By Patricia Lee Sharpe
I was about to take a close look at the continued unrest in Kashmir, the Muslim majority area that is the biggest bone of contention between India and Pakistan, when Koran-abuse allegations and visuals broadcast from Iran turned a crowd of Kashmiri nationalists, briefly, into an anti-U.S. mob. In the course of the ensuing ideologically-confused violence more than a dozen people were killed by Indian authorities attempting to restore order. As I write, 19 are dead and Kashmir is under 24-hour curfew.
Religion, it seems, is no longer a matter of conscience, but of performance, on a stage whose extent is global, thanks to viral 24/7 media coverage. Well in advance, with plenty of time to build suspense, an obscure Florida zealot announced that he would, on 9/11, burn a copy or copies of the Muslim holy book. At the very last minute, with the whole world on edge, he canceled the performance, either because his ego had already been sufficiently gratified or as a consequence of a deluge of pleas and threats from his intercontinental audience.
Non-Muslim Americans high and low, including the President of the United States, insisted that respect must be shown to the icons and holy books of all religions, not only one’s own. Another argument had more to do with U.S. security. Burn the Koran, cautioned Secretary of Defense Gates and others, and you’ll put American troops (to say nothing of other Americans within attacking distance of angry Muslims) in danger. Muslim rabble-rousers of the same bigoted ilk as the Florida trouble-maker were already promoting virtually uncontrollable demonstrations in many countries.
Now I want to turn to some words penned by another Muslim leader, who found himself dealing with a shocked world’s reaction to the prematurely leaked news that the Taliban-controlled government in Kabul planned to destroy the ancient Buddhist images in Bamiyan. The passages are from Abdul Samam Zaeef’s autobiography My Life with the Taliban. Zaeef was “a former senior member of Afghanistan’s Taliban and a principal actor in its domestic and foreign affairs.” As such, he had to deal with a Japanese delegation trying desperately to rescue the statues. If the statues were unwelcome in situ, Japan and Sri Lanka were willing to pay the full cost of removing the statues, stone by stone, and transporting them out of Afghanistan.
Zaeef, by his own account, ridiculed Japanese concern. Since the Afghans had forsaken Buddhism for the true religion, he said, the Japanese should do the same. “Furthermore,” he sneers, in retrospect, “the Buddha statues are made out of stone, by the hands of men. They hold no real value for religion, so why were they [the Japanese] so anxious to preserve them?”
Actually, the Japanese had produced a good reply. “The Ka’aba too was also made of stone and by the hands of men.” Yet millions of Muslims, they observed, circumambulate it. That logic was too much for Zaeef. “After that,” he reports, “I didn’t reason with them for much longer.”
Poor Zaeef. For him, “reasoning” clearly implied, not listening, not trying to understand the Buddhists’ point of view, just bowling those pagans over with irrefutable arguments for destruction, which obviously the Japanese and others didn’t buy. “There was nothing I could do to satisfy the delegations,” Zaeef complains. Of course not! The Taliban can’t co-exist with Shi’a or even with non-Talib Sunni. No wonder the whole business was “tiresome.”
And so the Bamiyan statues were destroyed, despite world opinion. But the Koran wasn’t burned in Florida, because most Americans, though non-Muslim, opposed the desecration. I’d to see a little more appreciation for that.
I was about to take a close look at the continued unrest in Kashmir, the Muslim majority area that is the biggest bone of contention between India and Pakistan, when Koran-abuse allegations and visuals broadcast from Iran turned a crowd of Kashmiri nationalists, briefly, into an anti-U.S. mob. In the course of the ensuing ideologically-confused violence more than a dozen people were killed by Indian authorities attempting to restore order. As I write, 19 are dead and Kashmir is under 24-hour curfew.
Religion, it seems, is no longer a matter of conscience, but of performance, on a stage whose extent is global, thanks to viral 24/7 media coverage. Well in advance, with plenty of time to build suspense, an obscure Florida zealot announced that he would, on 9/11, burn a copy or copies of the Muslim holy book. At the very last minute, with the whole world on edge, he canceled the performance, either because his ego had already been sufficiently gratified or as a consequence of a deluge of pleas and threats from his intercontinental audience.
