TGB: Tierno Bokar and the religion of the heart

The Well (of taqlid and ijtihad)

"The well that receives its waters only from outside itself receives at the same time a thousand things that have been caught up by the current. Such a well is exposed to all this litter and to something even more dangerous: to find itself dry as soon as its water has been drawn out. On the other hand, the well whose “eye” is situated within itself has no need of rain to fill it. Its water, filtered through the cracks of the earth, remains abundant, pure, and fresh, even during times of greatest heat. It is the same with those whose faith in God depends on outward relations and with those who take their faith from their own meditation and intimate conviction. The first are subject to variation and their faith is not exempt from doubt. The second group remains steadfast. They are in the full Light, the full moon of their faith, which never knows darkness."

The Rainbow

"The rainbow owes its beauty to the variety of its shades and colors. In the same way, we consider the voices of various believers that rise up from all parts of the earth as a symphony of praises addressing God, Who alone can be Unique. We bitterly deplore the scorn that certain religious people heap on the form of divine things, a scorn that often leads them to reject their neighbor’s hymn because it contrasts with theirs. To fight against this tendency, brother in God, whatever be the religion or the congregation to which you are affiliated, meditate at length on this verse:

The creation of the heavens and the earth, and the diversity of your languages and of your colors are many wonders for those who reflect.  (Qur'an 30:22)

There is something here for everyone to meditate upon."

Truth.   Goodness.   Beauty.

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Source: A Spirit of Tolerance: The Inspiring Life of Tierno Bokar,  by Ahmadou Hampate Ba, Bloomington: World Wisdom Books, 2008.

 

Propaganda and language

"Do not believe it until it's been officially denied." Claud Cockburn

"Let me control the media, and I will turn any nation into a herd of pigs."                                                                    Joseph Goebbels 

"Those who seek to dominate our behavior first seek to dominate our speech. They seek to obscure meaning. They make war on language."                                                                 Chris Hedges

 

It is a commonplace to say that Americans are the most propagandized people in the world, the most misinformed and dis-informed. We Pakistanis are not far behind. For example, most, if not all, Pakistanis have some pet conspiracy theory up their sleeves. The most popular ones are: Yehudi saazish, CIA, MI6, Mossad, RAW or that generic evil mastermind behind all mysterious and mystified things, the “foreign hand” (behrooni haath)---the all-purpose, all-mighty explanation that is so beloved of the bungling Pakistani ruling elite of all political stripes. I am not really against what is now disparagingly called “conspiracy thinking”. In fact, the expression “conspiracy theory” itself is a conspiracy construct, the creation of conspiring vested interests! It was first used, intentionally and systematically, by the “invisible” establishment forces (now commonly known as the Deep State) in post-WW2 USA, mainly to discredit those who refused to toe the official line on the John F. Kennedy assassination and the related narrative on the Cuban missile crisis. The label of “conspiracy theorist” is akin to name-calling, a propaganda shaming term typically used by the privileged and powerful against the powerless with the sole purpose of discrediting them. But the way it is used nowadays, indiscriminately and vindictively, it is more of a psychological thought stopper. In a world where everything and everybody is suspect, especially the official narratives of the ruling classes everywhere, it is often employed by the mouthpieces of the high and mighty to slight, contain or control certain dissenting narratives, and to prevent critical thinking. So, one must be mindful of the pernicious uses of such terms and instead of knee-jerk reactions, use one’s critical faculties, ask inconvenient questions and analyze the evidence first.
In this blog, I want to touch upon some aspects of the dark art of propaganda and especially the uses and abuses of language therein.

In our highly politicized world with its obscene wealth inequalities and unbridgeable power disparities, language is not, and cannot be, innocent. In such a world, language often encodes and reproduces wealth inequalities and unjust power relations. Increasingly, it is the instrument of choice, the lubricant, for systemic exploitation and violence. Real, physical violence smoothly follows linguistic violence. The initial injury is done through the malignant uses of language. In any act of violence, the first casualty is that of language itself. Violence, especially state or state-sanctioned violence, requires the distortion and abuse of language first, so that the minds of the masses can be corrupted and the ensuing violence made palatable to them. Again, before the physical injury and elimination, the victim is linguistically attacked and mutilated; before the napalms, cluster bombs and daisy-cutters are dropped, before the gunship helicopters arrive, and the mushroom clouds hang above their heads, the victims are systematically demonized with the devious use of language and toxic images. This has been a constant in twentieth century conflicts involving the modern West and the rest, from WW1 trench warfare, to Hiroshima to Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and Yemen.

