few days before the attack on Malala, thousands of people from all corners of Pakistan had invested their own money and time and risked their lives in a show of solidarity with their brethren in the Tribal areas. They raised their voices for innocent lives being wiped out by drones in a grotesque video game like new war tool that is even more dehumanizing than the chilling brutality humanity has displayed in the most recently concluded bloodiest century to date. It was fascinating to see how this story would be replaced by the likes of stories such as Justin Bieber’s throwing up on stage on “CNN USA”, the “CNN international” website being slightly more generous in the number of hours this seemed to be on any notable corner of the main page.

Efforts like the peace march to the tribal areas could be turning points in ending this seemingly endless cycle of violence, especially given that many Americans who joined this peace march . In the few days that these wonderful human beings spent in Pakistan, they won the “hearts and minds” of not just Pakistanis but Muslims around the world and created a stark contrast in results produced by arrogant euphemisms about wars to win hearts and minds. It called the bluff of western governments and its media of labelling every casualty in this endless war as a “terrorist” and where the over one million Iraqis, unknown thousands of Afghanis, drone wars killing in Pakistan, Yemen and an ever growing list of “sovereign” countries is not even a consideration in the discourse that is delivered by crisply dressed men and women with a plastic smile.

Among the people who came to Pakistan was the British convert to Islam, Lauren Booth, the sister-in-law of former British Prime minister. The schizophrenic self-talk emanating from the TV screen in the west chooses to ignore her as much as it chooses to ignore the ever growing number of western converts to Islam unless of course it is about fear-mongering about the Islamic takeover of Europe with impossible numbers projected from birth rates amongst Muslims. The war on terror is simultaneously a war of civilizing the savage as the latest Islamophobic ads In New York subways explicitly state; it is not just about saving a people from their God, Muslim women from Muslim men but it is also about objecting to Muslims having children. A recent study determined that the majority of converts to Islam are British women with an average age of 27 and many have adopted traditional Muslim attire and wear a head scarf. The very symbol of oppression to the west is a choice for many but the media in the west has the luxury to talk right past these contradictions.

It gets dark and I pull in to a gas station and pray Maghrib in my car after trying to align myself the best I can to the Kaaba. I imagine millions more if not well over a billion are engaged in this very same act for the five daily prayers. I miss my daughter who lately has developed a fondness of climbing all over me while I pray. I marvel at the connection of Muslims to the Prophet Mohammed, Peace be upon him, who would prolong his prostration in prayers if his grandchildren climbed on his back. 1400 years later my child playing with me during prayers becomes a Sunnah. The sun has almost disappeared and I am saddened by how much we have failed to represent the teachings of the most magnificent man to walk the earth; a man who was sent as a mercy to the entire universe.

In the stream of propaganda we have become fathers that kill our daughters for honour. I run my hands over my face and feel my beard. The war on terror has come as close as my facial hair. If it had been better times I would have laughed at how ridiculous this thought was. Daughters and men with beards burying them … we learn no different than Pavlov’s dogs but if we use the intellect that we are gifted with we will see the Quran talking about avenging the girl child that was buried alive. The closest association Muslims finds in their heritage of how bearded men feel towards their daughters is the Prophet Mohammed, Peace be upon him, crying to the point that his beard was drenched when a man confessed to having buried his daughter alive before the advent of Islam. I put the car in drive and after a long time I seem to know what my journey is.

Link to Part I

Malala and The Justified War of Terror – I

I glance down at the empty plastic cup, circled in two small hands; a pair of gleaming eyes looked on intently as she pretended to take a sip and teased “It’s only for girls.” I make a rather exaggerated attempt to snatch it. In an instant she has turned and disappeared in to her room. I catch a glimpse of her curly locks as she intercepts the sunlight crashing through the living room window. My smile disappears instantly as I focus on the picture of a girl, some years senior to the child who filled my universe just minutes ago. I am filled with sadness for Malala, for her family, for us as humanity in general and for us as Muslims in particular. A familiar anguish registers forcefully yet again and I watch, like the majority of Muslims globally, as we fail to undo, the curse of a black and white world that George W. Bush initiated but since has been furthered relentlessly by his successor. An endless war rooted in grandiosity, condescendence and greed as much as it is supposedly about an endless stream of terror that masquerades as forces of absolute evil against forces of darkness. The narrative that unfolds and as it is retold endlessly, around the clock, with slight variations in flavour but absolute unanimity in incriminating the religion of the “other”, is shouted from the television screens and Radios across the west. Who is the West? Is it the by and large wonderful people I have had the pleasure to meet in the US, my teachers, colleagues and friends? Or is it the people who sanctioned two wars, one supposedly over but with great dividends of control of energy resources and somewhere along the way re-elected a President who started these war on lies, while simultaneously asking Muslims to chant in unison, their denunciation of the acts of people who they, like the west, sees as obscure figures on television when they come out with reported videos threatening to kill everyone and everything that breathes?