Non-Muslim Americans high and low, including the President of the United States, insisted that respect must be shown to the icons and holy books of all religions, not only one’s own. Another argument had more to do with U.S. security. Burn the Koran, cautioned Secretary of Defense Gates and others, and you’ll put American troops (to say nothing of other Americans within attacking distance of angry Muslims) in danger. Muslim rabble-rousers of the same bigoted ilk as the Florida trouble-maker were already promoting virtually uncontrollable demonstrations in many countries.
Yet, even as PressTV, an Iranian government enterprise, was doing its best to generate mayhem, a voice in Kashmir was sounding a rather different note. For present purposes, it doesn’t matter which faction Hurriyat (G) Chairman, Syed Ali Geelani represents, when it comes to positioning Kashmir between India and Pakistan. Here are some of the things he is reported to have said in recent days:
These acts will not harm the Quran as it is safe in our hearts and guarded by Almighty Allah as well....Our protests should be peaceful and we have to present ourselves as oppressed . Arson and violence only gives the Indian troopers a chance to kill us....It also weakens our struggle as vested interests and the Indian government always look for such incidents to sabotage the ongoing Movement in Kashmir. We have to remain cautious and it is our duty to safeguard the minorities in Kashmir and maintain peace and Harmony which is very important at this crucial phase of our struggle....
I can understand that emotions of Kashmiris Muslims have been hurt by the desecration of Quran. But at the same time, we have to control our emotions and not create such a situation which could given chance to vested interests to defame Islam and our movement.Like American leaders’ appeals against Koran-burning, Geelani’s statements entwine principle with pragmatism. Above all, he wants protesters not to be distracted by stupid provocations, when they should be concentrating on the important thing: Indian misgovernment. He is, in short, prioritizing politics, not religion. That he tried and succeeded says much about Kashmir, which is not, by and large, a natural home for Islamic fundamentalism. Most intolerance is infused by Pakistan, to make Indian rule difficult, if not impossible.
Now I want to turn to some words penned by another Muslim leader, who found himself dealing with a shocked world’s reaction to the prematurely leaked news that the Taliban-controlled government in Kabul planned to destroy the ancient Buddhist images in Bamiyan. The passages are from Abdul Samam Zaeef’s autobiography My Life with the Taliban. Zaeef was “a former senior member of Afghanistan’s Taliban and a principal actor in its domestic and foreign affairs.” As such, he had to deal with a Japanese delegation trying desperately to rescue the statues. If the statues were unwelcome in situ, Japan and Sri Lanka were willing to pay the full cost of removing the statues, stone by stone, and transporting them out of Afghanistan.
Zaeef, by his own account, ridiculed Japanese concern. Since the Afghans had forsaken Buddhism for the true religion, he said, the Japanese should do the same. “Furthermore,” he sneers, in retrospect, “the Buddha statues are made out of stone, by the hands of men. They hold no real value for religion, so why were they [the Japanese] so anxious to preserve them?”
Actually, the Japanese had produced a good reply. “The Ka’aba too was also made of stone and by the hands of men.” Yet millions of Muslims, they observed, circumambulate it. That logic was too much for Zaeef. “After that,” he reports, “I didn’t reason with them for much longer.”
Poor Zaeef. For him, “reasoning” clearly implied, not listening, not trying to understand the Buddhists’ point of view, just bowling those pagans over with irrefutable arguments for destruction, which obviously the Japanese and others didn’t buy. “There was nothing I could do to satisfy the delegations,” Zaeef complains. Of course not! The Taliban can’t co-exist with Shi’a or even with non-Talib Sunni. No wonder the whole business was “tiresome.”
And so the Bamiyan statues were destroyed, despite world opinion. But the Koran wasn’t burned in Florida, because most Americans, though non-Muslim, opposed the desecration. I’d to see a little more appreciation for that.