Propaganda is part and parcel of the modern social and political landscape everywhere. Since the early years of the twentieth century when its potential as a “public relations” exercise was first recognized, courtesy of pioneers in the field like Edward Bernays who was Sigmund Freud’s nephew, it has become more and more sophisticated over the years. But its common or essential techniques have remained the same. One of the early critical analyses of propaganda techniques was carried out by the Institute for Propaganda Analysis (IPA). Established in 1937, the IPA lists these common techniques as follows:

• Word games (name calling, glittering generalities and euphemisms)
• False connections or associations (transfer and testimonial)
• Special appeals (plain folks, bandwagon and fear)

Let’s focus on some of these. For example, the propagandist language of name calling, fear mongering, and the use of glittering generalities serve demagogues and political extremists well. Through name calling the other (the target individual, group or country) is vilified and dehumanized. A culture of fear is created, frightening and discomforting metaphors and imagery are used to disorient and disarm the masses. The result is a sense of vulnerability in the people. Immigrants, Mexicans, Muslims in the USA. Rohingya in Myanmar / Burma. Certain ethno-religious minorities in Pakistan and India, are some examples. 

As a propaganda technique, glittering generalities play a very important role in our current political milieu, both national and global. What is a glittering or glowing generality? This is how Wikipedia defines it:

“A glittering generality (also called glowing generality) is an emotionally appealing phrase so closely associated with highly valued concepts and beliefs that it carries conviction without supporting information or reason. Such highly valued concepts attract general approval and acclaim. Their appeal is to emotions such as love of country and home, and desire for peace, freedom, glory, and honor. They ask for approval without examination of the reason. They are typically used by politicians and propagandists.”  (emphasis added)

As vague words, phrases and expressions with positive connotations, glittering generalities are what the IPA calls “virtue words”.  Strongly appealing to our emotional faculties, they disable our critical faculties and make us susceptible to all kinds of manipulations. Glittering generalities are words like science, rationality, development, progress, civilization, motherland, fatherland, democracy, freedom, human rights, sustainable, international community, civil society, community development, grassroots, empowerment, poverty alleviation and so on. These are all abstract in nature, meaning different things to different people and, therefore, amenable to manipulation. 

Let’s take one of these concepts, sustainable development (SD), to see how it works. Sustainable development as a “buzzword” is one of those concepts which are widely (ab)-used by all sorts of individuals and interests, from the ecologically destructive industrialists to slimy politicians, from NGO  and civil society missionaries, social justice activists, opportunist environmentalists to compromised (lifafa) journalists, intellectuals, writers and artists. I think nobody has improved upon Lele’s early critique of the concept. He wrote way back in 1991,

“SD is a ‘metafix’ that will unite everybody from the profit-minded industrialist and risk minimising subsistence farmer to the equity seeking social worker, the pollution-concerned or wildlife-loving First Worlder, the growth-maximising policy maker, the goal-oriented bureaucrat, and therefore, the vote-counting politician.”

These noble sounding, fix-all words, these magic wands, are all suspect. In our times, they have become like sacred cows, their particularly constructed meanings are constantly guarded by the powerful and nobody can challenge them without suffering some form of retribution. Exhibit: in recent years, the USA has destroyed at least four countries in the Middle East / West Asia with the help of mere three, although very powerful, of these glowing generalities: "democracy", "freedom" and "human rights." To challenge these is to invite the scorn and ridicule of the Western and westernized secular-liberal mobs everywhere. Often, these are like empty vessels into which are poured the interests of the powerful, the oppressors and victimizers. Following fear mongering, glittering generalities are then employed to give the frightened and the now vulnerable a sense of security and superiority.

