Witch Hunting ka Zamaana Kabhi Hoga na Puraana...

First, the Malala post and now this. I hope to God I don't become the kind of guy who writes State of the Union speeches. But you knew this was coming, didn't you? Here goes:

So Junaid Jamshed said some stuff 2 years ago, and as a nation, we've got our second pair of panties in a knot. Once again, there are 2 groups warring, though interestingly unlike with the Malala case, they're not really sparring with each other. For once they're united in that they have a common enemy, Junaid Jamshed. They are baying for his blood, albeit for completely different reasons. Man, it sure seems like we just can't hear any piece of news and say, "Okay, that's interesting, I do feel strongly about this issue, perhaps a little angry too. But there maybe a side to it I'm not considering. Let's defer judgement till I breathe deeply for a bit and count slowly to 10." No, we have to immediately break into the chorus of "Fire, Water, Burn". So who are these two groups? One is the more religiously oriented group that says he was blasphemous and should be put to the death. The other is the more secular minded group that thinks his apology wasn't much by way of a mea culpa and that the hypocrite should be speaking up for Aasia Bibi and all the others like her  and why should he go scot free when those poor people are still on death row etc. Either way, "Burn, baby, Burn!"

I think this issue can be divided into 3 parts:

1)      Whether what he said was actually blasphemous in the first place

2)      Assuming it was blasphemy, should we have done a Salman Rushdie number on him?

3)      The power of social media (This isn't as much an issue as it is something we should learn from for ourselves)

Let's begin with issue one: Did Junaid Jamshed actually commit blasphemy? Interestingly, that's something everyone seems to conveniently be ignoring. Heck, it's a man's life we're talking about but let's go from this point onward like the man is guilty, guilty, guilty! We're gonna have us a lynching anyway! You can't take that from us! Heave Ho!

Well, I saw the video and besides him being guilty of talking in a disrespectful manner about a wife of the Prophet SAW and our mother Bibi Aaishah RAA, and coming across as a misogynist, one can't fault him for anything else and certainly not blasphemy. Besides the point, you say? Where did our sense of justice just fall off the end of the Earth? A man has to flee his country for fear of his life (and I'm going to play the emotional card here, the very country he sang so passionately about) and we say that's besides the point? Was the incident he narrated false? I'm not so sure regarding the authenticity of this incident in particular but other well documented and authentic incidents do show that the wives of the Prophet, being human, also felt human emotions including jealousy. They were still a million times better than us but they weren't flawless. And interestingly, this article
(http://www.dawn.com/news/1149558/the-untold-story-of-pakistans-blasphemy-law)
shows that from an Islamic jurisprudence point of view, even a crime as horrendous as blasphemy is a pardonable offence. But of course, that would mean no witch-hunt. Boooo. Yes, Junaid Jamshed needs to mind his P's and Q's when he talks about the wives of the Prophet SAW. But we also need to do just that when we crack jokes about Jesus, Moses and God. Just because the jokes use their Hebrew names doesn't make them any less our prophets. If anything, that's closer to blasphemy than anything Junaid Jamshed said.

Now let's suppose he did commit blasphemy. There's an excellent ten minute video on the issue by Nouman Ali Khan.

Post by Nouman Ali Khan.

I highly recommend that you listen to it. If Abu Bakr RAA is being asked by Allah SWT to continue to financially support the relative who spread slander about Bibi Aaishah RAA (something far far worse than what Junaid Jamshed is guilty of), why can't we be the better persons and forgive him? Who died and made us Big Men on Campus? Regarding Group 2, blaming Junaid Jamshed for the plight of Aasia bibi and others in her situation is like blaming one politician for every problem in the nation. When apologizing, why didn't he speak up for them too? Why does he get off the hook so easy? This reminds me of my school days. Because of a few trouble makers in our class, we would all get punished because we didn't rat them out to the head master. Why can't we assume the best about anyone apologizing? Since when did we become such cynics? Even if he is part of a greater conspiracy to undermine Islam by talking flippantly about its greatest people, and it rightly offends you, the best thing to do is…spread the filth on Facebook? Hey guys, I am so offended by this video by this Pseudo-Muslim talking filth about a Mother of the Believers, I'm want you all to watch it too! Because in my mind, that will totally make a difference and bring him to justice and make the world a better place for all of us.

