THE OPIATE AND THE REFINEMENT - the Saga of Meriam Ibrahim of Sudan

I didn't understand why the guy was rolling a thick string of hash that hard on a metal plate. Later I would learn what was marijuana and how they made hash from it by repeatedly filtering, refining and concentrating it.

I was in the main bazar of Darra Adam Khel, the commercial heartland of Pakistani tribal areas. It was mid-late 80s. Soviets had been defeated with American help and the enormous surge of Afghan refugees through this corridor into Pakistan had subsided. It was somewhat safe to visit these utterly lawless areas, for not only city kids from Pakistan like me, but even the foreigners (as long as they didn't stray from the populated areas). Those were halcyon days in retrospect.

This was the other lesson in concentration and refinement I learned, other than distillation in chemistry class in high school at Hasanabdal. So when a fellow atheist (albeit of a different pedigree - an American woman from the South, a consultant in Yankee-town now) sent me the article on Meriam Ibrahim (link at the end of this note), the Sudanese woman condemned to death by a court, it made think that this might be the concentrated version of fundamentalist Islam. The purely refined opiate of the masses that has afflicted, addicted and addled the thinking of even the high courts in the biggest Islamic country by land mass, Sudan. Indonesia is the biggest Islamic country by population. These were the proud facts I had memorized in my geography class as a kid.


The virus of Islam.....

Decisions like these are the end product of generation long educational programs designed by religious enthusiasts, driven by their sometimes well-meaning, yet always misguided desire to incorporate Islamic ethos into the law of the land. Judges are drawn from the society at large and reflect its collective Weltanschauung. So while it comes as surprise and shock to some horrified westerners, to a Pakistani accustomed to seeing scenes like the summary-murderer of Pakistani politician and anti blasphemy-law activist Salman Taseer, Mumtaz Qadri being showered by rose petals, by PROFESSIONAL LAWYERS, this should be of little surprise. This is the virus of religion (Islam in this case) having completely infected and taken over the host.


The devout, the donkeys, and the death of logic.....

One of the more vile characters I recall was an Islamiat teacher (Islamiat, or Islamic studies, compulsory subject that is taught not only in high school, but thanks to a pronouncement by the fundamentalist dictator Zia, also in universities and colleges). First day of class the teacher asked if anyone can tell the difference between a donkey and a human. Many students stated the obvious. A donkey can't think - the teacher replied, it can, even if at not as advanced a level as a human being. Humans have two arms and two legs - no, the two front legs of a donkey are not all that distinguishable from arms, said the idiot teacher. Donkey doesn't have same family bonds - no, but it does have mother and father. Etc etc. The only difference, said the imbecile teacher, is that the donkey doesn't pray to Allah. And who wouldn't want to avoid being a dunce? So pray to Allah. Don't be a donkey. Case settled.

This was the contortionist logic that we were being taught at times to prove the validity of religion/Islam. I doubt that the kids in Stuyvesant High or Horace Man in NYC were being taught by teachers that devoid of common sense, an ideology that required such mind bending arguments. At least I hope not. 

Smoke, mirrors, and dirty laundry.....

My fellow Pakistanis think I'm sometimes too hard on Islam. Maybe I am. Some of my admitted stories about our primary teaching are downright embarrassing, bound to make people uncomfortable in a culture where saving face is paramount. But perhaps I have lived in Yankee-land for too long. A land where people have no qualms about washing their dirty laundry in public, admitting their shortcomings, and welcoming constructive criticism even if harsh. Extremists within tea party and the bible-thumping patriotic lunatic fringe excluded.

If we are to make any ideology a guiding principle of life and source of our laws, then we have to debate it vigorously. We can't hide behind smoke and mirror world of generally applicable ethics masquerading as Islamic values and hence "proving" the truth and validity of Islam and declaring it as the final and unquestionable truth.

It's also true that other religions (at least the Abrahamic ones) are not all that different from Islam in essence and basic teachings. Difference is that those religions, especially Christianity, went through reforms. Which diluted them significantly. Islam needs similar reforms. Which in essence will mean less Islam in Islam, and its diminished role in writing constitution and devising the laws of the land.

Judaism unfortunately still contains much fundamentalism. But being a much smaller religion, practiced officially in only one country as state religion, it does not engender the same territorial influence as Islam, even if it exerts significant economic and political influence.

It's also true that ridding a country of Islam or other Abrahamic religions (or any religion) would not necessarily remove extremism, intolerance, and superstition, or instill progressive thinking. After all Haiti has voodoo religion which can be deeply superstitious, parts of Africa have extreme bigotry and intolerance even though they are not religious, and even the godless Chinese can be very superstitious. What we have to fight is extremism, superstition, fanaticism and muddled thinking in all its forms. It's an unfortunate reality that current day Islam occupies a high perch amid these outdated and bankrupt ideologies.

Mariam Ibrahim will likely (and hopefully) be freed under the western pressure, courtesy of Sudan's economic dependence on the outside world. But she will also have to leave her homeland and find refuge in some Western enclave. Because once politicized, there is no place in a conservative Muslim society for an apostate. My atheist friends and I might have lived in a hostel in Karachi without any fear, but we had never attracted any attention or unwittingly became part of any political drama. Things would have been a lot different otherwise.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/erasmus/2014/06/islam-and-apostasy?fsrc=nlw%7Cnewe%7C30-06-2014%7C53307f14899249e1cc7ae7d1%7C