East Copying West

East is now copying west. Not so long ago the reverse was true. We woke up on 23^rd March 2008 to watch the military parachutes displaying their acrobatic skills and band playing music in Pakistan. Thanks to Satanat -e- Usmania which introduced military bands (to scare away the enemy on a battle field) no military is complete today without a band in the East or West.  

The Ottomans (Sultanat -e- Usmania) ought to have known better. Music is in fact worship of the god and goddess of music from the pagan customs of ancient peoples. It was banned under the Khulufa Rashdeen but later the Bani Ummayya (called Ummayad dynasty in the West) reintroduced it at their court and it continues to this day. 

The Greek Orthodox church and the Russian Orthodox church consider it unthinkable to play music while singing hymns in their churches, the others like the Roman Catholic Church consider it an essential part of the ceremony every Sunday to play music. Music lessons are considered a privilege because they are expensive. Playing the piano is considered the best way to worship. So is moving ones' raised hands to and fro. Raising their hands and moving them to and fro is done in front of singers in musical nowadays to show that their fans worship them like gods.

This is being unknowingly copied by certain Pakistanis while listening to concerts by local musicians or even at naat recitals. Pakistanis are holding candle light vigils to either show solidarity with a cause or register protest about an issue. People copy what they see on TV without knowing the origin or meaning of the actions.

 On April 5^th 2008, the newly elected Sindh assembly members took their oath of office and everyone saw the treatment former Chief Minister Arbab Ghulam Rahim received from the workers of PPP. They beat the living day lights out of him. This behavior was unthinkable a few years earlier in Sindhi society, but now after watching violence on their TV screens involving feuding political factions, Sindhis too have taken to violence. I am afraid that the situation will only get worse because when Indira Gandhi was assassinated the Indian Hindu mobs had burnt Sikhs alive on the streets. This time Sindhi angry mobs gave safe passage to people belonging to the non Sindhi community and burnt the trains & other infrastructure only; after the assassination of the former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, God forbid the crowds won’t be this forgiving in the future. As Madam Bhutto herself opined “violence breeds more violence”.

 If we look at American history, a vice President was involved in a dual! Even now the British and parliament members hurl insults at one another; the members of Italian parliament actually get physically violent by throwing shoes at one another.  Watching violence on TV involving whites make other peaceful cultures turn to violence, we saw the Koreans having a fist fight in parliament a few years ago, also the Arab football team fans fight like dogs just over a game just because the European football fans get drunk and do so. So far I have not seen the Japanese copy the violence in European or American cities in either political arena or sports. A wise culture they are for sure.

The West copied many other customs of the Eastern people in the past. Personal hygiene was non existent in the West, when the crusaders arrived in the East in 1055 the Muslims were appalled at the lack of cleanliness. The rich Europeans such as the kings etc. used to use a sponge to wipe away the dirt and no water was ever used in the wash room and even the paper tissue that is used today wasn’t there since paper hadn’t been invented back then. No one took baths!

The Europeans arriving in the east for the crusades were told to pay a visit to the public baths in the cities before any conversation could be held with them. Those who stayed in the East started to cleanse themselves but when they went back to Europe, in the 13^th century it was a different story.

Taking baths to clean oneself was later internalized by Europeans by having contact with the Ottomans.  King Henry v111 was the first one to build a bath but never used it; it was just built to impress foreign visitors to the court.  

 No church building today is complete without stained glass windows. Stained glass windows were in vogue in the days of the Ottomans.

 Similarly the banking system was invented by the Moors (the Muslims of Andalusia, now called Spain).  The writing of cheques was done by them as well. Gold was the mode of exchange but it was too heavy to transport so they invented the system of cheques which was purely based on trust, as it is today.

The cheques written in Spain used to get honored in India and a cheque written in India used to get honored in Baghdad and so on. This system was later copied by the Westerners and element of interest was added. The Christian church invited the Jewish community to deal in banking system because they being Christians couldn't deal in interest. Hence banks in the Western countries such as England and America came to be run by Jewish people.

 Now of course the knowledge transfer is one way, from the West to the East. Our banks charge interest, only recently some initiatives have been taken to re-introduce the Islamic banking system but it’s still a long way to go.

 Similarly efforts have been made to bring Sufism to the West, Rumi’s work is translated by the Westerners themselves and is well received in the US. Molana Rumi is the best selling poet in the US.  East has many other gems like Mirza Qaleech Baig, Shah Latif, Sachal Sarmast  which West needs to translate into Western languages to bring much needed happiness.

 Everyone in the West says they are miserable; Sweden has legalized suicide because they had record number of suicides. Swedish people say ‘the sun rises for 2 hours and we are miserable, we go to school in the dark, go to work in the dark, its always dark’. The Westerners come to so called under developed countries such as Pakistan and India and wonder to themselves ‘why do these people smile so much despite apparent poverty?’ The answer is simple, in the East people are content thinking that sustenance is provided by God and one will get it no matter where he/she is. You can be on Mars on any other planet in this solar system or a planet in the neighboring Andromeda galaxy God Almighty will send your sustenance wherever you are.

 In the West one is told since childhood, to be happy you ought to have loads of money or you will be scorned by your peers and won’t have friends and will be miserable. The result is people work two jobs to get all the things that they see in TV ads, the gadgets and the gizmos they must have to be part of today’s world. Even in the Church running soup kitchens, the staff scorns at the poor while giving them food in the US and other Western countries. If charitable acts are done with scorn they seize to be charitable.

