http://www.dawn.com/weekly/mazdak/20080716.htm
DAWN, Karachi, Pakistan
July 16, 2008 Wednesday Rajab 12, 1429
Cultural confusion and blasphemy
By Irfan Husain
IN THE British media, there is currently an agonised debate on the
controversy surrounding the appointment of women as bishops in the
Church of England. Despite the emotive nature of the discussion, the
only unseemly incident happened when a heckler interrupted a speech
being made by a gay American bishop to a congregation of Anglican
clergy. The sad truth is that if anybody had raised the question of
women leading the prayers at mosques, there would have been riots in
most of the Muslim world.
When a car bomb devastated the Danish embassy in Islamabad on June 2,
its repercussions were felt more in the West than in Pakistan itself.
Over the years, Pakistanis have become so accustomed to terror attacks
that they tend to take such atrocities in their stride. And the fact
is that by publi****ng a sacrilegious cartoon of the Prophet Mohammad
(PBUH) again after the violent reaction last year, the Danes had not
made themselves very popular in the Muslim world.
The most common reaction to the embassy bombing, even among the
educated, was: =93It=92s a terrible thing, but why did the Danes insult
our Prophet?=94 The more zealous Pakistanis welcomed the attack with
glee, saying, in effect: =93Serve the Danes right!=94 Even when Al Qaeda
accepted responsibility for the attack, there was very little sense of
outrage. The fact that all eight of those killed were Muslims and
Pakistanis (one of the victims was a Danish citizen of Pakistani
origin) seemed to count for very little.
Two days after the attack, a text message zipped from one cellphone to
the next across the country, announcing that the boycott of Danish
products in the Muslim world had cost the Scandinavian nation a
billion dollars thus far. No source was given for this information,
but the jubilant tone was clear: =93Keep it up!=94, the message concluded.
It is difficult for a westerner to understand the depth of the anger
most practising Muslims feel about anything that is seen as an insult
to their Prophet. In Europe, in particular, religious belief has
weakened to the point where stand-up comics regularly poke fun at
everybody from Jesus to the Pope. =93The Life of Brian=94, the hilarious
Seventies comedy by Monty Python parodying Christ=92s life and times,
remains an iconic film. For a generation brought up in this utterly
secular environment where belief is an insignificant aspect of life,
Muslim reaction to a few badly-drawn cartoons in an unknown Danish
newspaper has been absolutely baffling.
While Europe has been growing away from its religious moorings, Islam
has been witnessing a resurgence. The younger generation of Muslims
is, by and large, much more rigid in their faith than their parents
were. At the same time, countries like Pakistan have fewer contacts
with the West at the personal level. This growing distance has made it
easier for extremists to demonise the West, casting it in the role of
Islam=92s arch-enemy. Thus, each conflict involving Muslims is presented
as an anti-Islam conspiracy, whether it is the western presence in
Afghanistan or Iraq, the oppression of Palestinians, or the Russian
excesses in Chechnya. All form part of the sinister anti-Islam
narrative.
In this super-charged atmosphere of paranoia and violence, the
publication of the cartoons in Denmark is seen as a deliberately
provocative act. Muslims would never dream of running similar
caricatures of Moses or Jesus, both prophets of Islam. So they cannot
imagine why Christians would gratuitously insult the most revered
figure in Islam. Even for sophisticated Muslims, the freedom of speech
does not include this kind of behaviour. In a recent conference
organised by the Cordoba Initiative and the Malaysian government in
Kuala Lumpur, Prince Turki al-Faisal, the Saudi ex-diplomat and
sometime head of the intelligence service, declared: =93I can never
accept that freedom of speech is morally right when it offends my
faith.=94
To put things in the Pakistani context, one unfortunate citizen was
recently sentenced to death for making remarks that witnesses swore
were disrespectful of the Prophet. Under the country=92s blasphemy laws,
anybody guilty of insulting the Prophet or desecrating the Quran faces
the death penalty. Over the years, this legislation introduced by
General Zia over 20 years ago has been used by people to settle scores
or grab their neighbours=92 property. Invariably, the death sentence is
converted to a life term on appeal, but in the fanatical environment
that prevails in much of rural Pakistan, a charge of blasphemy is hard
to shake off. Innocent people have been beaten or burnt to death by
rampaging mobs enraged by rumours that a copy of the Quran had been
burned.
Against this backdrop, the bombing of the Danish embassy in Islamabad
makes for a kind of rough justice in the eyes of most Pakistanis.
Never mind that Pakistan=92s image abroad, already at a record low, has
taken a further plunge. Never mind that all those killed were Muslims,
and had nothing to do with the publication of the offending cartoon.
Never mind, too, that most Pakistanis have not even seen the cartoon
in question. The mere fact that a bomb has destroyed Danish embassy
was enough to satisfy millions of Pakistanis.
In parliament, some members from religious parties their numbers
drastically slashed in the recent elections urged the government to
break off diplomatic relations with Denmark. Even columnists and TV
anchors who are staunch sup****ters of the freedom of speech argued for
anti-blasphemy laws in the West.
Sadly, this is not the first cross-cultural misunderstanding between
the West and the Islamic world, and nor is it likely to be the last.
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