Religion, Politics and Patriotism

“Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel.” This was said by Samuel Johnson in 1775 and holds true even today.
I thought of this quotation and Samuel Johnson when I read a comment by one of friends posted a question on his page,” Can anyone who does not believe in Khatam e Nabuwat (belief in finality of prophet hood) or is against military or judiciary be patriotic?”
This type of emotionalism displayed on social media even by our mature educated class is disappointing and reflects an intellectual confusion or superficial religiosity, unshaken belief in one’s piety and a divine sanction to judge others. This has become a source of so many social conflicts ultimately ending in use of abusive, filthy language and bitterness of relations among friends and even relatives.
One thing must be clear that no one has the authority to judge other’s faith. This would be done only by the God on the day of judgment and not by us, the mortals here on Facebook/Google pages. No Muslim is against prophet and non-Muslims are obviously not expected to believe in this concept.
Moreover, religious and sectarian affiliations should not be equated with patriotism. There are millions of non-Muslims in our country and they are as loyal to Pakistan as we the Muslims claims to be. Stoking religious differences to spread hatreds and suspicions is a dangerous game to play. An attitude of ‘Holier than thou’ is the root cause religious and sectarian bigotry.
Similarly, no one is against, military or judiciary. They are our brothers/sisters. Every family has members working in military, judiciary and in fact in so many other civilian departments. Being critical of someone in a department should not be taken as a comment against the whole department or as a final proof of being anti-state and thus worthy of being lynched on social media. This type of argument is either too naïve or thrown with some ulterior motive.
Every section of society has good or bad people. Like politicians, some military or judiciary officers showed conduct less than ideal and at times behaved in a way unbecoming of their statuses. In fact, our history is replete with tragic blunders where political class, military or judiciary adopted policies which, though touted as a piece of ultimate wisdom at the time; finally proved to be wrong and went against the national interests playing havoc with very foundations of the country.
We should be aware of such language as this strategy to spread suspicions and hatred against others by throwing subtle hints and innuendoes about faith, patriotism or loyalty about a section of society is always done with some sinister motive and promote fissiparous trends with potential of breaking threads of our social fabric.
Many of our friends on social media are young and probably don’t know that the first blame of being an Indian agent and so an anti-state, was labelled on Fatima Jinnah (Sister of founder of Pakistan, Mohammad Ali Jinnah) when she decided to contest election against the military dictator, General ® Ayub Khan (then president of Pakistan).
His son Captain ® Gauhar Ayub led a procession in Karachi where a bitch was dragged publicly in the procession and that bitch was labelled as traitor Fatima Jinnah.

 

                                         Politics, Religion and Social media

The recent election in Pakistan is over but the bitterness it created in its wake has refused to die down, leaving behind a highly charged and polarized society. Ideally public should now calm down and let the new incumbents take over and plan to execute their manifesto, promised during a prolonged hectic campaign. However, politics is still so mired in controversies that the blame game with an aim to pull the rug is on.

Unfortunately, this polarization has affected even mature educated people, who are seen becoming emotional on social media for their favorite leaders; leading to bitterness and use of filthy language unbecoming of their status and dignity. Often this leads to heated debates, using derogatory comments against opposite political parties and their leaders.

Politics is part of our life and as an educated class we must discuss and share ideas and issues of national interest but this should be done with logic and arguments without throwing acerbic remarks which at times hurt our own friends and relatives with different political affiliations.

At times politics can be a ruthless power game with no consideration for morality. This is happening right now when we see some parties trying to use religious card to stokes religious/ sectarian hatred for political point scoring.

Like in the past, recent election results also indicate that nation has rejected religious parties including those who are known for their involvement in religious and sectarian killing. In an attempt of mainstreaming of banned outfits, state removed the legal barriers and allowed some of them to participate in the election.

From outcome of election, It seems our public is more sensible than our state.

However now in a scramble to win the power, parties are feeling no qualm to appease extremist outfits while blaming opponents of having soft corners for non-Muslims. Thus, they are trying to be more pious and devoted for the cause of Islam.