 Scientists think they know everything; they treat everyone as if they have no brain cells, and knowledge is power which they have and the minions don’t. Politicians are of the opinion that ‘sweaty’ protestors out on the streets are just low lives who they need when its election time, otherwise they ought to be ignored. 

Thank God that the Europeans had kept themselves aloof while they were in the subcontinent because we never sank into their Dark Ages completely. For example we never learnt things like crying is for women only. Women are the reason men are not in Heaven today because Eve (Bibi Hawwa) made Adam alahis salam eat from the forbidden tree and they were never forgiven.

 Women are considered inferior to this date in the Western countries because of this.

Today we find books about Salahuddin which state that he had cried upon a death of someone.  Europeans are shocked that a great warrior like him cried. In our society if a person doesn’t cry upon death he must be a monster. Bravery doesn’t get affected by crying!

 From the top of my head I can list a few things which we copy from the Occidentals at the moment. We think:

 Western languages are superior

 Westerners have major divisions among them due to accents; this is slowly creeping into Eastern society. 

A person must be rich and speak like the rich or he/she will be denied admission to certain clubs, universities, or restaurants.

 Western dress style is superior, men covered fully and women dressed as ‘eye candy’ for them is the norm

 Western dress code/color preferences for work is acceptable only

 Women must dress like men as well

 Media in the East must show western trends to be considered up beat, Sufi or folk themes are no longer in vogue as much

 Be rich to get respect, so must acquire wealth by any means necessary

 Blue eyes make a person look pretty and green ones make him/her look like the devil (Blue is the religious color of the Christian/Jewish faith, Laura Bush dressed in blue during the inauguration of President Bush in 2001)

 Africans are an inferior race and must be insulted; their countries’ wealth is up for grabs but they must get less than any Asian country from IMF in aid befitting their lowly status.

One must live in a large mansion and own $500, 000 worth of a car, those who live in anything less are vermin

 Food must be sold, it can’t be given away to save a life for free, since Western economics says there is no free lunch. U.S. throws away hundreds of tons of wheat, rice, cheese every year to keep the market prices up of these commodities. Surely the billion people who go hungry every day on this planet would appreciate it if they were given the food that is thrown in the ocean after making a huge effort in cultivating it in the American heartland. Our politicians are not the ones to lag behind in this regard; they have sold wheat and then imported it again to make money while millions across Pakistan had to starve.

 We must eat with cutlery to be called civilized, holding the fork in the left hand and eating with it, like Satan!

 Children make fun of their parents and elders, the so called ‘generation gap’ is a thing of the past in the US but we are just beginning to feel its effects in parts of our society.

 Some Muslim countries (certain Arab countries like Lebanon etc.) make a bride groom wear a wedding band on the third finger of the left hand. This is in fact shirk for us because it is according to the Christian belief, they utter the name of their three gods (by saying “in the name of the Father the Son and the holy ghost”) and put the ring on.

 Only the other day I heard a Pakistani lady whose children go to convents stating “I cannot have any party because its Friday the thirteenth today”. 13 date falling on a Friday is considered a bad day among Christians due to religious significance for them: Jesus according to them was hanged on the cross on Friday etc. and he had thirteenth disciples and one of them betrayed him or some such thing happened which we have nothing to do with, for us odd numbers are lucky and Friday is the best of days.

 Another thing that is painful to see is that Muslims are celebrating certain days that they shouldn’t. Let me name a few:

 April Fools day. This was started in Europe as a joke on a Muslim Khalifa which they kept celebrating until their arrival in the Muslim world in the 18^th century and this custom was introduced to all the colonial people.

 Bithday party: Blowing candles on a birthday cake is believed to drive away all the evil spirits in the house!

 Mother’s day & Father’s day. For us everyday is mother’s day and everyday is Father’s day. So no desi buys cards on these days. They are considered “Hallmark holidays”, Hallmark wishes to sell its cards. So this is just a business gimmick.

 Valentine’s Day. was a day for promiscuity in the Roman times. Later on this was incorporated by St. Valentine of the Roman Catholic Church and now the companies such as Hallmark have propagated it throughout the world to increase their cards’ sales.

 All of us now use the Gregorian calendar; which was calculated in the Sistine Chapel of the Catholic Church in Rome. This calendar is wrong first of all because when they calculated it they ignored the leap years, hence the year right now is around 20012 or something like that. The abbreviation A.D is used which is Latin for Anno Domini.  We cannot use the term A.D or Anno Domini because it means in the year of our Lord. We Muslims do not consider Isa Alahis salam as our God! The Jews have begun writing C.E to mean Christian era or Common Era in papers and books instead of A.D because they too do not consider Isa Alahis salam as their God. Muslims in the US and Europe have followed suit.

 The church used to use the former Roman calendar called the Julian calendar but they switched and due to scientific ignorance they couldn’t’ calculate the years correctly. Previously the year used to begin in March, the new Gregorian calendar (named after Pope Gregory) made the New Year in January. The month of Feb was made of 28 days and once in four years it gets an extra day to make up for the miscalculation in the solar cycle. The year altogether is wrong but there is no way to correct it.

 We have our own simple calendar using the lunar cycle. Our months are simple to follow and day changes at sunset, there is no question of miscalculation if we use the Sharia given method of counting time.

We have our own medicine, our own economic and political systems. But we have been subdued into accepting European hegemony due to their superior fire power and aggressive nature during and after colonization. In today’s Eastern world, everyone feels proud when they copy the West in any sort of a way. If a European overturns a stone, we too want to see what is beneath that stone.

Dated: April 08, 2008                      All rights goes to www.mehranmag.com