If you are at all faint of heart, I strongly recommend you don’t proceed with reading this column. I have, uptil now, written one article after the other extolling the virtues of being raised in Pakistan - a country which, as I have repeatedly stressed, gives us access to both the English language (with all its incomparably powerful social science literature) and a (well, almost) first-grade marriage with the Islamic tradition upon birth.
Many of my columns have fallen on deaf ears. The answer, I think, is simple: the above contention, well-founded as it may be from a theoretical standpoint, simply does not conform with reality.
Thus, when I logged into my Facebook a few days back and saw the photo of an infant burnt alive in Palestine, the latter item sandwiched in between two news updates of FIFA 2014, I knew in good conscience I couldn’t keep feeding this illusion anymore.
Let me take you back. In 1921, the American industrialist Henry Ford made some very controversial remarks about the world situation in an interview published in New York World:
“The only statement I care to make about the Protocols is that they fit in with what is going on. They are 16 years old, and they have fitted the world situation up to this time. They fit in now.”
He was, of course, referring to The Protocols of Zion, a purportedly fabricated document outlining a sequence of meetings in 1897 that are centered around a Jewish plan for global domination. The Protocols were used (or misused, as many in my opinion rightly see it) by Adolf Hitler in Mein Kampf to legitimize the mass extermination of the Jewish race, and they continue to remain influential in various parts of the modern world (especially the Middle East), largely by virtue of the conviction they inspire in the reader through their undeniable, almost prophetic vision of the completely stage-managed world of a hundred plus-years later i.e. the world of today.
So when I learnt of what was transpiring in Gaza, it reminded me of this:
(Note that the term ‘GOYIM’ is used by the learned elders of Zion in the text to refer to non-Jewish people.)
“WE ARE WOLVES
The GOYIM are a flock of sheep, and we are their wolves. And you know what happens when the wolves get hold of the flock?” (Protocol no. 11, clause 4.)
And this -
“Might is Right
In any state in which there is a bad organisation of authority..amid the flood of rights ever multiplying out of liberalism, I find a new right to attack by the right of the strong..” (Protocol no.1, clause 14.)
On the other hand, what is it that we Muslims are following out of our own most fundamental and guiding text?
“Against them make ready your strength to the utmost of your power, including steeds of war, to strike terror into (the hearts of) the enemies, of God and your enemies, and others besides, whom ye may not know, but whom God doth know.” (Quran, 8:60)
What is it, I dare ask, that we Muslims of today are even capable of? Apart from, of course, tirades along the lines of, “He (Hitler) should have finished them all off!” – because, clearly, when we have nothing of substance to offer to our Muslim brothers and sisters in a time of war, anti-Semitic rhetoric makes a handsome surrogate. If flaunting our incompetence wasn’t enough, let’s throw in support of the greatest savagery towards a People of the Book in all of recorded history.
Now, hang on. I’m being impatient. Perhaps, amongst the ‘goyim’, *we* would be the ones to recognize the ludicrousness of grown men devoting their lives not to politics and philosophy and theology and social science, but to… sport. Perhaps we would be the ones to reconsider upon seeing that blinded, intellectually stunted football stars are being hailed today by our youths as ‘Gods’ altogether..
Nope! Sorry to disappoint any hopefuls, but no success here. In fact, we have other ideas: we’ve instead started romanticizing and glorifying women who dedicate themselves to new milestones in the same inanity. The same insanity.
“Soon we shall begin through the press to propose competitions in art, in sport of all kinds; these interests will finally distract their minds from questions in which we should find ourselves compelled to oppose them.” (Protocol no.13, clause no.3)
Or, perhaps we could find that our war-heroes developed their own martial art, the latter even becoming a compulsory activity for the youth, as the Israelis did with their Krav Maga. So that we would enter adulthood focused, fearsome and awaiting our turn:
“If you meet them in battle, make a fearsome example of them to those who come after them, so that they may take heed.” (Quran, 8:57)
This one isn’t looking good either. Go no farther than myself for example. My early teen years are a collage of cheap video games (when you fail at real life masculinities, turn to virtual reality, baby.)
Later on, early adulthood years were spent trying to win over senior citizens and university professors to give myself patronage as I fought through the left-wing tornadoes at LUMS.
Perhaps the patrons of our society would unite their wisdom with the vigor of the young and, together, we would save this sinking ship?
Nope, not this one either.
Let’s stop kidding ourselves. Today, Pakistan, a state founded to fulfill a religious ideal, is a country where the leaders of radical parties such as Awami Workers’ Party and Communist Mazdoor Kissan Party are not undergoing psychiatric rehabilitation. Rather, at a time where the entire world has sent Marxism-Leninism to the ‘dustbin of history’ (Michael Hart, The 100), in one of the world’s two Muslim confessional states the aforementioned are.. enjoying nationwide popularity.
“10. We have fooled, bemused and corrupted the youth of the “Goyim” by rearing them in principles and theories which are known to us to be false although it is by us that they have been inculcated.” (Protocol no.9, clause 10.)
Palestine, dear Pakistani Muslims, is our mirror reflection. The carnage going on is a translated image of the carnage going on in our society: of socialism and secularism; of alcoholism and footballism.
We have been left bemused, alcoholised sheep.
The wolves are coming.
And you know what happens when the wolves get hold of the flock?
From a letter I once imploringly wrote to a friend: “..if for nothing else, to show that we tried to rescue ourselves when everyone around us was drowning in self-deceit.”
Maybe that’s all the best of us have left now. To show that we tried.
The author runs Scholars by Profession,
a local research-initiative.
Facebook: facebook.com/scholarsbyprofession Twitter: @HarisSeyal