Also, there are millions of issues the world over. In whatever field one is in, there are issues. By the very same logic that Junaid Jamshed is damned and should suffer the same fate as Aasia Bibi for not using his TV presence to champion her cause, I as a student should be thrown in jail or worse for not championing the cause of a student molested in a school in Hyderabad. You as a chartered accountant should be fined for fraud because one of your contemporaries is money laundering and you aren't actively being the Van Helsing of chartered accountants. My mother should be separated from me for unfit parenting because she isn't knocking on my neighbours' doors and observing them for their parenting skills. Junaid Jamshed cannot change everything in the world, but he can change some of it. The same goes for all of us. Yes, I am not denying that we should be angry about the horrendous treatment of the other alleged blasphemers in our country and do what we can to get that very un-lawyerly worded law changed. I also think that we as a people should not stop till there is equal justice for all. But making Junaid Jamshed the patsy isn't very…just. Whether this hate is born of a generalized disdain of all things Mullah (who interestingly are human just like us and are not necessarily worse than the rest of us) or we just aren't over the disbanding of Vital Signs remains a mystery to me.

Now why are some prominent religious leaders calling it blasphemy then? It could be that I am wrong and it is blasphemy as they are more knowledgeable than I am. Or it could even be that since everyone is so angry about the issue and isn't thinking straight, going out and saying that would really hurt their cause and undermine these leaders' reputations among all of us rabid masses. I'm not saying that that's right, I'm just telling it like it is.

It's so easy for us to play the role of the armchair intellectual and sit in judgement of Junaid Jamshed. I know I run my mouth and say some very stupid stuff sometimes. Just read my blog. Junaid Jamshed has every right to make mistakes, just like I do. Except that he gets to do it on TV. Yes, when you're a celebrity, you have to be careful of what you say because people look up to you and hang onto your every word. Just like it is with Mullahs, who are as evil as the rest of us but just because they represent something (our religion), they have to be more careful of what they say or do or it'll be Islam that gets a bad name. However, we haven't our 15 minutes of fame yet but inshaAllah when we do and are leaders in our respective fields and we make a gaffe, we'll hope to God all our good work we'd have done by then wouldn't have been undone by a moment's brain failure. We'll pray that the world doesn't give us the treatment we gave Junaid Jamshed then.

Also, weren't we always taught as kids that no matter how bad things get, it's never too late or too useless to say sorry? In fact, it is common decency to do so?

Lastly, this video is 2 years old. If we are to learn anything from this whole circus, it's this: be careful about what you post online. It will always be there to stay. That porno you made in college to pay off your loans will come back to bite you in the rear end (porn pun intended) when you run for president. On a less extreme note, saying stuff in humourous vein about how cranky your patients are on twitter will get you into trouble when you finish medical school and want to apply for a residency and your potential employers decide to see what you really are like by browsing through your profile. Anything you say can and will be used against you. Something I think we've forgotten is the power of silence. If you are unsure about something, don't mention it. It is better to shut up than let your tongue wag ahead of you. I feel we do that a lot; know very little about an issue but yet have the urge to comment on it in an authoritarian tone like we just finished a dissertation on the subject. What if I told you…that not talking about it was also an option. No one would miss your Facebook post.*Mind Blown* We overestimate the effect and importance of our words to the general public. However, the very people you don't want looking at your profiles (boss, mum, NSA) are the ones with the best access and most interest (your mum knows your password is 'password' because she's realized that after 24 years of raising you, you clearly got dad's side of the family's brains). So before sharing anything online ask yourself the following questions:

1.Will it do more good than harm?
2. Will people benefit?
3. (This one is the toughest to answer) Are my intentions pure?
4. By sharing this, am I helping solve the problem?

If the answer is yes to all of them, share away. If nitpicking and finding faults in everybody will help humanity, go to town kids, knock ourselves out. If not, then let's shut up and go clean up our neighbourhood if we want to actually do something useful. Use our righteous anger well. Directing it at ourselves is a great place to start.

Tomorrow

I was coming back from a movie today when I got stuck in traffic at Boat Basin. I looked out and I saw a flaming object in the sky. I freaked and the natural response, "It's a bird, no it's a crashing plane, no it's Superman!" flashed through my mind. Panicking, I turned to my space cadet (pun intended) cousin sitting behind me and brought it to her attention. "Oh, Faysal bhai, that's just a lantern they've lit for the Peshawar incident." Relieved, I watched as the lantern quickly ran out of fuel and crashed. The symbolism for our own reactionary emotions after such horrendous incidents was glaring.