Each one is blaming others as being sympathetic to non-Muslims. They have no idea that this amounts to playing with a fire which has the potential to engulf the whole nation. If situation spirals out of control we might fall back into the deep abyss of extremism and bigotry from which we have been striving hard to come out for more than a decade.

Unfortunately, It seems this narrative is selling, as public is seen to be swept up in religious frenzy and political differences are metamorphosing to slippery fields of extremist viewpoint. A spillover of political tactics to rekindle religious hatred is being observed on social media where many people have jumped in to post 'hate-material' against non-Muslims.

Social media might become a battle ground for crusades with the risk of pent up frustrations being let loose, war cries raised to win divine blessings by attacking on hapless innocent people.

                                                      Secret side of Feica

Feica R-a (Rafiq Ahmad), needs no formal introduction.

I have been his fan for last 20 years through his contributions to my favorite newspaper, 'DAWN'

Recently, thanks to social media, we have become friends as well and it was my honor to know that such an accomplished artist of international stature, had a good opinion about my work as well.

Despite being known as a cartoonist (or perhaps because of this) very few people know him as a wonderful painter as well. His pictures reflects that secret side of him. A pleasant surprise for his followers.

A study of his work depicts him as an extremely sensitive person, the one endowed with a keen sense of observation, depth of analysis, extremely refined sense of humor and a biting sarcasm.

His art reveals the tragedy of being a sensitive person in this society who feels an inner anguish on the rapid degeneration of social fabric and trials and tribulations faced by common people at a loss to make any sense of their surroundings.

The sensitive, intellectual person shown in his cartoons is probably Feica himself who in the words of Ghalib appears as

 

بنا کے فقیروں کا ہم بھیس غالب

تماشہ اہلِ کرم دیکھتے ہیں

 

 Bad experience, repeated eleven times

 

COVID-19 pandemic is raging across the land. All types of funny prescriptions can be seen, contrary to scientific guidelines. It appears, all hell of quackery has broken loose. The blunderbuss approach to treat patients without logic is especially obvious in mild to moderate cases of COVID-19 which comprise about 80 % of patients. Even professors of Medicine are advising and treating patients to start vitamins to ‘build Immunity’ (God knows what they mean actually), putting even afebrile patients on antibiotics (even multiple antibiotics. Azithromycin and Cefixime being the hot favorites). Tab Aspirin and even anticoagulants being advised in mild to moderate cases. Dexamethosone is being touted as a panacea and started on the first indication of infection. Antiviral drugs are also being administrated to patients without solid scientific indications. There are still physicians who insist the antimalarial and Ivermectin have a role not only in therapeutics but also in prophylaxis and these drugs are being prescribed to immediate household contacts of patients. All this goes against the consensus among international medical fraternity but who cares.

It appears as if the doctors are either unaware of the latest guidelines or they simply don’t bother as long as the show is going on. To me the second option sounds more plausible especially in case of senior academicians. The rot starts with the way medical professionals are trained and groomed. Medicine is an evidence-based science. All diagnostic and therapeutic decisions must be based on the latest available medical guidelines. This point though emphasized in exams is unfortunately ignored in clinical practice; sometimes even by senior faculty members. This ultimately becomes a source of misinformation for young colleagues who tend to emulate their seniors. During ward rounds a junior pointing out that a particular decision was contrary to scientific recommendations might be admonished that books were just rubbish and useless in practical life. Here experience reins. This approach is not only grossly incorrect but unbecoming of a teacher. These seniors need to understand that experience of any person, irrespective of his/her stature can’t challenge the conclusions based on scientifically designed controlled trials. Interestingly, in exams, every one regurgitates the information given in books but later on discarding everything learned so painstakingly during training. They feel, the bookish knowledge was only for the sake of a degree and now they have a license to practice according to their own wish and instinct.