Just prior to the weekend, in a small town of 3000, an elderly lady in rural America approached me and asked about “surviving Pakistan.” I braced for a familiar conversation about how it is a country of a 180 million and not really just about the constant bad news you see on the media. Of course I can never explain in two minutes of sympathy coming my way the role of her own country in the mess in Afghanistan, the devastation of the economy that comes in the aftermath of US policies, the current corrupt lot that Washington has installed through unprecedented black laws such as the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO) that resulted in a puppet dictator exiting the country to find refuge abroad and ushered in well-known corrupt figures whose corruption of billions of dollars was forgiven by the outgoing dictator. I wanted to tell her that these are not crazy conspiracy theories but the very deception that alienates good people like herself and her fellow citizens from the “Muslim world.” I wanted to tell her diplomacy in the Muslim world to the US is the mockery of democracy. That what I was saying to her was not a secret but documented by numerous western writers including the very officials in the midst of these ugly hijacking of the will of millions such as the former secretary of state Condoleezza Rice writing about her role in this wonderful piece of diplomacy in her book, believe it or not, titled “No higher honour.” Within the borders of the US she is celebrated as the first Afro-American secretary of state, a testament to how America is overcoming its prejudices and simultaneously doing ‘good’ around the world. I wondered what she would think if I told her what this “other” from a distant land of murderers believes.

I wondered if she, her curiosity and genuine kindness would seem less condescending to me if she had the information she needed to judge me. Beyond the caricatures of me and many like me that she saw on TV, this woman knew nothing of my history or faith. I thought of Hazrat Bilal who had been a black Ethiopian slave in Makkah prior to the advent of Islam and who came to adore Mohammed (Peace be upon him) and was one of his closest companions and who was tortured for accepting Islam as he was made to lay naked in the desert sand, burnt and crushed under the weight of stones on his chest as he continued to chant “Ahad … Ahad”, a proclamation of his faith in the Oneness of God. I suspect that she would have at best either stared back blankly or at worst called the authorities for “she saw something, therefore she must say something.”

Perhaps she would have been angered by my response, although staring at her bright blue eyes, repeated compliments on how well I speak English and the gentleness that she exuded it seemed quite unlikely. She may have challenged me stating that Islam does not sanction slavery and I would have invited her to sit down and have a discussion of what my faith represents. I would have loved to tell her the wisdom behind gradual phasing out of slavery that Islam represented. As I contemplated this elaborate conversation all in my mind I found eagerness to share how Islam had shaped for us an classless society based on justice. The very interests of the US leave it in need for feudals and dictators and works against the justice in society that Muslims long for. I would have loved to speak for myself instead of the convenience of her hearing a convenient truth about a complex world through the TV. I would have loved to share the following Hadith Narrated by Al-Ma’rur:

At Ar-Rabadha I met Abu Dhar who was wearing a cloak, and his slave, too, was wearing a similar one. I asked about the reason for it. He replied, “I abused a person by calling his mother with bad names.” The Prophet said to me, ‘O Abu Dhar! Did you abuse him by calling his mother with bad names You still have some characteristics of ignorance. Your slaves are your brothers and Allah has put them under your command. So whoever has a brother under his command should feed him of what he eats and dress him of what he wears. Do not ask them (slaves) to do things beyond their capacity (power) and if you do so, then help them.’

I could see that the pleasantness of our interaction as human beings had perhaps surprised her. I wanted to tell her that if she saw any goodness in me it was not despite the Quran that is my guide to life, but solely because of it. That this very book teaches me:

“It is not Al-Birr (piety, righteousness, and each and every act of obedience to Allah, etc.) that you turn your faces towards east and (or) west (in prayers); but Al-Birr is (the quality of) the one who believes in Allah, the Last Day, the Angels, the Book, the Prophets and gives his wealth, in spite of love for it, to the kinsfolk, to the orphans, and to Al-Masakin (the poor), and to the wayfarer, and to those who ask, and to set slaves free, performs As-Salat (Iqamat-as-Salat ), and gives the Zakat, and who fulfil their covenant when they make it, and who are patient in extreme poverty and ailment (disease) and at the time of fighting (during the battles). Such are the people of the truth and they are Al-Muttaqun (the pious)”

I would have loved to reference for her western authors documenting Islam’s creation of a just and equal society. I would have loved to have a debate on the universality of human understanding of what is right and just, how America under Lincoln struggled with the same dilemma that to me Allah and his Messenger, Mohammed, Peace be upon him, showed us the wisdom to handle. In 1854 Lincoln stated in a speech:
“My first impulse would be to free all the slaves, and send them to Liberia,—to their own native land. But a moment’s reflection would convince me that whatever of high hope (as I think there is) there may be in this, in the long run, its sudden execution is impossible”

In 1862 Lincoln established a colony in Haiti where 500 freed slaves were sent. Many of them died of starvation and an outbreak of smallpox. In my mind thoughts raced of how to pick words to share the experience of watching the poorest amongst us lead us in prayers, pray side by side or in the front rows while many more affluent would stand way in the back of the mosque. I wanted to tell her that a 7 year old child praying next to me can ask me to align my feet with the rest right before the prayer commences with “Allahu Akbar” which to us means that our Creator is greater than anything and everything, be it the most comforts I can acquire in this world or the biggest calamity that can befall me. It liberates me from fear and sorrow. It is my understanding of freedom from greed, envy and hatred.