See, after the incident, Facebook was filled with posts of people changing their display pictures to all black in mourning. I did not. I felt it was a useless guilt driven reaction and it doesn't help those kids. The same money can be used to fund kids, etc. However, that lantern incident got me thinking. If our intention when changing those pictures was to feel good about ourselves ('doing our part') or grief (if one truly feels grief, Facebook isn't the first port of entry), then it was an exercise in futility in terms of productivity. 
If one wanted to show that we are united as a nation, that doesn't mean jack squat. However, the ONLY reason for such symbolism that I feel justifies these posts is to show the parents and loved ones of those children that we are behind them every step of the way. And therein lies the caveat. Such symbolic gestures to express solidarity with the parents of those lost in the tragedy must ONLY be employed if we are willing to put our money where our mouths are afterwards. Why? As a parent, nothing can replace the loss of a child. For the little that it's worth, it is important for them to know that we are with them during this immediate post-tragedy period. It is however, EQUALLY important for them to know that a few weeks after the incident, we will not resume our lives like we did before the incident. They must know that their children are not forgotten. That must be reflected in how our actions change even if it is something as small and seemingly unrelated as deciding not to litter on the streets because everything is connected. This incident should change us somehow permanently. It is horrible to know that a loss of a loved one changed us for the better quickly but that change was just as quickly reversed with time. These parents cannot bring their children back. So let their deaths not be in vain. Let their deaths have some meaning.

A question many of us are asking after this tragedy is, "What can we do?" That is a natural manifestation of the helplessness we are feeling right now as a nation. We can't close our eyes, click our magic shoe heels together like Dorothy and wish the world into being right as rain. We can't all go to where the terrorists are and weed them out by ourselves, much as we want to. What then? 
Do a thought experiment with me. Have you heard of the 6 degrees of separation? The theory that everybody alive in the world is linked by 6 people maximum. As in, I know a guy who knows a guy who knows a girl who knows a girl who knows Lindsay Lohan (Alright!). I want you to link your job with fighting terrorism. For example, I am a future doctor inshaAllah. If I am a bad doctor, my patients will remain ill. If they remain ill, they will not go to work. If they will not work, the economy will suffer. If the economy suffers, the poor will get poorer. If the poor get poorer, they will get depressed, will not get an education and will turn to desperate measures. A recipe for terrorist-making. If I dump trash on the street, it will cause pollution. It will promote disease and sickness (from here on, the link to terrorism is as above). Such connections can be found for everything if one looks at the bigger picture. Do whatever you can, no matter how insignificant it may seem. Above all, please shun the mindsets of "What can one person do? Might as well get going before the going gets tough," or "Everybody is doing it, so why shouldn't I?". When we bribe a policeman, we are promoting some ill that will only serve to come back to bite us in the rear end. Go on, think about it. It's all great to blame the government for screwing up, but if we have a nation of evil-doers, even evil of the smallest kind, no government, no matter how fairly elections were held, can do much. No policeman can maintain law and order in such a state, no matter how well paid he is or how well the laws are written and enforced. How many criminals can he catch before he is overwhelmed?

There is a principle in medicine, arguably it's most important: Do no harm. If you don't know how to fix a problem, at least don't make it worse. It is as important to prevent a bad thing from happening as it is to do a good thing.

Lastly, don't give up. You may not see the change you want to see in your lifetime. But if you don't work towards the change, then you DEFINITELY will not see the change you want to see in your lifetime. If we give up and emigrate, citing the safety of our families, promising to send remittances to the country for the poor, very little will get done. Money is no substitute for human effort. The money that comes back will go to the poor. So far, so good. The money will then be used by the poor to purchase necessities of life. Great. These necessities are generally sold and controlled by those heavily involved with corruption. However if we stay, and become good at bringing about change, we will invariably be targeted along with our families. It maybe very hard for us to hear this but it must be said: Tough. If we think bringing about change is going to be a walk in the park, then let us continue to be satisfied by just uploading an MS Paint-made black display picture. However, if we truly are serious about change, then let's walk the talk, even if it means sacrificing our wealth, loves, time or lives.

