Religions unite people, but ours divides us between “Us” and “Them’.” Sorry! I am wrong. Not our religion but our interpretation of the religion bifurcates us. Muharram estranges us into two Mazahib: Shia and Sunni. Rabi-ul Awal divides us into two sects, Sunni and Wahabi. Sometimes, I feel that we have religion not to follow it, but divide us into Wahabi, Sunni, Deobandi and Bralvi.
At a global level, cultures and civilizations divide people and political affiliations at the domestic level, but when we sail to the Muslim world, we find a tidbit that Islam, being a culture and civilization, makes us distinct
from other nations at the global level. A pathetic situation arises at a domestic level when various interpretations of Islam divide the Muslim society, top to bottom. In a nutshell, though, Islam unites us as a civilization, its narrowly self-observed interpretations divide us; becoming a driving force in our modus vivendi.
Disunity is the best-explained cause of extremism.
We are divided not only along the religious lines, but also due to having extreme opposite political, religious and secular sentiments and creeds. We are, at a broader level, divided into religious and secularists, traditionalists and pragmatists, institutionalists and non-institutionalists and leftists and rightists. The secularists and the religious are pools apart in their beliefs. They have divided on the stances on whether a state would be secular or theocratic and whether there would be gender equality. They are following two extreme thoughts–leaving no vestiges of convergence–and do not leave any opportunities to embarrass each other. To achieve maximalist ends, they ridicule each other and conspire against each other; resulting in an unhealthy debate that breeds a plethora of problems. Once, a renowned religious scholar Doctor Israr Ahmed said, “We are followers of Islam because of ancestral legacy, otherwise we had lost Islam as a driving force in our day-to-day affairs right after the dethronement of the great emperor, Sultan Abdul Hamid Sani. Now we are only subjects and part and parcel of Islam, not devotee.” Having observed the widened gulf among Muslims and Islam’s influence on an individual Muslim as an objective rather subjective, Bernard Shaw couldn’t shun to contend, “Islam is the best religion and Muslims are the worst followers.”
The second perceived extreme is less observed and more existent. It is philosophical in nature. The traditionalists do not see what they see (reluctant to accept that collides with preexisting taboos) and the pragmatists do not observe what they observe (reluctant to observe rationally). It is, in fact, one of the most exponentially contributing causes to most of the other extremes because what are the most hygienic contributors to balanced society, which break down the narrow-minded interpretations of religions and the austere position of genderization, are logical reasoning and philosophical thinking. Unfortunately, we have the least cognizance to pragmatism and have inclined more to comprehend dogmatism and blind imitation. Hence, the higher the strictness of dogmas, the lower the strainless environment and the more the irrationality of observation, the lower the maturity in behaviour would be.
Our society, unfortunately, is too narrow to reluctant to accept and respect civilian institutions and on the other hand too obsessed not to bear any logical arguments against security establishment and they not only call the latter’s illegitimate decision legitimate but also don’t feel any hesitation to call those who dare criticize unconstitutional interventions of the security establishment in the democratic process, traitor and ingrate. People have set standards of loyalty and faithfulness in accordance with how much one is loyal and faithful to security institutions. In antithesis, it cannot be defended what other than logical criticism and healthy debate is being done against security institutions like hurling inflammatory rhetoric, it is the uniform which is behind terrorism (ya joye dashtgardi ha is k pechye wardi ha).
The fourth and last disunity is between right-wing conservatives and left-wing ones. Their division lies in economy and religiosity. On economic fronts, they are divided into communists and capitalists and on religious fronts, they are christened as the pan-conservative and the non-conservative.
This whole extravaganza of disunity has left the least room for people to be moderate and temperate and if one is succeeded to remain moderate, it is a mountainous task to perpetuate this temperateness as peer pressure and immediate family leaves no stone unturned to be one-sided calling moderateness an illusion. This is leading to aridity among men. Disunity is the best-explained cause of extremism, which breeds terrorism and our country cannot once again afford to fall into the clutches of religious militancy and intolerance. Therefore, a pessimistic rather than optimistic approach is needed to tackle this long persisting scourge as it is better to be an idiot with a plan than a genius without one.
The writer is a human rights law expert.