With the fear also comes rage which, in this socially fractured and chaotic age of political and historical amnesia, is a godsend for the demagogues of all sorts. For example, nowadays populist politicians with fascistic tendencies see and understand only too well the pent up anger and frustration in the masses who are the victims of no-holds-barred casino capitalism around the world. These mendacious sheep herders exploit this rage for their own purposes, often by redirecting it onto minorities and marginalized groups of society, as has happened in the United States under The Donald, in India under Modi, and in Hungary under Victor Orban, to name just a few.

Language that hides, confuses and ignores, always serves some ulterior motives. George Orwell, one of the most profound critics of linguistic distortion, had good reasons when he advised writers, among other things, to write clearly and to use idioms and metaphors that help us visualize, that shows more and tells less. Ambiguity and impersonality in language use may sound nice and formal but they are often in the service of power and not speaking truth to it. When a doublespeaking politician uses the passive voice and says, 'Mistakes were made", then we know that language has been corrupted and truth has been distorted. We are not told mistakes were made by whom?, or who made the mistakes? and why? This evasive language hides and obscures in order to shun responsibility and to avoid culpability. It is language designed to deceive and injure. It is a communication blocking technique that often frames the issues in such a way that the audience is readily turned into a bunch of losers!

As elsewhere, this dark art is also practiced, tragicomically, in the mainstream Pakistani media, especially in its electronic form. The aim of these channels is not to inform and enlighten, but to keep the masses perpetually entertained, which often means dumbing them down. These days the shows on the mainstream channels, especially the news and talk shows, serve the same function as the old Pakistani dramas used to do some decades ago, minus the quality, the civility or just plain decency. Everything is staged, with all the paraphernalia of sets, make-up, scripts, rehearsals and all; it’s one big vacuous spectacle with bad performers. Notice how most of them are bad clones of western mainstream media---BBC, CNN, Fox, NBC, ABC--- down to the minute details of dress, stage, mannerisms and music. Oh, the music. The non-stop tasteless music that plays in the background of news and talk shows also has the crucial function of disorienting the viewer. Once disoriented, the audiences’ minds become like blank slates, tabula rasa, upon which anything and everything can be inscribed or, “consent is manufactured” through a combination of denatured language, noxious imagery and disconcerting sounds. It is this "sickness of language" to which the Trappist monk Thomas Merton alerted us long time ago and from which we need to protect ourselves.

Worth reading:

George Orwell, "Politics and the English language"
Thomas Merton, "War and the crisis of language"

Short Short: religiosity

“Religion can be deformed by only two people: a stupid Muslim or an intelligent priest.”                                 (Albanian proverb)

(Contemporary Pakistan)

Only the form is religious, only the name pious sounding; the content is nothing but satanic. Humility is practiced so that the practitioner can luxuriate in it. Charity replaces justice and hides the most vulgar forms of self-seeking and self-promotion. Faqr and tawwakul give way to avarice, to conceit, or self-worship. Time was when the truly pious used to give away this world for gains in the next world. Today’s celebrity mullahs—the fraudulent Sufi sheikh, the fatwa spouting rabid mufti and the wrathful ayatollah, these “scholars for dollars”--- give away the next world for gains in this world. For the former, the next world was Real---the really, only Real--- and this world was an abstraction, a dream, an illusion; for the latter, this world is the only reality that matters: they sell “abstractions” and seek “real” worldly gains. Upon being asked the question, “What do you want?”, the sincere and oriented believer would reply: “I want not to want”. Now, the religiosity brigade wants to “cut a deal with God” and “they speak of God as if He were a cow!” as Meister Eckhart once exclaimed.

To borrow from the madman Nietzsche, this religiosity must be destroyed so that RELIGION can be restored (renewed / tajdeed) and the authentic religious ways of life---of knowing, doing and being---made possible again.

On books and the demise of the rental libraries of Quetta

The Rental Libraries of Quetta

"The sight of books remove sorrow from the heart."

                                                                             (Moroccan proverb)

"If we are imprisoned in ourselves, books provide us with the means of escape. If we have run too far away from ourselves, books show us the way back."

