Western society – My Bit for Change

Women’s empowerment or cultural overhaul

Twinkle, twinkle little star how, I wonder what you are?

I remember reciting this nursery rhyme as a kid at school. Today, my astonishment lies with little and big ‘stars’ being stud in my country by fairly large number of mushroomed foreign funded NGOs. One of my bewilderment which makes me ponder repeatedly is most popular slogan of today i.e. women’s emancipation and empowerment. These NGOs have sprung up in our country since over a decade, driving an agenda to liberate our women. I ask, liberate from what or whom?

Pakistani women work shoulder to shoulder with the opposite gender in every walk of life, be it private or public sector, government offices, armed forces, judiciary, medical and nursing field, science and technology, media organisations, education and even as elected legislators of provincial and national assemblies, even the office of the Prime Minister at least twice. It wouldn’t be impertinent to wonder how come the United States of America, a country which is most advanced and highly developed, never had a female as head of the state.

If viewed in light of the above, there appears to be a fallacy that our women are not into decision making processes in the country and are oppressed and majority are still in the kitchen. And what is so unusual about women being in the kitchen? Same is the case in the west. Who do you suppose, takes care of the kitchen and domestic chores out in the western family? Here, at least due to labour being cheap most of the middle class upwards, women folks are blessed with domestic help, whether it is kitchen, laundry, house cleaning and even many with chauffeurs to drive them around. How many of those in the west can afford that luxury? The upbringing of children begins from home and none better than mother can do that in the best manner. The old adage truly states that “behind every successful man is a woman’’ is absolutely right from the childhood till becoming a spouse!

Thus the lingering question “Where is the empowerment and emancipation lacking?” which the foreign aid agency, are so generously funding to promote in Pakistan?

Wait, just a moment, on a second thought probably, they could be right, our women are oppressed! Let’s take a closer look and observe. Yes, they adhere to cultural norms, values and religious sentiments and belief. On top of that they are proudly and willingly wearing a Hijab (head scarf) or covering themselves from head to toe with a Burka to protect their modesty!

That definitely is a mark of ”oppression’ in world’s eye. However, if they abandon the norms of culture and religion and dress immodestly and attended gatherings of dance and booze, they would surely become liberated, wouldn’t they? I was just wondering why do the Nuns cover themselves from head to toe and abstain from ‘evil’?

Our women can be further be empowered and liberated if the parents would allow their young daughters to develop ‘relationships’ with boys and go hang out with them whenever they wish and wherever they desire. What’s wrong with having a boyfriend? What is the worst that could happen, apart from a rare possibility of being molested or raped or teenage pregnancies?

Wow! now that is called real liberation and empowerment. How silly of me not to have understood such simple difference between oppressed and liberated when such crystal clear examples were present right under my nose! Thanks to all funds arriving in Pakistan in the name of women empowerment and humanitarian grounds actually giving rise to an overhaul of our ‘ancient’ society’s culture, traditions and moral values. Finally, our women folks would be liberated, Yippee Yea!

The greatness of purpose, Malcolm X

Some men are great, some are remembered and some go on to live forever in the minds of millions.

Alexander was great but what did he do but conquer lands? Einstein was a genius but what did he do but lead humanity to its worst nightmare, i.e. the nuclear bomb? Many philosophers are believed to be great but what did they do but solve some abstract riddles? A man in love with wisdom was Socrates. His death which was otherwise so meaningless and ordinary, was never truly his death and he lived on in the hearts and minds of people to this day.

What is greater is the immensity of purpose. I believe in categorical moral reasoning, and so I do not care what influence that man has had on society. What he did and why he did it is supreme for me rather than how successful that certain person ever was. Power, influence and acknowledgment mean nothing in the minds of the crazy ones.

Isn’t it madness that describes change in its complete form? How can we talk of change without talking of madness? Change is not the property of the same, or sane. It’s the belonging of those who resist, who can’t stand sameness, or sanity, or the status quo, or the world order as we know it.

