Is Pakistan a Victim of Perception?
By Imran H Khan Suddahazai
CA
There is definitely something strange about this aptly termed state: ‘The Islamic Republic of Pakistan’. To comprehend this proposition one must alter their perceptions slightly to follow this story.
In the world in which this state of Pakistan lives only the adults get to play and those who are too old and too young are often abused, pillaged and even devoured. This is a dangerous world. A world of contradictions, opposites, greed and malice; this is worse than a Columbian coalmine.
You see the adults have through the course of time become extremely aware of the potential that these children represent. They have become weary of the children, for if these children were ever to fully mature without their aid and assistance then they would no longer be required as guides, confidants or supreme councilors!
Thus to counter this ‘possibility’ the adults introduce to the children at an early stage the sanctimonious policy of a ‘mythological nationalism’, a garden for them to play in, an ‘imagined community’ according to the great scholar Benedict Anderson that establishes identity and an artificial culture steeped in the ignorant worship of a supposed illuminated historical past.
These entrenched policies eventually take root by permeating into the psyche of every generation until it becomes the fabric of that society and the ground becomes fertile and the soil conducive to sprouting new trees from the seeds that are programmed to exist only in the past and fear everything about the future. Thus as society begins to bloom, the fruit it bares is neither sweet, nor delectable but docile in appearance, insipid in taste and enervated in spirit. In agricultural terms this is a sour harvest and the once fertile plains which gave birth to the civilizations of glory now churns out a barren crop that is uncultivated and fallow.
However, it is this last adjective above which actually allows for a renewed perspective. Those fortunate enough to be born into a life of poverty and destitution were spared the educational conditioning that incarcerated the mind to accept a life of penal slavery. They in their worldly ignorance fought to remove the shackles of restraint and control but the divergent forces of religion and science were implemented early to negate any spiritual or physical inquisitions. These ecumenical pillars of society provided alluring stories of a fabled predestined existence that only their ‘practice’ could guide us through an inevitable life of suffering.
The gatekeepers of the religious fraternity painted on young impressionable minds images of anthropomorphic Greco-Roman Christianised ‘deities’ and ‘devils’, locked in an eternal battle for the control of our hearts and minds. This becomes our story and a script which the children learn to accept and believe, just like the concept of time. The mind of a child is innocent and free, it is akin to an empty canvas that is lucid and pure.
Thus was the canvas of Pakistan but the gatekeepers, the elders of society decided to decorate it with a theological facade not to be found in The Noble Qur’an!
Those whom religion could not capture were left to the proficient tools of ‘Science’ to condition. It presented no imagery and instead introduced fundamental notions of abstraction that failed to inspire or create any pictures for the mind. Ethics and morals in science were instead represented by quantities and formulations. There was no good or evil on this path but choices and a strategy to survive. ‘Resources are scarce; wants are infinite’ and Allah can’t provide for all therefore, theories on game, chance, opportunism and economics prevailed and frightened the innocent neonate into making judgements without a heavenly host. Hence it sacrifices itself repeatedly at the altars of a preconceived future garbed as theology or science.
The premise under which the society had been created was in tow with subduing its potential and preventing its growth. This maiming of Pakistan transpired at inception as the fundamental pillars or metaphorical limbs of its society were erected and anchored in the carcasses of defunct colonial practices devoid of any connection to Allah, the name under which Pakistan was supposedly conceived.
Practices alien to the dynamic application of Islam became absorbed like destitute wood into the foundations of the nation and a discombobulated child was reared.
That is the modus operandi of the day and little Pakistan is an orphan born into the cradle of this civilization.
Naturally for those imbued with good sense the allegorical nature of this argument is clear and thus when one now refers to the parental heritage of Pakistan one can decipher the point that it’s a conceptual idea that provides imagery rather than inconsequential abstract notions.
When one read His- Story (history) one is made to bear witness to the fact that ‘Power’ impregnated the womb of ‘influence’ and once these two principles conflated a nation state was born.
Thus you can bear witness to the fact that in times of crisis when Pakistan feels threatened or weak it instantly seeks the paternal approval and protection of its colonial heritage and the maternal succour of the theocratic societies that carried it in their wombs.
Therefore, the proposition that Pakistan is a victim holds true if you adhere to the allegorical exposition described above. Pakistan was created as a necessary tool to further the ante and increase the hold of the those who Allah describes as ‘Kaffir’, the ones who cover something or hide it. For ‘They hide in their minds what they dare not reveal to you.’ (3:154)
These men disguised as advisors and politicos raised on a diet of ephemeral greed seized the opportunity to hijack this fledgling state at inception and began to prepare it as a sacrificial lamb for the rites that Rudyard Kipling described as the ‘great game’. In accordance to this weltanschauung one is made to perceive that Pakistan is a victim of circumstance and there is no hope and we shall continue to witness the pillage of its proprium and the rapine of Allah’s nomothetic laws that are copulated with diseased ideals and concepts in the name of progress, a fancy of the mind which has already ravaged and incinerated the desolate Third World. These iniquitous philosophies have been imposed on an orphaned child by quislings implanted to act as mandarins and intellectual elites and occupy the thrones of society as high priests.
Allah sbt informs us in no uncertain terms that ‘…that they took the Satan in preference to Allah, for their friends and protectors, and think that they receive guidance.’ (7.30)
This is factual reality of ‘real politick’ but one that only manifests due to our acceptance of the story about the formulation of Pakistan. It is the seed which has been sown into the fecundating plains of our memories and we all bare witness to its testimony!
Herein lays the crux of the whole problem! To whom are we bearing witness to?
In accordance to The Qur’an by bearing witness to anything other than Allah sbt is considered shirk and thus a terrible misgiving. Hence the proclamation of the first ‘Shahada’ that ‘There is no god but Allah’, ‘…the (only) protection comes from Allah, the True One’ ( 18:44) and ‘…True guidance is the guidance of Allah…’ (3:73)
Therefore, when we examine our roles in accepting this version of events if we declare ourselves to be Muslims, we must enquire of ourselves to whom we are becoming servile to when we bear witness?
This point in all essence answers the question posed in the title.
If we accept consciously misinformation and philosophies that are categorically designed to enslave our minds, reduce our character and drain our spirits we will fall into the bondage of nihilistic slavery on both a spiritual and psychological level.
What Pakistan is experiencing in the current epoch is not a victimization but a reaction to the negation of Allah’s word.
‘Were you to follow their (vain) desires after the knowledge which had reached you, then would you find neither protector nor defender against Allah.’ ( 13:37)
‘One day We shall seize you with a mighty onslaught: We will indeed exact retribution’ (44:16) for ‘…it is He Who gives life and Death; and He has Power over all things’ (57.2) not the IMF, UN, or India. It’s time that our perceptions were adjusted to witness a new reality which stipulates that ‘Nor would your Lord be the One to destroy communities for a single wrongdoing, if its members were likely to mend’ (11:117) for ‘they have the hope of the mercy of Allah: and Allah is oft forgiving, Most Merciful.’ (2:218)
- ihk@suddahazai.org
www.suddahazai.org
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