Kis Qayamat
Ke Yeh Namey Mere Naam Aate Hai(N)
These
past twelve years that I have appeared on the op-ed
pages of the daily Toledo Blade a cross section
of my readers have felt obliged to comment about
what I write. They have expressed their views either
in the readers’ forum in the paper or have
written to me directly. While many of them wrote
in support of my opinions, many others took exception
and told me so in no unclear words. All the interactions
however, favorable as well as unfavorable, were
conducted within the realm of civility and decorum
that is the hallmark of a civil society. And they
kept the focus on the subject at hand. This interaction
has been most gratifying to me personally and I
owe a debt of gratitude to my readers for educating
me. And yes, on occasions I also had to eat my words.
There have been notable exceptions though. There
are some die-hard individuals who cannot or will
not entertain any point of view other than their
own deeply entrenched and deeply prejudiced one.
They do not write to have a discussion; they write
to condemn, to malign and to dismiss.
There is this one gentleman from the Indian subcontinent
who no matter what the subject or the context would
always find reasons to broadside Pakistan. My recent
essay on the crossing of India-Pakistan border at
Wahgah gave him yet another reason to condemn Pakistan
for Kashmir issue. The irony is that the essay was
not about Kashmir or other contentious issues between
the two countries. In that piece I suggested that
Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs from the Subcontinent
should accept their responsibility for slaughtering
each other during the independence from the British
in 1947. But he is pre-occupied with Pakistan and
Kashmir and is the self-appointed champion of Indian
policies in Kashmir.
Regarding Kashmir he would be better informed if
he would take the time to meet a dozen or so Indian
Kashmiri families that live in Toledo area. All
of them have relatives living in the valley of Kashmir
and they visit them often. Unfortunately his venomous
outbursts have been a source of embarrassment to
both Pakistanis and Indians in our town.
There is another gentleman, also from the subcontinent,
who apparently has not met a Muslim he did not dislike
or hate. His sole purpose in life, it seems, is
to cruise the Web and find the most insulting and
derogatory article about Islam, Muslims and Pakistan,
which he dutifully forwards to me and also to others
people. When requested to stop using his forward
button on his computer he conveniently pulls over
the all-too-convenient and all-purpose cloak of
freedom of speech over his head. It would be more
appealing if he would write something himself and
publish it under his own name rather than hiding
behind other people’s writings. As such he
echoes the views of other people. It would be too
much to expect anything original from an echo.
Another detractor is a Jewish gentleman who happens
to be severely allergic to words like Palestine,
Palestinians, Palestinian state, Middle East Road
Map and Occupied Land. In his view of the Middle
East the Palestinians have no right on their own
land and they all should be evicted and pushed across
the Jordan River. He sends frequent e-mail bulletin
containing anti-Palestinian, anti-Arab and anti-Muslim
articles written by Israeli apologists and signs
off his communications with Your Truth Provider.
In his deeply jaundiced eyes (and in those of his
friends), Israel can do no wrong. Armed with the
bucket of tar and a broad brush they do not hesitate
to paint all those who question Israeli policies
in the occupied Palestinian areas as anti Semitic.
A number of years ago this Truth Provider sent a
picture of an Ashura procession from Lebanon. In
that picture Shia children with headbands were breast-beating
to commemorate the martyrdom of Imam Hussayn in
680 CE in the desert of Karbala in Iraq. For Shias
the Ashura processions are part passion play, part
spiritual fulfillment and part catharsis. They mourn
the watershed incident in their history with sadness
and introspection. And what does the ingenious Truth
Provider said about the picture? This is how they
train their children to be terrorists.
Fortunately most people are not that fanatic in
their views. These are what I call aberrations that
fall outside the well-defined circle of a multi-ethnic,
multi-religious pluralistic society. They ought
to remember that when you insult, minimize, dehumanize
or reduce other people/cultures/religions, you are
in fact doing the same to yourself.