When there is something unjust in the world it is these mad men that find it in themselves the power, the Khudi (In Iqbalian terms), to say it in the face of injustice without any sign of weakness, and without compromise or any sugarcoating of reality.

‎And here are the words of a madman

“… you’re living at a time of extremism, a time of revolution, a time when there’s got to be a change. People in power have misused it and now there has to be a change and a better world has to be built and the only way it’s going to be built is with extreme methods. And I, for one, will join in with anyone, I don’t care what color you are, as long as you want to change this miserable condition that exists on this earth.”

When he championed extremism I believe he intended to describe the position of truthfulness met by extreme and extra-ordinary opposition.

This is Malcolm X, great in a many ways but what I value most is his greatness in purpose and will. He had given his life a purpose which was to fight a war against injustice.

Born to a poor black family in a racially charged American society, he can be assumed to be quite accustomed to the realities of discrimination. But as obvious as this sentence may seem, it is not.

In relation to his own people, he had always been very bright skinned. This had added to his social status and he always saw it as benefit and a good thing. But after some time he did realize that this was nothing to be proud of. To be brighter, to be nearer to white was not anything that he had accomplished. He realized that this belief was imposed on his people by the white man who enslaved his people ages ago. This white man taught his people that they are inferior and it is the white man that is superior. With time, an inferiority complex was ingrained in the minds of the blacks, which he believed was not only misleading and false, but also disastrous in its implication for the community.

The realization that his big lips, curly hair, black complexion and all that follow to be part of his African being are not to be ashamed of, didn’t come that easy. It came as a lightning bolt saying “the White Man is the Devil”. He started to hate white people from then on.

Not only did he witness the outright hypocrisy of this certain ‘white race’ that played lip service to democracy, freedom for all, equality and the likes, while indulging in the worst crimes of humanity, he also read how in history this race has taken with itself a ‘white man’s burden’ and a ‘civilization mission’ under the banner of which whole nations have been whipped out, mistreated as animals, colonized, raped and plundered.

When asked why he hated ‘the white man’, he bluntly replied “For the White man to ask the black man if he hates him is just like rapist asking the raped, or the wolf asking the sheep ‘do you hate me?’. The White Man is in no moral position to accuse anyone else of hate”

In any case, he understood that the decolonization of the Afro-American mind was the greatest need of the hour. He would say “A race of people is like an individual man; until it uses its own talent, takes pride in its own history, expresses its own culture, affirms its own selfhood, it can never fulfill itself.”

He joined the ‘Nation of Islam’ a distorted movement initiated by Elijah Muhammad, who claimed to be a prophet of the black people. This movement taught him ‘the white man’s the devil’ doctrine. Interestingly all of his education took place in the jail’s library for which he would famously say that

“My Alma mater was books, a good library. I could spend the rest of my life reading, just satisfying my curiosity.’’

Being a self-learned and self-skilled person as he was, Malcolm X remained always critical and open to new thoughts and considerations. After taking part in a formal Muslim pilgrimage, he converted to mainstream Islam. Religion was not the only thing that changed, it was his whole world view. Upon seeing the sight of Hajj where people of all races, nationalities, colors and complexions where walking together in harmony and love for the Almighty and His creations, all in the same cloth regardless of socio-economic backgrounds, he was simply amazed and astonished. It was here that he realized that some of his previous convictions were wrong. It’s not the white man who is to be condemned; it is the deeds he has carried out.

His letter following the pilgrimage says that

“America needs to understand Islam, because this is the one religion that erases from its society the race problem. Throughout my travels in the Muslim world, I have met, talked to, and even eaten with people who in America would have been considered ‘white’–but the ‘white’ attitude was removed from their minds by the religion of Islam. I have never before seen sincere and true brotherhood practiced by all colors together, irrespective of their color.”