About a Girl

So Malala won the Nobel Peace prize. And although everybody in Pakistan may differ on whether she deserves it or not, it's heartening to note that all our people from Karachi to Houston are finally united under the banner of getting their panties in a knot over it. Regardless of whether we're 'Team Malala' or 'Team Edhi', we're very pissed. Meanwhile, Malala Yousufzai happily continues with her good work and Abdul Sattar Edhi with his. 'Team Edhi' cries murder foul while 'Team Malala' goes witch-hunting for anything and everything that moves and thinks Malala shouldn't be president of the Sun and Alpha Centauri and everything in between. As for me? Well, I'm 'Team Edward'.
Seriously though, in all those long Facebook rants about the matter, all I see are charged up, noble-intentioned people with emotional statements and heated words supporting one side or the other, quoting articles that subscribe to their viewpoint like they're gospel truth and demonizing the other side with the old, "Oh-My-God, how could you? I mean… it's so obvious! What are you; stupid or something?"
And that is exactly what I'm going to do as well.
I have two tools to see an issue with relative clarity, the cost-benefit analysis (or the pros and cons of the matter) and the stakeholder method. I will use the latter method in my article. Everything I'm going to say is as opinionated as the next guy or girl, except that I'm going to state my opinion for each stakeholder that I've identified in the Malala Affair. But before that, a word about evidence, its types and their relative validities. I'm putting this part in, despite its seeming irrelevance to the topic because when you come to a decision about anything such as the Malala Affair, rate the evidence that leads to your convictions and change your mind when presented with evidence of a higher order.
Types of evidences (In descending order of strength):

1.     Evidence from many sources that say the same thing: When many people say the same thing and they got their info from their own independent efforts, that thing is more likely to be true. Well okay, you're probably thinking, that's alright then. If hundreds of newspapers the world over are saying that pigs can fly, it must be true. Not so fast. In the age of tight deadlines where everything must be in order before going to press, it's not possible for each paper to investigate each and everything. So papers will quote and parrot whatever news source they think is reliable. So you have a small number of opinions being replicated worldwide.

2.      Evidence that you've seen directly: There is no substitute for your own senses, unless it's point 1. In a nutshell, the lesser the number of links between you and the news source, the more reliable it will be. There will be less static and distortion on the way. Yes, even our senses can be fooled which is why this is point 2, not 1.

3.       Evidence from a direct source that has seen said event happen. 

4.       Everything else.

Coming back to the topic at hand, the following is the stakeholder list. I may have missed a few so do let me know.

1.       Malala the individual

2.       Her people

3.       Pakistan

4.       The issue she fights for

5.       The world

6.       The Nobel Prize itself

1.       Malala the individual: Unless you have sufficient evidence, it's not right to get personal. Even then, if one does have damaging evidence about somebody, wouldn't it be better to hide it? So casting aspersions on Malala's intentions without proof is just a manifestation of our national characteristic: bitchy, cranky cynicism. Regarding the prize, it's a wonderful personal milestone for her and I'm pretty sure Harvard will be nipping at her heels soon and I hope she uses the education she receives to do good.

2.       Her people: Girls' education among the patriarchal Pakhtun (who prefer this term to Pathan), or its lack thereof, is no doubt an important issue. Most rural based Pakhtuns educate their daughters to about middle school at most. Giving her this Nobel Prize definitely furthers her cause. Or does it? Or a third option: does it mean anything for her people at all? I honestly don't know. We can conjecture that it 'sows the seed of revolution in the masses', 'raises awareness', 'informs women of their rights' etc. but what proof do we have of that? I'm sorry if the cynicism that I so vilified earlier on seems to be creeping into my voice but such abstract statements don't really tell us anything. So let's look at it the other way round, would the prize do Pakhtun women any harm? I can't think how so I guess it's all good.

3.       Pakistan: It definitely puts the nation in a good light internationally. After seemingly doing everything wrong, we've got a young girl in the news and for once, she wasn't abused. It is an inspirational story to people everywhere. On the other hand, it also highlights the glaring issue of female literacy…yet again. Is there such a thing as bad publicity? Yet another area where I'm stumped.

