The anger and the rhetoric

Part - III

Side-effect

The writer is a poet and author based in Islamabad.

What will then address the issues of our intellectual despondency and knowledge deficit? Subsequently, how will we meet the technological and material challenges posed by living under the contemporary neo-colonial by-laws global powers have drafted for us and the neo-liberal economic order which smoothly co-opts our elites while making the large majority of us invisible?

Here, to further the arguments made in the last two columns, what I would put forward for your consideration is that the answer for us in the present moment lies in furthering the discourse of social reform. There is a lot to learn from people like Sir Syed Ahmed Khan and Raja Ram Mohan Roy (as stated in the first column of this series), more so from Sir Syed and his companions in our case. However, what I am asking for is not bringing back what they stood for in letter, but what they stood for in spirit.

They lived under direct colonialism. We live in a different world where we find new forms of exploitation and oppression. Nevertheless, we ought to recognise that a definite collective shift has been made by humanity towards providing access to more political participation and social development to people at large. Therefore, while the world has become more complex, there is also more space available for public action. This perhaps is a consequence of the advances humanity has made in the areas of philosophy, economy, science and technology.

But something unique has incrementally spread within our ranks over the past thirty years by the champions of religious revival whose supremacy was also secured through violent action. It is hard to make an intellectual argument without being physically threatened in the domain of faith and belief system as Sir Syed Ahmed Khan and his movement were able to do besides doing other things, but it is more plausible to take public action and in doing so challenge the conservative practices or primordial norms.

Am I saying that we do not confront but circumvent the issues and build alternative schemes of thinking and action? Yes and no. We need to do both – push for a reformation in our dominant religious doctrine and bring that into social currency, and create spaces and institutions where the spirit of inquiry is encouraged in parallel with the existing spaces and institutions which we are attempting to reform. If we claim that our faith carries a universal message, we should be able to translate it into contemporary language and idiom, method and parlance, with sincerity and ingenuity.

Human values taught by different faiths can be regarded as universal and always upheld but solutions to the problems of today cannot be found in the experiences of the past. Reason cannot be made subservient to times gone by. Rationality leads to scientific reasoning in all fields of human thinking and endeavour. That leads us to achievements in areas ranging from artistic enterprises to technological development. But, as said earlier, the primacy of reason and rationality in achieving what humanity has achieved in both spiritual and material terms does not undermine the major contribution made by world religions in making human beings believe in some codes of ethics for public good and inculcating personal values.

Atheists and agnostics may rightly argue that ethics and values are not limited to the teachings of religions. I may disagree with the premise but accept that this can be argued more successfully in industrial and post-industrial societies. Historically, as well as in recent times, having faith in some superior power has brought humility and adherence to ethical principles in many individuals and communities. In our case, appreciating where we stand now and where we have come from, religion will continue to play a role in our personal and social lives.

It is important to recognise that giving up on a struggle for creating a rational, progressive, just and modern Muslim society in the name of creating a purely modern and secular society is in fact giving up completely on trying to transform our society. At the current juncture in our history in Pakistan, a secular polity is still possible but a secular society is not possible. The current question thus becomes that what kind of a Muslim society or a Muslim-majority society we wish to see in years to come.

I do not have the desire to overly historicise the discourse but I understand that not only there is merit in drawing upon the inclusive and plural tradition in our history it is also unavoidable to an extent. Learning from Ibne Rushd (Averroes) and Ibne Khaldun in distant past and Dr Ali Shariati and Mahmoud Mohammed Taha in recent past to understanding the thoughts and works in our Indo-Muslim history of those like Sir Syed Ahmed Khan, Justice Syed Ameer Ali, Maulana Altaf Hussain Hali, Sir Sultan Muhammad Shah Aga Khan III, Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, Maulana Hasrat Mohani and Maulana Obaidullah Sindhi, etc a narrative can be reshaped.

It goes without saying that the people mentioned here appeared on the scene at different points in history and represented different thoughts and ideals. But we have the benefit of hindsight and can cull out what we need from this rich repository. Syed Ameer Ali is often quoted for having said, “…Each age has its own standard. What is suited for one time is not suited for the other.”

The gentlemen I mention above are succeeded by people like Maulana

Waheeduddin Khan in Delhi, Late Dr Farooq Khan from Mardan, Dr Khalid Masood in Islamabad, Dr Riffat Hasan and Prof Asma Barlas in the US, besides many others. What these individuals stand for is public reformation, knowledge acquisition, intellectual progress, democratic rights, social inclusion, peaceful coexistence and, in case of Mohani, Sindhi and Masood, socialist ideals.

Unlike the reactionary clerics and scholars with distinct political ambition invoking their right to rule by using divine faith or the preachers and proselytisers with inherent economic interest who wish to establish social domination, the men and women mentioned above provide a different way of looking at our society and offer choices to redeem ourselves. Hence, the foundations for a powerful discourse for creating a rational, progressive, just and modern Muslim society are available. All possible means of public education and media – print, electronic and social – need to be employed by those believing in reform for offering their discourse.

Finally, the area where efforts need to be concentrated by reformers is education through mass communication – from the classroom where a student focuses on her teacher and the blackboard to the living room where a person is riveted to a TV watching a show being run by a televangelist to a public seminar where one is making a statement to publishing an essay where one raises questions to sharing a Facebook status which offers comment on a political development to posting a message on twitter about something good one has read. Education does not simply mean schooling. Nor should one limit the meaning of provision of education to universal access to literacy and numeracy.

There is a dire need to push for reforms in education at all levels. From curriculum to teaching methodology to creating an inquisitive and inclusive mindset of a teacher in a classroom to informing general populace about the possibility of leading a fulfilling life in this world, a major effort has to be undertaken by the state, private sector, public intellectuals and civil society.

This effort has to be patient, continuous, rigorous and ubiquitous. We have to speak and write, define and describe, engage and argue, wherever we are. But if the argument for social reform and intellectual renaissance is made in isolation of the demand for a just economic order which includes all classes of people, it will not succeed. When we speak about moving from exclusion to inclusion and oppression to incorporation, economic inequalities cannot be brushed aside.

Concluded

Email: harris.khalique@gmail.com