May be the roots of contradiction go deeper as there appears to be something seriously wrong with the way science subjects are being taught in our schools and colleges. Science always comes second in authenticity when compared to local wisdom or theological teachings; something fickle and unreliable, something to be skeptical, which might mislead the unwary. Simple scientific concepts are scoffed and ridiculed during classes and students’ study without believing them. Theory of evolution being a prime example. To students, it gives an impression that scientific facts need to be memorized only to earn the laurels, no compulsion to believe them as hard facts and laws of nature.

How can we explain the prescriptions from highly qualified doctors containing instructions to take indigenous medicines, euphemistically called Tib-e-Nabwi (about which they have no idea), or writing holy verses for their supposed powers of spiritual cures? Interesting the same faculty members would fail anyone mentioning these treatments in viva voce. This apparent contradiction can only be explained on the basis of ‘loss of faith’ in science. 

Most of the prescriptions in clinical practice contain H2 blockers as if there is an epidemic of peptic ulcer in Pakistan. Anxiolytics being given for years, though in teaching everyone cautions against their use for more than 2-3 weeks. Advising Vitamins is so common, even diabetic neuropathies being treated with injections of Vitamin B12. Even in tertiary care hospitals hypertensive crises being treated by IV injections of Furosemide to drop the pressures in factions of seconds. No one bothers about the sense or the possible consequences in future. 

All these issues remind me of an incident. Once when we were trainees, a consultant claimed that he had eleven years of experience. When this was brought to the notice of our professor, he smilingly quipped that it was not eleven years of experience, it’s just one year of bad experience, repeated eleven times.

 

 

Looking back

In our childhood, we used to read stories in which a prince while going on some expedition was advised by a sage; never to look back otherwise he would be petrified.
Same holds true in real life. Despite all distractions one shouldn’t look back. We all have some nostalgic feelings for the past. We long to visit those places full of pleasant memories for us. To go and relive and experience those moments of bliss once again.

Many a times we are disappointed.
Those places are not the same, at least for us. The people we look far are long gone, those voices faded years ago. It is like visiting a haunted place charming us to come forward and we in its spell become oblivious of a deep chasm of time and space developed; separating us from those memories of yesteryears.
Times we are looking far are lost somewhere, never to be recovered and the people without whom life seemed impossible once; are nowhere to be seen.
The lights, laughter, cries of joys and visions full of hope and ambitions are found to be replaced by closed forbidding doors, dark, cold places with no one to wait for us or welcome us on arrival. Rooms empty with echo of our own footsteps, things once collected with fondness covered in thick dust of time.
Deep inside we all know that no one invited us there and there would be no one to see us off with eyes dim with emotions and appeals to come back again as early as possible.
Deep in anguish, we go out to search for something familiar, someone known to us but faces seem strange, blurred. Shops and bazars though full of lights and hustle bustle of humanity, feel devoid of spirit, figures moving in a thick haze of alienation, unrecognizable. Everything seems to swim in an ocean of unreality.
In despair one retreats to the silence of darkness. In the distance, call of Muezzin opens a floodgate of bitter/ sweat memories and increase the feeling of loneliness.
Time to go out and leave this place to avoid being shattered with grief!
Is it really possible to do so and shed part of us?
Maybe one is already petrified by carrying those relics of the past within one’s soul all the time.

 

 

 

Street photography: A hot debate

(My article has been published in Pakistan photography magazine)

Street photography is a vibrant and joyous occupation for a hundred different reasons. It has faced blazing criticism, occasional legal and ethical backlashes, besides stirring debates on public television and social media. Most street photographers operates on the borderline between intrusion and observation. Even more problematic is the tradition of clandestine photography. The great Walker Evan took a whole series of provocative photographs with a concealed camera on New York subways.

Is street photography, an intrusion on someone’s personal space? Can anyone claim privacy in a public space? Laws vary in different countries. There is a need to be aware of local laws for those interested in documentary photography involving images shot on public places.

Photography, as always, has lot of grey areas, where ethical concerns are involved. Is any image of human misery and poverty, an insult to human dignity? Should we present only a happy face of society? An old man dragging a heavy load, a rag picker boy sifting through trash; do these pictures attempt to exploit human misery for self-promotion? Is showing social hypocrisy in a photograph is a breach of social rights?