This great man was martyred. According to the autopsy report, Malcolm X’s body had 21 gunshot wounds. He lived and died a brave and proud man.

I see him as a person who truly liberated himself. The greatest freedom is the freedom of the mind. This he accomplished by first decolonizing his mind from all the silly beliefs of inferiority imposed by the European race. He later freed his mind from the prejudices he had established regarding the white man.

In these tough and rough times, the need of the nation today is to have its very own Malik El-Hajj Al-Shahbaz, A.K.A Malcolm X

Happy Father’s Day, Everyday!

Happy father’s day to everyone!!!!!!

“This is the day to express your love for your father, make him feel special on this Sunday. Father’s Day is a day honouring fathers and celebrating fatherhood, paternal bonds, and the influence of fathers in society.’’

These clips are not adverts from BBC, SKY or some other western channels, I saw them on a local
Pakistani channels here in the UK and I am sure this is true for all the other various channels that broadcast to millions of Pakistanis back home.

I just asked myself for a logical explanation as to what’s the point? Why is there only one Father’s day and only one Mother’s day celebrated in the Western society? So, in order to find an answer and justify the significance, I let my observation go wild and tried to encompass things which I have learnt being a very close observant of this society.

There is an absolute need to celebrate dedicated days for parents in a society where the bond between parent and child is very delicate and might be non-existent after a certain age and stage; A society where 3 in 5 women aged 75+ live alone. (attached is a graph which shows the percantage of men and women in UK living alone at different ages); where an old parent is a hindrance to fun filled life and where the slogan is ‘Be nice to your children as they are the ones who would decide which old house you’d end up in’ (reads a ‘humorous’ car sticker); where living with your parents is ridiculed by your mates, where an old parent falls on the floor of a lonely haunting house and there is no one to give him a hand to stand up again, until the milk delivery man comes next morning only to find no answer at the door and calls the police and ambulance. A society where mothers abuse and kill their children, youngsters abuse and beat the vulnerable elderly, fathers leave their partners to survive as ‘lone mothers’ who may be as young as mid-teens such dedicated days are indeed reminders of those vague bonds that exist by chance and not by choice.

The economic system here requires both parents to work to survive, which inevitably makes it difficult for them to spend quality time with their children. Such celebrations are required where children spend most of their time not in the company of their parents but child-minders, friends, mobile phones and internet. It’s a reflection of the society in which one-parent families on the rise. In the same society, morality dips down to the fact that they debate in the parliament on the very ‘need for a father’ to make a family and encourage lesbians to have children using IVF.

Rather than blindly copying (only the) useless traits of the West, let’s celebrate our values. Celebrate each day as mother’s day, a person whose cries at the time of childbirth can never be paid off and she keeps on bearing pains bringing us up and helping us keeping our head up high and reaching our goals; serving whom is more weighty than going to war in the way of Allah, if she is old and dependant. Celebrate everyday as father’s day in whose pleasure lies the pleasure of God and in whose displeasure lies the displeasure of God (according to a Tirmidhi Hadith).

And yes! Let’s be proud of a family system of respect which thankfully has been made an obligation by God upon us; which keeps us close and beautifully tied in the bonds of eternal trust and a package of ‘give and take’ throughout our lives. It is our family system and respect to our elders, religiously engraved on our minds which makes us proud and keeps us going in all the difficult times and has so far prevented us from a nervous breakdown. And it is this quality which non-Muslim parents feel as an obvious positive change in their ‘new converts to Islam’ children.

Does that make your head high enough to celebrate a trait which should be a trend-setter for other nations and not vice versa?

Come on! Let’s celebrate. Make our parents happy every day; the easiest way to please God every day.

“And your Lord has decreed that you worship none but Him. And that you be dutiful to your parents. If one of them or both of them attain old age in your life, say not to them a word of disrespect, nor shout at them but address them in terms of honour” [al-Isra’ 17:23]