So we can
say there were three kinds of people last Friday, when there was a public
holiday in protest against the thoughtless video of Sam Bascile which ridiculed
the Prophet Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Him) of Muslims all over the world. One
group consisted of those people who went out on the roads and streets to show
their love for Prophet Muhmmad (PBUH). Among this group there were people who
protested peacefully and wanted to show the world their unity and some people
who wanted to break things, loot banks, set on fire buildings and beat up those
who hinder their way i-e police. The Second group consisted of people who were
active on social media discussing what’s going on, sharing pictures and updates
and condemning both the film makers and violent protesters. The third group
consisted of people who just spent the holiday at home face booking, listening
to Bollywood songs and/or watching movies.
Based on my little cultural and social experience in the United States I would like to share my thoughts on the issue. Before reading further, be it known that I’m a Muslim who has a great reverence for Prophet Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Him) who came as a messenger of God to preach love for every human being. He taught not to cause any harm to anyone without any reason and preached high of forgiveness.
Talking about Americans, majority of them are loving, caring and achievement oriented people. Their society is individualistically shaped with emphasis on individual responsibility. A person is responsible for his own actions. No doubt, there could be lobbying and team work but most of the times one couldn’t stop an individual from doing something because the constitution of America insofar holds no such thing against individual freedom. America’s founding ideal was the principle of individual rights. If you are forcing a person not to do something you are violating his/her individual right or in other words, the constitution. Ayn Rand, a famous American philosopher writes in her book, Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, “In a capitalist society, all human relationships are voluntary. Men are free to cooperate or not, to deal with one another or not, as their own individual judgments, convictions and interests dictate." This manifests the majority thought in American life and constitution. Now, the issue here is formulation of a subsequent law or set of rules to define the limits of freedom. On philosophical grounds if there are limits there’s no freedom, albeit the notion of freedom with responsibility is the need of the time. Which one is better? Is it Freedom of speech or inciting to riot? At least on international level and global context the rules should be mollified to create greater acceptance and harmony among the human beings on the rapidly globalizing planet. So, the first and foremost sensible thing would be to take the issue at UN’s level and ponder over the possible formulation of a law which restrains people from being involved in disgrace of sacred books or personalities. It would also be worth mentioning that so far no single Muslim has been involved in disgracing Bible or Jesus Christ because it is forbidden in the Holy Quran to degrade anything sacred for someone. If some has done it (which I don’t know) or happens to do it, he/she is not a Muslim, rather be called miscreant.
Secondly, due to scientific and technological advancement far greater than us, there is a huge mutual-understanding-gap between Pakistanis and Americans. For example, people of the subcontinent are context oriented while Americans are content oriented. People in this part of the world are collectivistic and emotionally a little more charged than Americans. To prove Sam Bascile and Terry Jones wrong and make others understand certain issues, morals or ideals, the best is to engage in convincing through education, logic and rationale. An international seminar on the life of Muhammad Peace Be Upon Him, for example, would be the best reaction where scholars should present his ideals and why they think he was the greatest man on earth.
Last but not least, faith is something more close to emotion and divinity than rationale and reality. However, that doesn’t mean reason and faith can’t marry. If we keep things at two extremes, life would be miserable. The romantic merging of faith and rationale, divinity and reality, science and theology, individualism and collectivism, and east and west is the need of the time to create global peace and understanding.
