"I was accused by the deputy attorney general of being treasonous for writing that the state had no business determining what an individual reads on his computer screen in the privacy of his own house."
Source/Credit: Daily Times | Pakistan
By Yasser Latif Hamdani | April 15, 2013
In the 1,400 years of Islam's history, the great faith has sustained onslaughts both from within and without, without its glory dimming even slightly
Congratulations are in order for the Khatm-e-Nabuwat Lawyers Forum, which comprises two and a half rotund lawyers who spend their days eating and lolling in the Atif Centre behind the High Court while planning to rid Pakistan of the ‘Qadiani conspiracies’. — The Forum has struck another blow for the glory of Islam. They have managed to round up the staff and publishers of Al- Fazl, an old Ahmedi newspaper in Lahore. Not only that, they encouraged a mob of religious fanatics to rough up members of this community and rob their houses in broad daylight.
These grand uncles of Islam usually score such victories against this hapless community and the real reason for their grand victory is that Ahmedis have — despite facing what has to be the worst persecution in our times — remained a law abiding and non-violent community. The state instead of recognising the overwhelmingly positive role of this community has since the 1970s aided and abetted elements who have resorted to violence every chance they got.
One of the many reasons I admire Ahmedis is that despite facing the most horrible of persecutions, they are not given to mouthing fashionable views just for the heck of it in their drawing rooms as many others do. Despite having been let down by the state so many times, Ahmedis continue to stand up for Pakistan in a very substantial manner: intellectually, morally and in charity. Theirs is a deep connection to the state. Let us recognise this connection and let us celebrate it. Instead, we abuse them and paint them as enemies of the state.
From personal experience, I can say that in this strange country of ours, it is often those who care deeply about it that suffer the brunt of such accusations. In response to my article last week on the ideology of Pakistan, I received an unusually high number of hate mails. One such gentleman claimed that I was out to destroy the very foundations of the country and should be hunted down. He had taken umbrage to my claim that Pakistan like any other nation state was an accident of history. Having written consistently for this newspaper for close to three years, it never ceases to amaze me as to how diverse the hate mail that I receive is. A group of self-styled liberals and wannabes, the kind that love to mouth fashionable untruths about this — which is our only — country, accuse me of the exact opposite: of being too pro-Pakistan (for example an email correspondent sarcastically referred to me as the Grand Duke of the Knights of the Order of St Jinnah, a title I do not mind at all). So it is not unusual for me to open my inbox and find two emails in line: one accusing me of being a traitor and an enemy of Pakistan and the other accusing me of working for the security establishment of Pakistan. I have alternatively been accused of being paid by the ISI, RAW, CIA and MOSSAD. Being a James Bond fan, I have been sorely disappointed that no one has accused me of working for MI6.
As if that were not enough, in the ongoing YouTube Case in the Lahore High Court, I was accused by the deputy attorney general of being treasonous for writing that the state had no business determining what an individual reads on his computer screen in the privacy of his own house. Thankfully, the court was in no mood to accept such spurious argumentation.
We are a high context low trust society. Hence, there is such emphasis on the ‘imputation’ of our words. One wonders what the insecurity really is that we have to subject even our fundamental right to freedom of speech to the qualifier of the glory of Islam. In the 1,400 years of Islam’s history, the great faith has sustained onslaughts both from within and without, without its glory dimming even slightly. On the contrary, the true glory of Islam is that it embraced, accepted and even celebrated its most vociferous critics. What great names from Islamic history such as Rhazes, Avicenna and Omar Khayyam wrote would give even the most strident of blasphemers today a run for his or her money. It is a credit to early Islamic civilisation that these gentlemen were not only allowed to live as free men and expound their ideas but were celebrated for their achievements in medicine, science and literature by Muslims, better Muslims than you and I, and certainly more enlightened Muslims than the boors who are ready to kill, maim and burn in the name of our great faith. What was the result? The world of Islam was the centre of civilisation and progress for over three centuries. The world came to Baghdad and Cordoba to learn at a time when Europe was in darkness. It is not for nothing that Averroes, a great Muslim polymath, scientist and jurist of the Maliki school, is featured prominently in Raphael’s School of Athens along with the greats of human civilisation. The Chapel at Princeton University in New Jersey has an image of Muhammad Ibn Zakariya Al Razi on one of its windows. The glory of Islam was never dimmed by dissent, it was enhanced.
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Yasser Latif Hamdani is a lawyer based in Lahore and the author of the book Jinnah: Myth and Reality. He can be contacted via twitter @therealylh and through his email address yasser.hamdani@gmail.com
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