| October 04, 2008 | Saturday | Shawwal 04, 1429 |
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Brooding on Eid
ON Tuesday I got a call from this newspaper, informing me that as Eid would be celebrated on Thursday, there would be no issue of Dawn on Saturday and I did not therefore need to send a column this week.
So I slept late the next morning in the belief that I had a day off. However, my cellphone soon informed me that the mullahs had changed their minds, and Eid was now on Wednesday, so a column was required after all. Another Eid, another round of confusion. Ever since I can remember, we have not been able to resolve this relatively simple problem. Year in and year out, the members of the Ruet-i-Hilal Committee (or ‘moon-men’, according to the long-defunct Sun) have one straightforward task to perform, and each year they goof up. You’d think that with just one useful thing to do in 365 days, they would occasionally get it right. And yet, even Saudi Arabia announces ahead of time when Eid will be celebrated, so it can’t be rocket science.
Across the Muslim world, Eid is being celebrated on three different days. This is fine, but at least these other Islamic countries have one Eid internally. In Pakistan, on the other hand, we have often marked the festival on different days in different places. So when people talk of the unity of the Ummah, I can only roll my eyes in disbelief.
While scrolling through Dawn’s Internet edition, I learned that our sports minister was very upset over the Australian decision to cancel its cricket tour of Pakistan because of security concerns. The minister complained that although bombs were going off in India too, the Australians were going ahead with their visit to our neighbour. Well, the truth is that there are bombs, and there are bombs: the devices that have taken such a tragic toll in Indian cities were locally made, and did not involve suicide bombers. Above all, they did not target foreigners.
In Pakistan, given half a chance, our home-grown heroes would happily kill as many foreigners as they could. The suicide attack at the Islamabad Marriott appeared intended to slaughter as many westerners as possible. The other difference is that the terrorist attacks in India were universally condemned. In Pakistan, there is much more ambivalence in people’s attitudes towards these killers, with many in the media coming up with the “Yes, but …” argument to somehow equate terrorism with western policies.
We in Pakistan have lost touch with reality to the extent that we do not realise how out of step we are with the rest of the world. Even before Pakistan became a no-go land for foreigners, it was not a particularly attractive destination. When Ian Botham famously declared that Pakistan was a country he would like to send his mother-in-law to, there was an explosion of indignation in our media. But look at it from a touring cricketer’s point of view: after a day of competitive sport, he would like to get to explore and shop, like any other tourist. In Pakistan, however, security considerations keep him a virtual prisoner in his hotel.
In other countries, visiting sportsmen go off to pubs, clubs and parties; they shop for presents; and when they are at the seaside, they go to the beach. None of these normal activities are possible in Pakistan. So unsurprisingly, many tours are now routinely cancelled on security grounds, and the players probably heave a sigh of relief.
One result of this sporting isolation is that our standards are falling sharply. And rather than playing tough matches against visiting teams, our players are embroiled in endless inquiries into their conduct. In fact, I doubt if there’s another cricket team in the world with greater disciplinary issues than ours. In a way, this is a reflection on the general environment of decline and lawlessness that has come to characterise us.
We constantly complain that Muslims are discriminated against by the rest of the world, but we refuse to see what a laughing stock we have reduced ourselves to by our own actions. Recently, a publisher’s house was firebombed in London because he was about to print a novel called Jewel of Medina. This book has still not seen the light of day, so the attackers could not have possibly read it. And yet they were willing to kill or wound a person for daring to agree to print it. I have little doubt that when the book does appear, it will offend many Muslims.
By rioting, raving and ranting against material deemed to be offensive, Muslims do not do themselves any favours. The entire Rushdie episode, for instance, was far more damaging to Muslims than it was to the author or his publishers. The manner of protest over the Danish cartoons did not harm either the offending newspaper or the cartoonist.
Any day of the week, it is easy to watch a TV show or a stand-up comedy act in England that people belonging to, say, the Christian faith may find offensive but nobody gets worked up and threatens the artists involved. Occasionally, Ofcom, the watchdog for the media, gets a complaint from a Christian group, and it investigates to see if its guidelines have been breached. But the Vatican or the Church of England do not issue fatwas demanding that somebody should be murdered for a work of literature.
More and more, Muslim societies are being seen as intolerant, violent and irrational. And more and more, Muslims around the world seem determined to prove their detractors right. Instead of introspection and self-analysis, we are forever condemning the rest of the world for our plight, our isolation and our image. This paranoia feeds our perpetual state of self-righteous indignation.
Re-reading this column, I can see that it is not entirely appropriate for Eid. But that’s what the mullahs get for depriving me of my day off. And Happy Eid, no matter when or where you celebrated it.
