Uniculture
and the Death of Diversity
By
Professor Nazeer Ahmed
CA
Something awful has happened
to the world. It has been struck by the tsunami
of uniculture which has its epicenter in the West.
And the devastation left behind by this wave is
no less than the devastation left by the train
of tall waves generated by the recent killer earthquake
near Sumatra.
As you travel around the world, you are astonished
by the degree of uniformity of culture. Cape Town,
Casablanca, Cairo, Istanbul, Samarqand, Bangalore,
Singapore, Jakarta, no matter where you go, the
billboards are the same. The cars are the same.
The news is the same. The propaganda is the same.
The songs, the music, the movies, Pepsi and Coke,
computers and cybercafés, shoes and clothes,
even the language is the same. And of all the
groups that have adopted this global culture,
the teenagers are the most conspicuous. They speak
the language of individuality but their culture
is one of uniformity. They buy the same jeans,
wear the same Nike shoes, watch the same movies,
sing the same songs, and go to school looking
forward to serving the same global corporations.
This wave of uniculture has overtaken the world,
obliterating in its wake old cultures, languages,
music, entertainment, businesses, modifying and
altering the religious landscape. Just as a tsunami
makes no distinction between Muslim, Hindu, Christian
or Buddhist, the wave of uniculture makes no distinction
between people of different faiths, languages
or nationalities. It is a common tragedy that
men and women of all traditions face today. It
is an experience that Muslims share with Hindus,
Christians, Jews, Buddhists and agnostics.
From an Islamic perspective, the onslaught of
global culture has two aspects: external and internal.
The external aspect relates to the global economy,
multinational corporations, international banks
and political jawboning. The internal aspect relates
to the corruption from within, the disappearance
of ethical standards and the rejection of history
and tradition. It is an intrinsic characteristic
of the global capitalist economy that it must
continually expand or die. A corporation must
make a profit or sell out. It must grow or stagnate
and disappear. This model has now been adopted
by every region of the world. The Chinese compete
with the Indians in the garment industry. The
Americans compete with the Europeans to sell aircraft.
Even the Hajj is not immune from the
global marketplace. When your Ihram is made in
China, you know that global uniculture has not
spared even the most sacred places.
That multinational corporations seek to dominate
the globe, and obliterate local businesses in
the process, is not surprising. They can do nothing
less for their survival. They must convince the
teenagers to wear branded jeans, the ladies to
wear advertised clothes, the men to wear logo
shirts, and everyone to speak consumer lingo.
But a local culture, for that matter a local business,
a local language, or a local custom, need not
die with the first thrust of the global cultural
onslaught. Cultures die from within as much as
they die from without. It is true that the global
culture hammers at every shore. But the shores
collapse because they are built of sand and silt.
A solid rock stands its place until the ocean
recedes.
Islamic cultures are dying because they have been
weakened from within and are no longer able to
withstand the hammering blows of the global uniculture.
To use another analogy, the magnificent tree that
was planted by the very hands of the Prophet has
been eaten from within by termites. The limbs
of this tree are being hacked from the outside
just as its core is weakened and destroyed from
within.
The core of Islamic culture is its spirituality.
From its innate spirituality flows the sap that
gives life to Islamic civilization. That spirituality
is dying. The signs are all around. They are visible
even to the most casual observer. Beggars in Marrakech
sing Hindi songs. Muslim kids in South India write
no Urdu and cannot even write a letter to their
grandmother or read one written by her. Arabs
in Abu Dhabi visit the local bars and drink British
scotch. The Turks want to be more European than
the Europeans and the Uzbeks know more about Peter
the Great of Russia than their own Emirs. Indonesians
write in the Latin script while the Pakistanis
…well, you know about the Pakistanis.
While the uniculture takes its toll from without,
Muslims are busy destroying their history and
culture from within. Qawwali becomes haram except
the playing of the duff, ghazals are discouraged,
and old forts in Medina are pulled down. When
the masjids in Bosnia, destroyed during the genocidal
war against Muslims, were rebuilt with Gulf money,
they looked more like aircraft hangars than masjids,
sans grace, sans beauty, sans spirituality. Religion
has become a ritual. Schools have turned into
money-making machines. Men are prevented from
visiting the tombs of their mothers and fathers
to offer dua. The same people who celebrate their
own birthdays with vulgar lavishness call it bida’
to celebrate meelad un nabi, an event that for
a thousand years khalifas and sultans considered
an honor to attend. Even the Hajj has not escaped
this internal onslaught. You can sell all kinds
of trinkets at Jablur Rahman on the day of Arafat
but you are discouraged from offering a supplication
for divine mercy.
The spread of uniculture is one aspect of the
spread of extremism around the globe. Two of the
principal reasons for the rise of extremism are
cultural reaction and territorial disputes. Politics
prevents many a soul from speaking about territorial
disputes; it is astonishing how few are aware
of the cultural aspect of extremism. Extremism,
and its violent manifestation in terrorism, thrives
where the perception of cultural domination from
the outside is widespread. While it is easy to
blame outsiders as thieves who rob traditional
cultures, Muslims have been less than honest looking
for thieves within their own homes.
It follows that traditional cultures offer a first
line of defense against the encroachment of extremism
in Muslim lands. These cultures have grown up
over
centuries and manifest the best that our forefathers
considered worth preserving. Discarding them is
like trading an old, hand carved, and beautiful,
silver necklace for a plastic trinket.
Modern man cannot even conceive of a Taj Mahal
let alone build one because he has lost the capacity
to love. He has forgotten the taste of sherbet
with honey in a brass goblet and is instead used
to the taste of stale coffee in a plastic cup.
Would the extremists among Muslims allow a marble
tomb to be built for the love of a woman? The
Qur’an teaches humankind: “We will
show you our Signs on the horizon and within yourselves
so that you may have certainty”. The Signs
on the horizon are the signs in nature and within
human history and culture.
Destroying history and culture is like destroying
divine Signs. The Taj Mahals of the world manifest
the best in Islam; indeed they manifest the best
in humankind.
They must be preserved, and more like them must
be built notwithstanding the protagonists of bida’,
kufr, shirk and haram, so that future generations
celebrate our love just as we celebrate the love
of our forefathers. The only way to avoid the
destruction of culture is to preserve it.
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