Okay so before going into the heart of the matter at hands, let us do a recap of the blasphemy issue. For there is huge number of people out there, including Islamic scholars, who opine that, in the face of blasphemy, ignore! If we split the opinions of the Muslims into five categories, here are the claims. Group A says, go for the kill, even if you have to do it with your own hands. Group B says, go for the kill, but let the government do it. Group C says, protest and boycott. Group D says, just ignore so that the blasphemy would die its own death. Group E says, be forbearing and forgive, so that people could see the benevolence of Islam. And Group F says, chill, its freedom of speech!
Of course, the Group F would not be so chill if some stand up comedian stands up one day and starts cracking jokes and cartoons about their deceased parents. As for the benevolence of Islam, people have already taken it for granted. Sharing a bit of a personal episode, I once had a skirmish with a family member. At the end of it I said, ‘ Let it go, I forgive you … ’ Believe it or not, the person retorted by saying, ‘ Well, you wear the abaya, so its no big deal if you forgive … you are supposed to forgive! ’ So you see, in these times of not practicing Islam being the norm, practicing Islam has become synonymous to the Christian benevolence if someone will slap me, I will turn my other cheek for another slap which originally came to soften the hearts of the Jews which had become hard and corrupt over time in the olden times. Group D has a point, to ignore, but if you match it with the prophetic era, the Muslim community generally ignored blasphemy during the Meccan era and generally did not ignore during the Madinite era. Why? Well, its simple common sense. America arrested the Iraqi journalist who threw a shoe at President Bush, but America would not have bothered anything at all if President had been a nobody Bush. So after Prophet Muhammed SAW had been recognized and declared as a prophet and head-of-state post migration, no more nonsense would be ignored or tolerated.
Now zero tolerance requires some ideological, political and economical strength. And that is what PM Imran Khan is talking about. That the West, mostly falling into category F and below from religion point-of-view, might make a Tom and Jerry game out of the whole issue and attempt blasphemy one country after the other, to tease the entire Muslim world. So how many embassies will we shut down? It would be like lots of Jerries popping out of different mouse holes and Tom Pakistan would be going bonkers attacking one mouse hole after another. All the Jerries, the non-Muslim countries, the Arab emirates and the desi liberals would be having a good laugh at poor Tom.
Am I trying to say PM Imran Khan is doing right? Am I trying to say that Pakistan has no choice but to continue diplomatic relations with France? Am I trying to say we have to look after our economic welfare over blasphemy? No. I think the French ambassador should have been kicked out without a second thought the night France displayed the unholy cartoons on its buildings throughout France. Even taking a time period of three months for an action was an action too late. And then saying ‘Sorry we cannot do it … ’ is unacceptable.
But the problem is, Prophet Muhammed SAW also warned us by the wisdom that our deeds shall become our leaders. So let us have a look at our deeds. Facebook committed blasphemy in May 2010 by announcing the ‘Everybody Draw Muhammed Day’. The indignant Muslim youth took Facebook by the storm and quit it. Some genius software engineers from Lahore quickly came up with a Millat Facebook as an alternate and invited everybody to join. Almost everybody did, but only for a meagre two months and then crawled back to the blasphemous Facebook. I hung around Millat Facebook to catch the Muslim crowd for about three years, only to stand there with only a handful of people. Eventually, I crawled back to Facebook in 2013 too, looking for the lost Muslim youth. Shame on and upon all of us.
Then Youtube did it too by hosting the blasphemous movies. Google is the parent company and their patronage. And we all have gmail accounts, right? And we all know that Nestle supports Israel. Coca-cola factories are on Palestinian lands and Lays chips, an American product, is not a friend of ours either. We cannot even resist eating bananas and cooking tomatoes coming from India. Poor Gourmet Cola, Oye Hoye Chips and Haleeb yoghurt are left stranded in the stands just because, ‘ Its not the same taste! ’ To hell with the taste! These foreign products are bleeding our economy and pumping the cash into wars and occupations against Muslims, and we are paying them out of our, literally, bloody pockets. And then we are angry at PM Imran Khan, that why is he thinking about the economic risk of a country of 224 million population?
Be the character that you want PM Imran Khan to be. Kick out blasphemous, anti-Islam and anti-Muslim services and products from your homes and then see where the French ambassador ends up !
No comments:
Post a Comment