Art should not be judgmental, but it is often perceived that way. Sometimes it is the viewers who interpret an image through the haze of their own understanding and that their redemption is to put the ‘blame on the boogie’—the artist. Naked children sitting on the trash, addicts lying on the pavements, or a physically disabled persons begging around the market are reality of our lives as much as hunger and war. It is not something to be pushed under the carpet and pretend that if it does not exist in images, it does not exist at all.

Famous street photographer Eric Kim says, ‘as a photographer, I see myself as a sociologist with a camera as my research tool to observe and record the people and world around me’. It reminds me of Pulitzer Prize winning photojournalist, Stanley Forman and his shot ‘The soiling of old glory’. The picture stirred great emotions when it was posted. A censor on such art would seriously hamper the growth of artistic expression and its potential to create a tolerant and enlightened society.

The picture shown above is of an elderly bearded owner of a boutique, trying to cover his face to avoid the offence of being photographed while standing with mannequins wearing sleeveless low-neck dress. While some may object on this as candid capture, for others it is an excellent social satire on our confused moral and religious criteria, 

Umair Ghani, a Pakistani photographer once commented on one this picture, ‘Commerce and Art play a tug of war with Faith and provoke greater conflicts and challenges for those who consciously focus on such concerns. These trends affect everyday life and our understanding of it. Some societies have learnt to sustain that shock; others are too fragile to come to terms with this recent awareness’.

 Images of women covered in shuttlecock veils shopping in posh markets with explicit advertising contents show challenges presented to prevailing cultural trends in our society. Such images do not stab our cultural façade, but helps us document our bleeding wounds of social confusion and to some extent stitch and heal them. This is serious level of street photography. It is above ridicule or criticism; It is a commentary and interpretation.

Furthermore, street photography is a contested sphere in which all our collective anxieties converge. Terrorism, pedophilia, intrusion and surveillance. Even an attempt to capture the culture of marginalized sections of society is seen by some as a potential threat to the ideology of Pakistan with a possibility of creating fissures in society.

The photography codes of ethics from the US National Press Photographers Association have some solid points and guidelines. Now is the time to address this pressing need to discuss and review those points within our own legal and cultural parameters’

 

#pakistan #punjab #art #photography #streetphotography #culture #culturalphotography #documentaryphotography See less

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Art in a time of Faith

This is a time of faith. To publicly express and display religious sentiments, exhorting others to do the same. A time difficult to avoid being swept in a frenzy especially when being conformist seems easy and safe. Any attempt to keep aloof carries the risk of being brandished as an infidel.

Even if the situation is not so bad (at least for the time being) pursuing art with an aim to uphold higher values of humanism seems precarious. The compulsion to take sides with everyone getting fanatic makes it difficult of practicing art with a dream of a peaceful world.

In this milieu of growing mistrust and xenophobia, art, a universal language; has the potential to make us realize that people all over the world are essentially the same. However there is a serious threat, that this might be lost in thick dust being raised by religious hatred and jingoism of holy wars.

However even in this situation, creating or experiencing art can at least relax and soothe us, though we may fail to make others feel the same The process of creating art engages both the body and the mind and provides us a chance to look inward and reflect. Experiencing art also gives us reason to think and be reflective or may inspire us to keep faith in human and ethical values. Art provides a release, a place for reflection and a way to engage our whole selves. We need art to keep our sanity.

This reminds me of words of, art critic Raymond Steiner

There was a time when the world thought that the artist was chosen, and that they were on a mission not to tell us what we have but what we might have if we’d only get our act together and see beyond the obvious. Art was supposed to transcend life, not imitate it. Crap is obvious—and I for one am wearied by its presence. Show me please the light at the end of the tunnel. Show me yet once again how beauty can nourish my inner being. Don’t show me what is, show me what can be, and how I might get there—even if only in my mind—as I lose myself in a painting, a musical score, a poem, or photograph.”

#art #photography #culture #Pakistan #religion #Islam #photography