Monday, February 14, 2011

What’s Wrong With Muslims By Aijaz Zaka Syed

What’s Wrong With Muslims

By Aijaz Zaka Syed


What is a writer without his or her readers? I take my share of readers’ feedback seriously. It’s invariably interesting and instructive. Check out this mail from a regular reader, Shiv Dhanush, for instance, in response to my recent column on the predicament of Indian Muslims: “There are less than one million Hindus and Sikhs in the US, that is, 0.3 per cent of the population. But governors of two out of the 50 US states are from this community. There are nearly six million Muslims in the US but they do not have anyone in governor mansions. You can extend the example to other top learning institutions like MIT, Cal Tech, Berkeley, Harvard and Yale, etc. The representation of Hindu and Sikh children is greater than their percentage in the population.

“The share of Muslims in these elite institutions is lower than their population ratio. You can make a comparison of Punjabi (or Sindhi or Bengali) Hindus and Sikhs versus Punjabi Muslims in the US or UK and their relative achievements. Make a similar comparison of Hindus and Sikhs versus Muslims in US and UK prisons and you’ll see alarming results.

“The playing field for all immigrants in the West is the same. So how did this happen? It happened because Hindus, Sikhs, and others give highest priority to education and personal excellence (whereas Muslims do not). This is why Muslims today find themselves even behind the Dalits in India in all walks of life.”

My apologies for this long quote, but it’s intrinsic to my argument. Besides, this is fascinating stuff, don’t you think? In fact, Shiv goes on to argue that the South Asian Muslims wanted Pakistan because they knew they couldn’t compete with Hindus and Sikhs in an undivided India!

I have no issues with Shiv’s argument and most of his facts. In fact, we are on the same page in his analysis about the Muslim under-representation in all walks of life and their excessive presence on the wrong side of the law.

The shining examples of Louisiana governor Piyush Jindal, being lionised as the Republicans’ answer to Obama and a future president, and South Carolina governor Nimrata Kaur are a source of inspiration and pride not just for Hindus and Sikhs but the whole of India and Asia. There are countless such examples in the land of opportunity that is America – of Indians scaling the pinnacle of excellence in universities, research and scientific centres and Silicon Valley companies, thanks to their hard work and dedication.

However, if Indian Hindus and Sikhs are increasingly becoming the shining face of the great American dream while their Muslim counterparts rough it out in the cold, there’s another more prosaic explanation.

I hate to disrupt Shiv’s reverie, but if the Jindals and Kaurs of this world find themselves in US governor mansions today, and possibly on their way to the White House, they’ve had to pay a price for it. Piyush Jindal was born a Hindu to Hindu immigrant parents from Punjab. He converted to Christianity when he grew up, christening himself as Bobby Jindal. Today, he and his wife Supriya are proper churchgoing folk, like the rest of the predominantly white, genteel Christian America.


Ditto Nimrata Kaur, who today calls herself Nikki Haley. She was born a Sikh to second-generation Sikh immigrants. Like Jindal, she converted to Christianity before joining politics. She’s married to Michael Haley and has two children, all of them nice, practicing Christians.

Of course, this has nothing to do with faith. Each to his or her own, and I am a firm believer in everyone doing his/her own thing. What I am trying to emphasise is the fact that both Jindal and Kaur had to give up their original identity and faith to find acceptance in white middle-class America.

I am an ardent admirer of the great American dream and its enduring allure that continues to beckon generations of dreamers from around the world. But I have to point out that today if Jindal and Kaur are where they are, it’s also because of their willingness to give up their beliefs to merge their identity with the host society, becoming tolerable for the Republican and Tea Party rabble-rousers. Compromises are made at every step of the staircase to heaven.


Unfortunately or fortunately, this is something the Muslims cannot do. They would rather languish on the edges of the American dream than give up their identity and faith to live in governor’s mansions.


I know this is a huge weakness or failing, according to the worldview of friends like Shiv. But that’s how they are: rigid and uncompromising when it comes to their convictions and totally out of sync with the way of the world and liberal ways of the West. If they are left out in the cold while the rest of the world is partying, they do not seem to mind. And this is a global phenomenon, wherever Muslims are, from the Americas to Australia.


In fact, this apparent lack of “flexibility” and preoccupation with religion is seen as being at the heart of the West-Islam conflict today. Call it what you will, but this is in the very nature of Islam, that it demands its followers to accept it as a way of life, rather than as something private between God and the believer.


But if the Muslims find themselves stuck in a rut almost everywhere while the rest of the world is flying past them on the high road to glory, it’s not because there’s too much of religion in their lives. It’s because they have failed to apply it the way it should be to their lives. Instead of imbibing the liberating teachings and revolutionary spirit of a faith that guides us every step of the way, we have turned it into a set of meaningless rituals and a heavy yoke around our neck.


It was the same faith that transformed the bands of unruly, bloodletting Arabian tribes into a world power in less than a decade, bringing down the mighty Persian and Roman empires like a house of cards.


