THE WAY IT WAS: Infidels and brother Muslims —Mian Ijaz Ul Hassan
Most
Pakistanis living in some Muslim countries on worke visas have a sharp
contradiction with the locals, but the Mullah praises them for being our Muslim
Brothers. People that give you equal rights of citizenship are branded as
infidels, those that deny you the status are embraced as brothers. What
impeccable logic!
We are unfortunately divided about our identity. There are some who desist from
linking themselves to South Asian history. They insist that their history does
not go beyond Mohammad bin Qasim. They go as far as to assert that Pakistan was
created the day the young Arab general stepped on the shores of Sindh. Surely
this is rather far fetched. Neither the Sultans of Delhi nor the Mughals had any
such thing on their agenda. This view of history is certainly outlandish, but
generations have been fed on it. It was part of the school syllabus, and
probably still is. The fundo lobby threatens the nation with violence if a word
is changed in the syllabus and the mighty rulers cannot take a stand against it.
They disappear, coarsely put, like ‘froth of piss in sand’. Even the history
taught at the college level and some universities excludes the pre-Muslim
period. No wonder many of us are so ignorant. Zia and the rabid clergy have so
outrageously distorted our South Asian Muslim identity that I sometime wonder if
it can ever be put right.
Also remarkable is the insistence of many members of the privileged class to
deny their local origins and to trace them to the Middle East. It becomes quite
tiresome to listen to their claims that their forefathers rode in from Basra,
Balkh or Bukhara or some other place abroad. So what if they did? It is crass of
those fattened on the Indus fat to deny belonging to the land where they were
born and bred; to make it a point to have it known that they are not South
Asians. Even if their ancestors abandoned their own homelands for a future in
India hundreds of year’s ago, is it not about time they called themselves
South Asians?
The Hindu fundos seek to justify their assertion that Muslims are outsiders by
citing these Muslims who are constantly denying their links to the soil. Most of
the South Asian Muslims, as is abundantly clear, are as indigenous as the
Hindus. If Muslims are outsiders then logically so are the Aryan Hindus who
poured in from the shores of the Caspian into Iran and then into India. Some of
them even came directly. If we proceed with the same perspective into the
distant past we would be running into the Dravidians, the pre-Dravidians and
back to the homo erectus and his homo sapien ancestors who walked from Africa to
Asia.
Who can then claim to be the original South Asian? In reality the whole argument
is foolish and stupid. If new saplings cease to take root in a forest —
howsoever proud and magnificent — the forest would soon perish. South Asia is
culturally rich precisely on account of its ethnic and spiritual diversity.
Since the very original resident is not around should we not postpone the debate
till the time we can have him amongst us. In the meantime let us keep our peace
and try individually to improve and in the process define a more humane and
inclusive identity.
The debate about the old and the new reminds me of a close-door political party
meeting. Some old workers felt their positions threatened by new, more zealous
workers. One of their spokesmen, who enjoyed submissive loyalty of a group of
old workers, persisted in defending them without reason so that they could cling
on to party offices. He rounded up the rhetoric with the familiar adage,”Old
is gold!” By now I had, had enough of it, so I rather irritably intervened.
Yes, I confessed that there were some things that in course of time become old
and valuable and are consequently either deposited in the vaults of a bank or
put on display in museums. But there were many things that did not age well with
time. They rusted and rotted, or started to malfunction. Perforce these had to
be melted down or broken and delivered to Bilal Ganj, the local old spares
market. What was to be done with an old party worker? Logically, if he was old
and valuable he was to be respected. But if he had become a thorn in the side
then he had to be removed. Being old by itself does not become a virtue. It is
about time the fundos on both sides of the border realised that they have become
redundant; a pain to their respective societies; a thorn in the side; a nail in
the shoe.
Some of us Pakistanis have a problem integrating with people who are different
from us culturally. When Bosnians took refuge in Pakistan, some mullahs said
that they were not proper Muslims because their women wore skirts. We are never
tired of speaking against the West that allows us citizenship, but extol virtues
of some Muslim countries that treat our citizens as if they were garbage. Most
Pakistanis who live in these countries on worker visas have a sharp
contradiction with the locals, but the Mullah praises them for being our Muslim
Brothers. People that give you equal rights of citizenship are branded as
infidels and countries that deny you the status are embraced as brothers. What
impeccable logic!
A young man I know worked for a company in Kuwait, when it was invaded by Iraq.
Like everyone else he took off with his family towards the nearest border post.
At the crossing the border police impounded his car for not having the requisite
documents. How he managed to arrive in Lahore with his wife and kids is a story
for another occasion. When he called on me in Lahore he said he had lost
everything he possessed and then to my great surprise added, “The Kuwaitis
deserved what they got.” I quote him not because I agreed with him but to
illustrate the affection in which he held his fellow Muslim brothers of the
country where he worked.
Prof Ijaz Ul Hassan is a painter, author and political activist