Cultures dominate religion and politics around the world. A country has many cultures, which, from time to time, usher in a cultural war within the same country and sometimes push two countries into a conflict. A cultural war is a clash of ideas about what one believes to be true, and where others have different viewpoints. It would not be wrong to call 2013 the year of cultural wars. Let us be clear here: a cultural war is not the creation of a religion. Even a superpower and liberal country like the US is not free of them. The interesting thing is that the US has no state religion and its first constitutional amendment is clearly against any religious law in the country, endorsing freedom of speech and unhindered practice of all religions.
In December last year, a cultural war broke out in the US with the remarks of a famous reality show ‘Duck Dynasty’ star Phil Robertson. His words of likening homosexual behaviour with bestiality in an interview to GQ magazine enraged human rights and gay rights groups. They took to the streets against him. At last, A and E networks fired him from the reality show. The issue has been at the centre of the US’s and the west’s limelight. The politician Sarah Palin, defending the Duck Dynasty star act, said in her twitter message on December 19, 2013, “Free speech is an endangered species; those ‘intolerants’ hating and taking on the Duck Dynasty patriarch for voicing personal opinion takes on us all.” Twitter has barred its users from signing a petition on the website istandwithPhil.com, created by a Christian group in the support of the Duck Dynasty star to press the A and E Network to reinstate the star and apologise to him.
A cultural war does not stop here. In 2009, a New Delhi court struck down section 377, which bans homosexual marriages. This ruling was appreciated by human rights organisations but criticised by some other segments of society. The law’s detractors took to the streets, finally getting the repealed section 377 reinstated by a ruling of the apex court in December last year. The human rights organisations in India and the west are in protest against the verdict. Many believe that the strip-search of an Indian diplomat by US authorities on the charges of the underpayment to her employee has some connection with the first Indian act of banning homosexual marriages. The diplomatic row still continues.
Moreover, in October last year, the Australian parliament passed an act allowing the first gay marriage in the country. It triggered a cultural war between the pro- and anti-homosexual marriage groups in the country. Finally, in December last year, the apex court repealed that law, declaring it against an amended federal law in 2004, which clearly states that only a marriage of a man with a woman is allowed.
A cultural war has taken deep roots in Pakistan. It is the shaping factor of the laws of this country and has great impact on political and religio-political parties. When we talk of cultural wars, it is pertinent to mention the assassinated governor of Punjab, Salmaan Taseer. Many believe he was a victim of this cultural war. The speech of PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, on the sixth death anniversary of his mother, in which he openly and bravely hit the terrorists with his words in the style of his slain mother infuriated a right-wing party. The latter party took Bilawal Bhutto’s words as an attack on its culture. It gathered its supporters to demolish a wall of the Bilawal House in Karachi. The party failed in its act but defended it with lame excuses of wanting to implement a court order.
This party, along with all other right-wing parties, passed a resolution in the National Assembly condemning the hanging of Abdul Qadir Mollah by Bangladesh. The act triggered a cultural war between Pakistan and Bangladesh. The prime minister of the latter country said that her country has no place for sympathisers of Pakistan. The people protested against Pakistan, burnt its flag and the effigies of the leaders who supported the resolution.
A right-wing political party declared bombers as martyrs causing a cultural war when the left-wing parties stood against that stand. All the Islamic countries of the world have unblocked YouTube after registering their protests against the uploading of an insulting film regarding the prophet of Islam (PBUH). YouTube is officially still blocked only in Pakistan out of fear of triggering of a cultural war with its unblocking. The attacks on innocent Shias and the minorities are not religious acts but are a form of cultural war.
Interestingly, cultural wars revive old cultures and invent new ones. In the recent past, unhealthy comments by a journalist on the Sindhi Topi of then president Asif Ali Zardari has brought into fashion, every year, celebrations of the Sindhi culture in the month of December. The culture of fanaticism and intolerance has brought out two-week long Sindh cultural celebrations in the coming month of February this year by PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari. Cultural wars are a world phenomenon, and it is unjust to call Pakistan a conservative country on the basis of deep rooted cultural wars. This war has restricted the US in legalising homosexual marriages just in 19 states out of total 50. Many non-religious and liberal countries ban and fine the use of the veil and this is also the manifestation of a cultural war.
The writer is a freelance columnist and a blogger. He can be contacted at [email protected] and tweets at @maverickir