                                                                             Holbrook Jackson

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The scene: Quetta in January. Cold. Freezing cold!  It’s early Sunday morning---another bleak, January day. The pothole infested back lanes, off the main Toghi Road, are frozen and slippery. My friend Ibrahim and I, shivering non-stop and, using our gloved hands, perform the intermittent ritual of cupping our faces and ears and wiping our moist, leaky noses with the back of the same hands every few minutes as we stand and wait at the corner of Musa Jee Lane and Zonki Ram Road for Qadeer bhai to appear and open his rental library. Clad in the similar polyester LT jackets, or LT look-alike (fake) ones, and engaged in the same cupping-wiping ritual trying to keep warm, there are a few other boys, too, all of them waiting. Tucked under our arms, in the warmth of our armpits, are pairs of books that we have just read, the day before.  I have two of the recent installments of Maut Ka Taaqqub series, and Ibrahim has his favorite, the Umro Ayyar books. We are waiting to get our hands on the next books in these two incredibly popular series. Qadeer bhai, a ridiculously quiet man with a trade-mark sad smile on his face, is a laid- back guy, a Quetta version of the “The Dude” Lebowski, minus the size. And he never shows up on time!

Quetta in the late 1970s and early 1980s had many of these small rental libraries. Most, if not every, mohalla, or neighborhood, had one. Our favorite was the Qadeer (Rental) Library. It was behind the old Delight Cinema (now demolished to make way for a new shopping mall, I am told), on one of the side streets, off the main Toghi Road. The usual overnight rent for a fiction book was eight ana (50 paisa) in those days, which went up to a rupee in the later years. Hot or popular books, like the ones in the Umro Ayyar and Amir Hamza series, Tarzan series, Imran series, Inspector Jamshed, Inspector Kamran Mirza and especially Maut Ka Taaqub series had long waiting lines. While I also read books from most of the other ones, my favorite was the 50-part Maut Ka Taaqqub series (The Chase of Death or Death Chase). I was too fascinated with the three main characters in the story: Umber, Naag and Maria, all of them with super-human powers, both physical and intellectual. To give the reader a sense of this fascination, for many of us these books were like H.G. Wells, C.S. Lewis, J.K Rowling, J.R.R. Tolkien, Robert Ludlum and Stephen King all rolled into one super-adventure-cum-horror-cum-fantasy-cum-science-fiction. This is no exaggeration. After all, with nothing else to have a claim on our attention in those days---no video games, no computers, no smart phones or Internet and social media etc.---the books were the main source of entertainment (“infotainment”) for the youth, especially in the freezing Quetta winters.

Yes, there was TV, and cinema, too. But they were nothing like what we have today with unlimited number of on-demand channels providing programs on and about everything under the sun. TV had limited shows and hours. There were only two channels, one national, PTV, and a local channel, with only a few shows for children. Cinema was a once-in-a-blue-moon affair for many of us, depending on the movies and the mood of the parent, usually the father.

The MTV age arrived with an AV (audio-visual) bang, and probably the very first video song played on it was The Buggles’ chart topper, an extended jingle actually, titled “Video Killed the Radio Song”. Lots of other stuff followed, all of which re-defined entertainment. We know everything changed after that. Well, at least those of us old enough to have witnessed and experienced the phenomenon know that it did.  In the realm of music, video may or may not have killed the radio song, but I think what really killed the small rental libraries in Quetta was not so much TV or MTV and its clones, or not just the TV alone, but what connected to it via a black cable: the VCR, or the Video Cassette Recorder and Bollywood movies. Both the hardware and the software, so to speak.

It all started with the Sony BetaMax machines which were very soon replaced by the ubiquitous industry standard machines based on the VHS system. Actually, before these two, for a short while there was the Philips Video Player with bulky, brick sized video tapes, three of which were needed to store a single two hour plus Bollywood movie. So primitive was this piece of European technology, or perhaps because it was designed solely for use in cold Europe, that a separate pedestal (portable) fan was needed for preventing it from overheating as it played the latest Bollywood blockbusters! With the arrival of the VCR, it seemed that we had permanently moved on, from the universe of the printed word to the age of the moving images, fully complemented with stereo sound and I am not sure if that move was real progress for us. 