4.       The issue she fights for: Female literacy is important. But who is the biggest hindrance to it? The alleged Taliban who shot her? Interestingly, it isn't the Taliban who are stopping women from going to school. It is the fathers, the brothers, the uncles etc. It is them who need to be fought. Next, we need to be clear on two points: a) What do we mean by education and b) Is the issue giving girls an education or sending them to schools? Regarding a) If we mean teaching girls the ABCs and teaching them to do the math, no one would really have an issue with that as the main reason Pakhtun girls aren't sent to school is because men have egos and need to 'keep the woman in her place' or they feel that an educated woman will become 'morally loose'. No, it is civic sense, a religious education and health literacy that are more important. A mother, even in the most repressed society is by default the most powerful person as she controls the future. If she feeds her child cow's milk before the age of one because she's not educated and the child has seizures, that is failed education. And in such areas, even the upper echelons of society need schooling. Yes, basic math, English, Urdu etc. are important but teaching our girls, boys, men and women only that won't change a thing in our future. Regarding b) we expect Pakhtun society to 'get with the programme' and send their girls to school and that's where our responsibility ends and feeling good about ourselves starts. Rome wasn't built in a day and no society will change its values in such a short time either. Pakhtun men will not become born-again liberals tomorrow because a girl, someone who talks and looks exactly like the very daughters they're trying to repress, is telling them to send their kids to school. If we realize the goal is female education, then we can think creatively. Distance learning for literacy is an option. Our much maligned health system's Lady Health Workers can impart health education as they've been doing since forever. Get Imams to impart civic sense. Focus on the men as well as the women so that they get their heads out of their butts. Meet these men halfway. Otherwise there is no difference between them and you as both are refusing to budge an inch. They aren't hell's hounds. These men are just like everybody else, with egos and feelings etc. Don't be the 19^th century Christian missionary who came to Africa and expected the entire continent to dance to his tune.

5.       The world: Oh, the world is just over the moon. A victory for women everywhere! The international community has done its due diligence and can now feel good about itself! Face it, one Nobel Prize doesn't mean you've done your job as global citizens and it isn't right for the public who have never seen a Pakhtun (or Pakistani, for that matter) household and understand the cultural nuances of our society to sit in judgement of us. As I said in point 4, meet us halfway. Understand us, instead of making us carbon copies of yourselves. As for foreign governments, making Malala their poster girl doesn't hurt their chances at the next elections at all, if ya know what I mean.

6.       The prize itself: I lost faith in the prize a long time ago. Putting aside all the controversial recipients of the prize in the past, it is neither as prestigious nor as fair as I believed growing up. For one, the selection process is flawed (Check it out at http://www.nobelprize.org/nomination/peace/). For example, only certain people can nominate for the prize, such as University professors, lawmakers etc. You and I cannot. That is impractical you say, as then nominations would number in the millions. That isn't my point. What irks me is that professors and lawmakers aren't in touch with what's going on at ground zero. Lawmakers will nominate whoever serves their purposes. Professors will sit in judgement from miles away. And at the end of the day, who votes? Some Norwegians. What makes their vote more prestigious and 'right' than that of the Swedes? Or the Japanese? Or members of the 188 other nations on this planet? What makes the Nobel Peace Prize so Goddarn special?

Another important aspect of the issue is the age-old problem of recognition of activity vs. inactivity. Remember, the lawmaker who pushes for a good law to be passed is always paraded but no one remembers the lawmaker who fought to prevent a bad law from being passed. That law is buried forever and forgotten so no one takes note, even though his/her job may have been as difficult and important the law maker who got the good law passed. Malala was the lawmaker working to prevent a bad law from being passed- until she got shot and until she won the Nobel Prize. Then she was suddenly the lawmaker who passed the good law. Similarly, there are countless others working as hard as her (not to take away from her achievements at all) and some more so. It just that they haven't been shot yet. That means that we shouldn't give much importance to the prize as it doesn't really say anything about life, the universe and everything. I'm sorry to break it to you this way but Malala has won something that means diddly squat.
See, I'm ending on a very different note from where I started. So many ways of looking at the issue where there's no clear cut answer. I wasn't as opinionated as I thought I would be. I didn't lose my cool but I did realize that I don't have to compartmentalize everyone and everything into good or bad. Being on the fence is okay too. Saying I don't know is fine, even if I come across as dim-witted. It is easy (and fun) to pass judgement but not necessarily the best option. It's is great to support education but supporting female education doesn't have to translate into supporting Malala. She isn't the Holy Grail, the issue itself is. She seems to know that and is toiling away. Edhi seems to know that too. All the hundreds of people doing good know that as well. Then who died and made us the guardians of her Nobel Prize? Stop giving two hoots about her prize or about her character or whether she's a stooge of some foreign power and become so awesome yourself that you bring about change, regardless of whether there's a Nobel Prize waiting for you at the end or not.