Can the lemmings be wrong?
Op-Ed from Dawn News ServicePakistan
dawn.com
By Irfan Husain
A T-Shirt that surfaced briefly in Oxford in the sixties proclaimed: "100,000 Lemmings Can't Be Wrong." Perhaps some enterprising manufacturer could resurrect it for all those supporting the Taliban and Osama bin Laden.
Another image that comes to mind is the Pied Piper whose magic flute bewitched the children of Hamelin into following him wherever he led. But while the mental age of those crazed zealots who currently populate CNN and BBC newscasts is probably the same as the kids from the fairy tale, what excuse do educated and apparently sane people have? Recently, I wrote about the weird fantasy world so many Muslims have decided to live in, and no doubt will be forced to do so again.
I am frequently exasperated by the refusal of even highly intelligent, cosmopolitan, widely travelled friends to face up to reality. Since we seem unable to talk about any topic other than Afghanistan, I am often the only one trying to keep the discussion focused on facts while the others dart off on the scent of some mad theory or other.
The other day somebody voiced grave suspicion about the current rise of the rupee against the dollar: surely this was the work of some cabal trying to hurt our exports. I pointed out that perhaps it was simply due to the forces of supply and demand: since many of our debts are being rescheduled, the demand for the dollar has fallen. Another plausible explanation is that Pakistanis who had stashed their dollars abroad were afraid their accounts would be questioned as part of the on-going scrutiny of dubious holdings, specially in the Gulf, and had therefore transferred their greenbacks to Pakistan.
Irrespective of the nature of the rumour, you can be sure it will immediately be believed by the credulous; my problem is that I had no idea there were so many of them out there. One reader sent me an e-mail demanding that I should only write against the Americans and the Jews, even if I had to lie.
I told him I was not in the habit of lying in my columns. Furious, he called me a "fool", insisting it was the duty of all Muslims to fight America. One friend is sure the Americans are here because they want a base in Pakistan to "control China", just as they set up a base in Saudi Arabia after the Gulf War. I pointed out that the Saudis had asked for American military presence, and this was unlikely to happen here. Indeed, the Americans had bases in Japan and South Korea to "control China" if that is what they wanted to do.
Clearly, there is some deeper phenomenon at work here. The suspicion and anger that surround American actions in the Muslim world cannot be explained by recent events alone: it would seem that some profoundly atavistic feelings have been conjured up. Much has been written and said about the sense of impotence and powerlessness we Muslims are supposed to feel when faced with the power and wealth of the United States which flaunts its supremacy clumsily and arrogantly.
Many Americans are convinced that we envy them their affluence and freedom. Other commentators ascribe the rage to the open-ended American support for the daily Israeli cruelties against Palestinians and the occupation of their lands, as well as the on-going humiliation of Iraq and the unnecessary deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children as a result of sanctions.
I suspect that underlying these reasons, the community of Islam has a shared memory of the Crusades and the subsequent struggle for power between Islam and Christendom - a struggle the former lost when the balance of power shifted westward because Muslims refused to accept and internalize the new sciences that were transforming economies and armies alike. Indeed, for centuries before the crusades, the Persians had fought first the Greeks and then the Romans for supremacy over the known world. So perhaps the current "war against terrorism" should be seen as the latest chapter in the millennia-old war between East and West.
But ancient power struggles do not suddenly move men to kill themselves and thousands of others as happened in America on September 11. For more immediate answers, perhaps we need to look in the festering Palestinian refugee camps and their beleaguered and impoverished cities in the West Bank, slums from Cairo to Karachi, the hospitals of Baghdad that are without medicines, and the black hole that Afghanistan has become. Apart from providing foot soldiers for the jihad, they also generate the rage that radicalizes young Muslims everywhere. The fact that hundreds of Britons of Pakistani origin are fighting with the Taliban is a sign of things to come in the West.
But while the motivation of these committed people is clear, one is puzzled by the reaction of highly educated and sophisticated Pakistanis to recent events. For years, they had been complaining about the rise in religiosity and the decline of the economy. However, the tragedy that befell the United States on September 11 set into motion a fortuitous chain of events for Pakistan that might halt the advance of religious extremism and boost our stagnant economy. But instead of welcoming the positive aspects of these developments, they sit in their air-conditioned living rooms, muttering darkly about the conspiracies out there and criticising the bombing of Afghanistan.
In fact, recent events have posed a real dilemma for the liberal-left all over the world; instinctively, they are against the Americans bombing a country already devastated by years of warfare and drought. But opposing military action puts them very close to the Taliban, a group they abhor. Clearly, no sensible person wants to see the battered and brutalized Afghan population suffer any more, but how are they to be rid of their repressive self-appointed leaders except through foreign intervention?
The same Pakistani critics question General Musharraf's decision to join the American-led coalition and give Washington various facilities, including the use of specified airfields. According to one view, we jumped on the American bandwagon with undignified haste. But if a neighbour has suffered a major bereavement and comes for help, you don't negotiate the extent of your assistance on the doorstep. Others maintain that while we might have allowed Americans the use of our airspace, we shouldn't have given them access to our airfields. This is not unlike somebody wanting to retain part of his or her virginity.
These people are all for the debt rescheduling (and possible writeoffs), the lifting of tariffs and quotas on our exports and the sea of respectability conferred by the international community, but want to oppose the American action in Afghanistan. In short, they want their cake and eat it too. Welcome to the real world where there is no such thing as a free lunch.
Perhaps they would like to wear the T-shirt that says "100,000 Lemmings Can't Be Wrong." |
