BaKhabar, December 2010, Page-3

better light a candle than curse the darkness

BaKhabar, Vol 3, Issue 12, December 2010

Snakes in Your Life - Beautiful Analogy

... Kaunain Shahidi *

"Venomous snakes were being ferried from Africa to Europe in a plane. Unfortunately the person who packed the snakes forgot to lock the box in which the snakes were put. Once the plane had taken off and responding to the movement of the plane, the snakes found their way out of the box. Passengers in the plane could see various snakes on the isle. They screamed, some fainted and the brave ones sought refugee wherever they could within the plane."

The air hostess ran to the pilot to inform him of this scary incident. The pilot quickly informs the air controllers on the ground. "We are very sorry, says his boss. We forgot to lock the box where we put the snakes. They are indeed some of the most poisonous snakes in the world".

"So where can I land? Please advise me before passengers are bitten", asks the shaken pilot.

"No do not land, stay there for a minute, let me think", advises the boss. Surely this sounds like stupid advice to the impatient pilot. But he has to follow the orders. A minute is too long for someone faced with such trouble he thinks. But he has to follow orders.

After a minute, the boss contacts him. "At what altitude are you flying? He asks. "300", says the pilot. "Go higher", advises the boss. "But the snakes will...." Before he finishes his sentence the boss bellows "I said go higher!!". He complies. Now what's your altitude? Asks the boss. "500.66", answers the shaken pilot.
"Go higher". "But sir.....". "I said, go higher, captain." He complies. By now the snakes are all over the plane, even one male member of the cabin crew collapses. It is unbearable. A few have been bitten and have instantly died. But still, the majority keeps on seeking refugee.
"Now captain, keep on going higher", says the boss. The pilot complies and keeps on going higher and higher. "Now what's your altitude?", asks the pilot.. "I am reaching 1200", replies the pilot. "Now I am on 1200", he says quickly. "Now stay there. Tell the cabin crew that at this altitude the snakes are now harmless. They can just pick them up with their hands and return them to the box and this time they should not forget to lock.", advises the boss.

This is true. One cabin crew member tries holding one snake. It is numb and harmless. Soon it is a game within the plane with passengers, some for the first time holding snakes in their hands and returning them to the box. "Look at this black mamba, it was really after me. Now I can even throw it and catch it like a ball", says one passenger even throwing and catching the black mamba. This was the end of the seemingly dangerous ordeal in the plane. Even those who had fainted were resuscitated and they gained consciousness.
Now what is the lesson of the story?
In 2011, the snakes or problems of 2010 will follow you. However there is need for you to increase your altitude in prayer. And surely, there is a certain point in praying that you reach and this is the point when even the most seemingly unconquerable problems are defeated; they lose power. Insha'Allah !

(* A freelance writer, motivator based in KSA, can be reached at kaunaingayawi@gmail.com)
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SAVING THE SHIP OF ISLAM: Realising a symbiosis with other cultures
... Manzoorul Haque <manhaq@yahoo.com>, Patna

There was a scene in Titanic where the supporting actor, who was engaged to the heroine (Kate Winslet), was chasing the runaway couple – the hero and the heroine. There were two stories going on. There was a chase. And the ship was sinking.
For quite some time both stories moved independently that is without affecting the course of each other. The man chasing the duo was influenced by two factors. He had not seen the true nature of the accident which made him immune to the external circumstances. Since we as observers of the movie knew exactly what had happened and also from our knowledge of history we knew the fate of the liner, we felt the ridiculousness of the chase. The chaser was also so determined in his emotional pursuit that he had blocked his rational thinking for a time. This described his internal situation.

Can we apply this scene to the life of a community – our community to be exact?

Let us have a look at the community life of the Muslims. This community began its journey from the day of the conferment of prophet-hood on Prophet Muhammad (PBUH). Along its march in history the community went on to acquire size –to the extent that at one stage there was little need to look outward. The enormity of the civilization it created had eclipsed the known spaces of the world. Its psychological separation from the rest of the world became so complete that the outside world did not exist for the Islamic world. That psyche of the Muslims continues to exist till this date. It is not possible for a Muslim to visualize how the outside world is continuously impinging on the Muslim world. But the Muslim inside has no such cultural habit to dissociate himself for a moment to have a look at things from the outside, even to know what is hitting the Muslims. That the ship of Islam is being hit by an iceberg is not a matter of concern for him. Like our anti-hero he is busy chasing the bride. He is fully embroiled in his own silly story whose ridiculousness is visible to an objective eye. He is engaged in terrible fights over non-issues such as splitting of hairs on the finer aspects of his ideology forgetting that the forging of unity is possible only at the macro-level because the devil does lie in details; because at the micro-level we have to necessarily handle our affairs not by unity, but by tolerance of the differences. He has ceased to see the non-issues rationally for what those are. This describes the inside situation of the Muslim world. Meanwhile the ship of Islam is sinking steadily because of continuous impact of the icebergs outside. I can prepare a very long ‘bride-list’ of issues that the Muslim community is busy chasing but I am sure most of us can prepare a reasonably impressive list. Besides I would like to consign this list-making to the micro-world of little consequence for me.
My focus is on the macro-aspects of Muslim life - the inability of the Muslims to develop a proper language for the management of their affairs. The development of language includes not only the physical aspect of language but also the nuance of language and the culture associated with the practice of communication in the contemporary world. Then comes the need for the Muslims to manage their ideological unity at the level of principles and learn to shun the differences at the level of practice, which is inevitably a local affair. This shall take care of the inter-sect rivalry of Muslims to the extent possible. Of course this is possible, as also many other programs that follow, only by deploying the necessary language skill developed in the first instance. From here the Muslim mind must move on to managing the inter-community relationship. There is no point in blaming that the Palestine question cannot be solved because of Israel, the Kashmir problem cannot be solved because of India, Chechnya because of Russia, Uyghur because of China, Af-Pak because of US etc. etc. The point is that the onus to resolve these conflicts lies on Muslims in order to be able to move on.

I am afraid there is an umbilical link between the continuation of these geo-political conflicts, and Muslims’ inability to forge ideological unity at the level of principles and to shun the differences at the level of practice. A Muslim’s inability to grapple with the ideological situation has led him to acquiesce into accepting the stalemates in other areas of community life. Unconsciously, he knows that the scope for movement is very limited with an ideology suffering from an internal siege. Therefore the will to bring about breakthroughs in other areas is very weak. The result is that the weak will is not strong enough to manage the inter-community relationship and thus all matters are pending in his life. All out effort is needed for the strengthening of this will by the proper resolution of the internal conflicts first and then by the employment of the right semantics to carry on a discourse with the rest of the world.
Equipped with this kind of home work alone, the Muslim world can see what is impinging on it from outside and develop necessary symbiosis with the outside world. If today a Muslim is informed that there is grave danger of the outside forces sinking the ship of Islam, he is likely to say that we should try to destroy the outside world. That shows his lack of understanding of the outside world which also manifests in his inability to see things from outside even in self-defence. In fact if he can step out of his cocoon he would know that the only rational possibility is to strike a symbiosis with the outside world that is, the rest of the world - the non-Islamic world. Any other formulation is doomed to failure. It is important for the Muslims to understand this. Very, very important!! I have to write this because I know, a very large number of Muslims want to blast the outside world by waving a magical wand from inside their cocoon. Meanwhile the ship is sinking.

Sinking Ship? Let's do something. Now, Or Never!