Daily Times

Three wine shops in Defence Housing Society Karachi got blown up on late August 6 night. Now what is common amongst all these wine shops is that they sell wine and that all of them are at a five-km radius from my own home. I was certainly not aware of the existence of the other two, but the one located across Saba Avenue, I have ambivalently known for long.

For a good decade, I have descried its two shady windows selling brown packages of liquor to customers in tinted cars. Oh, they sure do a lot of business and I am yet to meet a non-Muslim neighbour. Now who is driving drunk on these streets I love? Why do I occasionally hear a car stop, some glass break and later find the relevant shards lying around? Who is drinking all this wine?

We are so busy pretending that these customers are not Muslims that we do not even have drunk driving laws. The police do a fine job at standing around the nearest corner, searching cars that look suspicious and occasionally nabbing the suspect, only to make money and beef up their pockets. Once they made the mistake of hauling a son and his father over, only to be shouted at, “Do you think I will drink with my son by my side?” I can only wonder what they were thinking; it must have been a really dry day that led to this desperation, hilarious desperation I must say.

Mohammad Ali Jinnah was a great man but some facets of his existence have been totally effaced. His official biography, written by Hector Bolitho, was commissioned by the State. The most it narrates of his drinking habits is a vague reference to a toast he made as he dined with the officers of the Royal Scots. Stanley Wolpert came to Pakistan and was called by no one. That is why he came up with a better and more objective biography, one that did not care to hide reality and buttress denial. But Jinnah was no hypocrite and the concept of a state he envisioned was a secular western democracy founded on the principles of liberalism, of John Morley and Gladstone, one state that gave way to human rights, equality in citizenship, freedom of action and individual liberty.

By 1949, Jinnah was gone and Liaquat Ali Khan changed Pakistan into an Islamic Republic. The state now had a religion and the not-so-gentleman who profited on this change was a certain General Ziaul Haq who came to power in a 1978 coup d’état with the false promises of a hypocrite. This hypocrite would try to make better Muslims out of his people and that he successfully did: the Prohibition Ordinance 1979 was promulgated to regulate the import, export, licensing, sale and purchase of intoxicants. The punishment for consumption by a Muslim was a fine, 30 lashes, accompanied with a maximum five-year jail sentence.

Alcohol shops receded in scope and span as more than 97 percent of its potential customers were banned from consuming liquor. As time passed, alcohol was not only hard to come by but the societal view on consumption became increasingly intolerant. No longer could one flaunt a glass of wine in hand and not be judged for it, unless the so-called person was an Amir by the name of Ayaz, who seems to encourage such judgments in his profound weekly column.

As the lag effects of Zia’s policies hit hard, the children of the 1990s were born in God’s Republic unless they cared to pore over the history books and find that the original concept of this nation had nothing against alcohol. Once one could have it, one could visit a bar — yes, they were conspicuous bars around — and one could even have a go on the then world class Pakistan International Airlines.

Frankly, the thesis of this article even evades me. I write because there is confusion as to whether religion or the original concept of this nation should take ascendancy. I have hated Muslim drunkards my entire life, despised all those people who bought brown packages from nooks and alleys, and not to forget Muree Brewery ridiculously sponsoring iftar time-checks on the radio, but I am equally fearful of religion taking over the state. So who do you chose at the end of the day, Jinnah and his belief in free choice or Zia and his shove-down-your-throat-religion? There is confusion.

Matching western democracies and eastern philosophies will always lead to a cultural fiasco, which is the present day Pakistan. Many a moderate Muslim is glad that these wine shops are blown up, but the moment the Taliban take claim for these bombings, the same set of people will be talking a different lore in completely different language. Because the Taliban do all things wrong and their version of Islam is nonsensical? But why then should any alcoholic be judged for his acts and embrace your version of Islam?

To say that Pakistan should be an officially dry country, but legal arguments for should be formulated on the social evils that alcohol perpetuates, e.g. the number of people that are victims of drunk driving, the number of murders committed in alcohol-propelled rage and, certainly not on the basis of Islam for everyone seems to have a different version of it these days (and everyone sins differently too). It is then very difficult to draw the line between individual choice and religion and remain judicious by the end of it.

Thus when it comes to alcohol, Pakistan seems to be on the right track…but on the wrong train.

The writer is studying at the Lahore University of Management Sciences and can be reached at k.alizubair@hotmail.com