I worried she may have read the recent series on CNN about Slavery in Mauritania that seemingly popped up randomly and in the typical convenience of the western narrative on Islam equated slavery in Mauritania to Islam. It was convenient because a couple of days earlier one (or many?) US soldiers had murdered 16 Afghans. Lest any humanity of the other seep through the mirage created by the media a diversion is created to “contain” opinion. I was surprised at the extensive and random thoughts running through my head and was looking for a polite way to end our interaction when her next comment caught me off guard.

“It’s terrible isn’t it? The Taliban shooting this school girl …..”

In an instant she had assigned a face of convenience to the war on terror; The Muslim girls that the West is out to save. I felt sad for her ignorance and anguished at the state of Muslims worldwide. I wanted to tell her that the same puppets that her country has mounted as rulers, and who move around in security convoys of 100’s of cars while citizens give birth and die on their way to the hospital in resultant traffic jams, had failed to give any security to this girl against a fringe element of criminals. The unprecedented looting and plundering of the country that has left people in abject poverty, without access to healthcare and education is not just seen as “collateral damage” of US policies but the very goals. I wanted to tell her that if China had drones killing people on the east coast with the US government not just failing to protect its citizens but being complicit in the murder of its civilians, surely there will be a segment of society that will take up arms against the government. I wished to have the wisdom to express that for every Malala that America has the delusion of being out to save; there are a million Iraqi children that die due to sanctions that did not target the dictators of yesteryears but the very people of the countries that you are out to save. A loss that Muslims around the world hear justified by Madeleine Albright as “I think this is a very hard choice, but the price–we think the price is worth it. “ I wanted to tell her that if Americans could at least begin to understand the dichotomy of what the US represents within its borders and without, even if is a statement like “Saddam was a bastard but he was our bastard”, that Phil Donahue had the courage to express, the world would be a much less angry place.

I nodded with my eyes lowered and as we began to walk away I heard myself say, “Things are very different from what you see on TV.” She smiled and walked away.

 

..Continue to Part II

Malala – A Victim of Evil Desires

A journalist tweeted yesterday “Why Malala and why NOW?”

And it speaks volumes. The innocent girl became a victim of some people’s evil desires; desire to rule the world, a desire to dictate one’s own terms and conditions and a desire to create chaos. The horrific incident of shooting Malala and other two girls is barbaric to the core.

A million dollar question certainly is that who is Ahsanullah Ahsan and why on earth his calls are never tracked. Why does he take blame on himself (i.e. TTP) whatever the incident is and always manages to call international media but no one bothers to trace out who is he in reality.

But before that we need to focus on ‘Why Malala’ question? The innocent brave girl was made an icon against Taliban by all those who sit in their drawing rooms commenting on social media and TV channels while remaining within their comfort zones. Her stories were recorded by BBC Urdu and published as a diary. She was purposely brought to limelight to make her a symbol.  The role of media in bringing Malala to limelight and promoting her out of proportion was surprising. Poor girl was used for media ratings. To serve the vested interests, they put the life of innocent girl at risk. She became a target for the terrorists. Even now, media is surely serving someone else’s purpose by giving the issue a lot of twists and turns.

‘Why Now’? The timing is also very crucial. Exactly when the entire world was getting breaking news about drone attacks and questioning the legitimacy of such attacks, suddenly Malala was attacked, she was identified first and then targeted and all of a sudden all the pro US policies, pseudoliberals started talking about Waziristan operation and legitimising illegal drone strikes.

An important thing to note is that the leader of Swat Taliban, Mullah Fazlullah reportedly hides in Afghanistan and operates with the cooperation of US/Afghan forces; so if Taliban of Swat are responsible for this attack, they are operating from Afghanistan and not Waziristan. Why there is never a drone strike across the border, not that I am demanding it, but it’s logical that US definitely has a dubious agenda in the region.

The case looks quite simple; another event in Swat to make grounds for another military operation. Previously it was a fake video, and now the ‘tool’ was an innocent 14 year old girl. The quick and strong condemnation from USA (by President Obama and Hillary Clinton) gives a message in itself. Drone attacks would be portrayed as essential, by citing that government of Pakistan is unable to protect its own citizens from terrorist activities.

The role of government is deplorable. Governments are supposed to protect their citizens, in which our government has terribly failed. Blaming terrorists and arranging air ambulance is not the solution. Government should take complete responsibility of protecting its citizens.

Malala is an asset for the nation. Whether its Malala, Aafia Siddiqui, missing persons, drone attacks , suicide bombs, target killings in Karachi and elsewhere, Pakistanis are at the suffering end.

Dr Shahid Masood quite reasonably asked the people who pick and choose cases for condemnation, if those who are killed in drone attacks are not plastic toys. We are being killed for no reason. The only way out is to get out of this American war. We must not put more and more lives at risk.