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48. Our declining values
The upper part of the second
paragraph of my article “Where is the Pakistani media taking us ?” I had posted
the other day said “nude beaches in Islamic Pakistan ? Same-sex
marriages here ? Shocking . I am forecasting the future if we permit the media , the advertisers and MNCs to lead us
by our noses . But remember all media
owners that this evil will also enter your houses .”
One of my young readers remonstrated
that same
sex couples deserve to enjoy the same human rights as the rest of us.
Whom they love and marry is their business and they are answerable to their
Creator for their choices not to us.
I
did not answer him because if he believes in it so be it . I need not argue
with him . I am not an Islamic scholar nor
one of Oliver Cromwell’s Puritans.
However I am an old fashioned man with old fashioned ideas and values . My
values taught me that the world was created with the purpose to promote
goodness and to eliminate evil in it .
Forty
years ago , a (late) dear friend told me that
he entered the lounge of a late bureaucrat’s house , he found a young
lady , his daughter , reading a steamy book “ The Carpetbaggers” .She kept on
reading it but she made it a point to show him . A couple years ago , my family and I went
shopping to Rawalpindi Cantonment . A young lady dressed in a see through
material got out from an elegant car and unabashedly entered into a nearby shop
. Again a couple of years back , a famous female ill clad model was picturised for a TV advertisement .
My
young reader will argue that they had every right to do as they pleased .
However there is a catch here , a clash of values . More than a century , a
Englishman , named Rudyard Kipling , wrote his famous lines
“East
is East .West is West
159
The
twain shall never meet “.
That the west from where my young friend
borrowed these ideas , is a home of many good and decent norms of living which
are alien to the people of Pakistan . For eg. few people there shirk their work
there . Here officers go unannounced leave to go to a religious congregation .
Divorce although permissible is looked down in
Islam . But it is being exercised in Pakistan at a drop of a hat . I am quoting
the words of an eminent Islamic scholar , Mufti Muhammad Zubair , that each day
at least five hundred divorce cases are
filed in the Karachi courts . Blank divorce deeds are available at the courts .
The
discussions between values are not limited to the sexual mores . Pakistanis
often discuss the looting the exchequer and the extravagant living standards of
the politicians and of the high and mighty of this poor land . However every
way one looks one meets with falling standards from the top downwards . This
week was particularly disgusting when one heard tales of the buying and selling
of men and women desirous of becoming senators and suitcases of money moving
from one to another . These are the people who wish to be law makers for the rest
of 180 million .The American Senate was
supposed to be a House of the wise . It
was Nawaz Sharif who set the trend of buying legislators in the 1990s .
The
west has acquired the habit of teasing the world Muslims . Two months ago , it
was Charlie Hebdo cartoons . Ironically it were the members of the Pakistan Parliament , which Imran Khan alleges
had cheated him , who brought a demonstration against the publication . Those
were followed by a number of demonstrations in many cities for perhaps a week .
That was all . However those who have read about the life of the Holy Prophet
(Peace and Blessings of Allah be upon him ) and the hardships he and his steadfast
Companions had to undergo would share with me that he prayed for Divine Mercy for
all including his sworn enemies at all times . However we have forgotten his
message of love . On the contrary , we are deviating from his message and
killing each other in the name of Allah and Islam .
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Making
a house in Pakistan is a pain in the neck . Promises and deadlines are never
abided to . Electricians , plumbers etc besides
craftsmen leave the work unfinished with
money paid in advance .
The other day , an elderly gentleman
, once my senior in Cadet College ,Hasan
Abdal , living in the USA , sent us a piece of news that dog meat was being
sold in Pakistan . I replied to him that not only dog meat but meat from dead
animals , dog meat and meat from donkeys are being sold .
The
Muslims are meant to rise above all rest of the nations and not fall into the
depths of degradation . Our forefathers , once they embraced Islam, never
looked back . They occupied the central stage in conquest of places , in
Mathematics , Science , Astronomy , Astrology . I would be ashamed to face the Holy Prophet (Peace and Blessings
of Allah be upon him ) with such deeds .
Mahfooz
ur Rahman
Islamabad
March
7, 2015
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