To be precise, it was Amitabh Bachchan, Rajesh Khanna, Dharmendra, Zeenat Aman, Rekha, Rakhi, Rishi Kapoor, Shashi Kaporr, Hema Malini, Neethu Singh, Shatrugan Sinha, Amjad Khan, Pran, Danny and a host of others that killed these libraries, to use that apt word from the MTV song. Soon after the VCR became cheap enough to possess, and along with the TV, became a must-have item for families, these rental libraries were replaced with video shops. At one point in early / mid 1980s, there were at least ten of them on Toghi Road alone. They were everywhere in the city, the famous ones with huge collection of movies being on Shawak Shah Road and Abdus Sattar Road. While at many homes the bookshelves made way for fancy TV-VCR combo cabinets fully equipped with theatre quality sound systems, in the neighborhoods the rental libraries vanished, one by one. If I am recalling correctly, Qadeer Bhai’s library closed down in or around 1984. Like his old book sanctuary, he also vanished.

The Roman orator-statesman-philosopher Marcus Tullius Cicero has said, "A room without books is like a body without a soul.' Books have always been at the center of great civilizations, at the core of their great cultural achievements in the form of arts, sciences, discoveries and inventions. For example, the Islamic civilization during its more than half millennium rule of glory was the envy of the world. It was especially known for the books it relentlessly churned out in all major fields of knowledge, from astronomy to mathematics, to medicine and philosophy. It was able to do so because Muslims, as the followers of the last monotheistic religion, the last “people of the book,” then knew the importance of books. After all, The Holy Quran, The Mother of All Books (Ummul Kitab), was at the center of their faith, the very definition of it, the heart and soul of their deen. They knew very well the deep significance of that fact, the centrality of The Holy Book for them as a people of faith. Its deep and all-encompassing symbolism was never lost on them. Since in Islam the Word of Allah was made into book, into The Book, how could a Muslim not be a producer, reader, collector, promoter and a lover of books?

Such is not the case today, alas. Today, the annual number of books produced in the entire Islamic world, the Ummah, is less than what a small country in Europe produces annually. The 57 countries in the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) spend a mere 0.81 % of their annual GDP on research and development, out of which usually comes the bulk of publications. The situation is even worse in the Arab-Muslim world. For example, in 2005, Harvard University produced more scientific papers than 17 Arabic-speaking countries combined. As the recent UN Arab Human Development Reports have noted, the total number of books translated into Arabic in the last 1000 years is fewer than those translated into Spanish in one year! That’s how bad it is. The Arab potentates of today are known not for their humane and valuable contributions to the collective knowledge and cultural pool of humanity, but for the brutal public hanging and chopping up of dissenting clerics, critical writers and bloggers and artists. In short, books are no longer central to the civilization of Sina, Farabi, Ghazzali,  Rushd, Razi, Arabi, Khayyam, Khaldun, Suharwardi, Tusi, Sadra and other luminaries of the Islamic past.

I don’t know about my friend Ibrahim, but the books from Qadeer Bhai’s library, in addition to the pulp fiction that we had at home---all bought at book stores like The Book Land and The Quetta Bookstall on Jinnah Road---and my father’s monthly Suspense, Sabrang, Jasoosi and Ibn e Safi digests did great wonders for me. They instilled in me not only the habit of reading regularly but also a love of books, a passion that has grown more intense over the years. There aren’t many things in this world that can bring me the kind of deep joy I experience from reading a good book on a cold, rainy day. From what I read and observe, I must say that many of us are now quickly becoming incapable of experiencing that kind of authentic joy, the calm satisfaction that often comes from doing things that require concentrated attention, are demanding, time consuming or what we now routinely complain about as being “inconvenient” for us in all sorts of ways. This is especially true for those of us who happily withdraw en masse into the wordless, paperless, image-based universe of digital technologies. One can understand the wisdom in the critical observation of the writer Ray Bradbury when he wrote the following: “You don’t have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.”

Originally published in Balochistan Voices 

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