It wasn’t just on the battlefield that they beat others. They pioneered a knowledge and scientific revolution which, in turn, fed and inspired the European Renaissance. From philosophy and poetry to physics and chemistry and from mathematics and medicine to planetary science, the West built its discoveries and advances based on blueprints created by Muslim pioneers.


Unlike us, early Muslims had been driven by a compelling craving and hunger for knowledge and new ideas, wherever they could find them. While we have become the prisoners of our past and our often narrow, literal interpretation of Islamic teachings, they looked to the future, showing the way forward to others.


They did not preach their faith. They lived it, promoting it with their actions and with their honesty, simplicity, piety and courage. At the same time, they promoted a culture of hard work, perseverance and excellence wherever they went and whatever they turned their attention to. No wonder they conquered the world in no time and have left behind a civilisation to last forever.

They were extraordinary men, giants among men. A really hard act to follow, indeed! But if we could recreate even a fraction of their magic, we would do ourselves an immense favour, transforming our wretched existence forever and creating a better world.

<aijaz.syed@hotmail.com>

THE CARTELIZATION OF INDIA'S POLITICAL CORRUPTION

THE CARTELIZATION OF INDIA'S POLITICAL CORRUPTION

---------- Forwarded message ----------

Date: Fri, 11 Feb 2011 15:13:46 +0000

Subject: I think Sourie is on the way out in BJP

New Delhi: Senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Arun Shourie has claimed that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was informed about former telecom minister A Raja's involvement in the 2G spectrum scam in 2009. Shourie, who was the telecom minister in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government, said that Singh took no action against Raja even after getting the information about the scam. Speaking exclusively to CNN-IBN, Shourie said that after the Prime Minister did not act on his complaint for a month, he was forced to approach the Central Bureau of Investigation. 
 
Shourie also alleged that his own party is not interested in taking the matter forward. (So much for BJP's stalling the Parliament for months on end over JPC.)

Transcript of the interview:

Karan Thapar: I gather that as far back as August-September 2009 you met the Prime Minister in Parliament, you gave him details of the enormous loot happening over spectrum under Raja. You also showed him papers as proof. Tell me what exactly happened at that meeting.

Arun Shourie: Actually it was the Prime Minister's question day and then he would take a particular route outside so I stood in the path that he usually takes from the lobby of the Rajya Sabha. I had the papers with me listing the front companies of Raja into which the money was going, the appointments that had been made, the brokers that are there and I said to him in Punjabi, "Dr Singh, loot is happening under the umbrella of your good name." His demeanour was as if he was saying what has to be done. I said, "Nothing much. You just request Nair (Principal Secretary in the Prime Minister's Office TKA Nair) to contact me."

Karan Thapar: Nair being his secretary?

Arun Shourie: His Principal Secretary and a very good officer. So I said that he can contact me and I'll give him all these papers and then he can proceed with the CBI. Please just tell him to give me an appointment. He (Prime Minister) said he (Nair) will call you.

Karan Thapar: So Prime Minister said Nair will call you?


Arun Shourie: He said I will talk to him and he will call you.

Karan Thapar: Did Nair call you?

Arun Shourie: No. I waited for one full month. Then in October 2009 I contacted Mr Ashwini Kumar who was then the CBI director. I gave him the papers, led him through the papers, gave him the name and the telephone number and the contact and the person through whom he could contact the person who knows everything and who was working with Raja.


Karan Thapar: This is a sort of a whistleblower.


Arun Shourie: The whistleblower. The hero of the whole matter who has been receiving threats to his life. The CBI then contacted him in the first week of November 2009 and met him again and again and again. And when they had all the details and they followed those things up, the investigative officer was transferred out.


Karan Thapar: So can I just clarify two things? It was your meeting with the CBI director in 2009 and your introducing the whistleblower to the CBI that actually gave the CBI the details and the knowledge and the information that led to the case against Raja.


Arun Shourie: No I am nobody. I don't want to be a hero or anything. Yes, that person is the real hero who has done national service.


Karan Thapar: The whistleblower?


Arun Shourie: Yes.


Karan Thapar: Can you reveal his name?


Arun Shourie: No. You can't imagine the threats under which he is living today.


Karan Thapar: Just one question. He must be, I presume, a government servant and an insider who knows the details.


Arun Shourie: Yes absolutely. There were two persons only there.

Karan Thapar: He was one of the two people who knew the full story?


Arun Shourie: Full story. And he has all the papers. He has the calling cards. When did Balwa come? Through whom did he come? Everything.


Karan Thapar: What about this? For at least a year, Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jaitley have been accusing not only the prime minister of a cover-up but even suggesting a possibility of involvement. You had proof that at least of cover-up the PM can be accused and you didn't make the proof available.


Arun Shourie: The BJP knows what I knew.

Karan Thapar: The BJP knows what you knew? Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jaitley know this?


Arun Shourie: I don't want to talk about BJP's internal meeting but it is certainly my assessment that they were not interested in following these things.

Karan Thapar: Even the BJP wasn't interested?


Arun Shourie: No.

Karan Thapar: The BJP had dynamite and they weren't interested in following it up?

Arun Shourie: That's true. That's unfortunately true.