The Myth of Monolithic Societies
The Pakistan Pavilion at the Dubai Expo 2020 held in 2021, is
a watershed in the presentation of Pakistan’s global image. Called Hidden Treasures,
the two messages that stand out are Rashid Rana’s design of the pavilion, made
up of 24,000 pieces, each slightly different from the other, celebrating
diversity, and the exhibits and films that give prominence to the many
religions practiced in a predominantly Muslim country. This may be the first
time there has been a government policy to celebrate the religious and cultural
diversity since the 60s when Aslam Azhar was commissioned to make a series of documentaries called ‘Colours
of a Culture’ that included the Kalash
community and Sohail Rana composed Moonlight in the Sunderbans and the Indus
Valley Cha Cha Cha. Today ministers attend Diwali and Christmas celebrations. And
the government has constructed the Kartarpur corridor between India and
Pakistan for Sikh devotees.
This comes on the back of three decades of endorsing a monolithic
ideology for a pluralistic society that increasingly narrowed the cultural space
for non-Muslims. Ironically Islam at the height of its expansion across ethnically,
culturally and religiously diverse regions, had no reservations about engaging
the best minds regardless of their religion. Even today, most Muslim countries from
Palestine, Egypt, Lebanon and Syria to Indonesia have thriving non- Muslims communities.
A large proportion of Pakistan’s Goanese Christian community,
its Parsis, and even Muslims who felt at odds with the growing religious rigidity,
have migrated. Although many have done so for better economic opportunities,
rather than any religious persecution, we have to ask the question, would it be
possible in the Pakistan of today for the Christian community to stage Jesus
Christ Superstar at the Ali Bhai Auditorium on Karachi’s Nishtar Road as they
did in 1976 to packed audiences? Can
there be another Justice Cornelius? Can Karachi elect a mayor called Jamshed Nusserwanji
Mehta ?
The history of humanity is the history of migration from the
earliest migration out of Africa 40 miliion years ago. The cross fertilization
of ideas occurs when different cultures interact whether through migration,
conquest, or trade. Today Europe is anxious about migration, yet the largest
migration in history was that of Europeans to the Americas, not counting the
forced migration of 20 million slaves across the Atlantic. Perhaps that is the basis of their fear, since
migrations of some 60 Million Europeans to USA, Canada, Australia and New
Zealand made indigenous inhabitants an insignificant minority.
Sociologist Augusto De Venanzi, believes the issue is less
about migration of communities and more about their exclusion from the mainstream.
Typically, migrants are placed in designated areas, face a loss of social
rights, are treated disrespectfully and have limited opportunities. Social exclusion has been called the enemy of
change. Before state borders were demarcated, the ebb and flow of traders,
craftsmen, and even soldiers, contributed a social liveliness and introduced new
ideas, skills, products and cultures in a natural symbiosis.
A closer look at societies today that believe they are
racially monolithic, reveal a history of
settlers, and migrants who have become assimilated over time. Britain has its Viking, Norman and Germanic roots
and USA its Irish, Scottish, Swedish, Slavic
and Germanic roots. India is struggling
with a desire for a Hindu identity denying its complex history of settlers from
Greece to China and all that lies between.
The reality is that countries that are pluralistic thrive. When
marginalized communities such as the Afro-Americans and the Rastafarians extract
a cultural space through subversion, they
enrich the societies they live in. Exclusion creates intellectual and cultural
impoverishment such as the end of the glory of Andalucia after the Reconquista
of 1492, with the forced expulsion of Muslims and Jews.
Farid al-Din ‘Attar in his 12th century poem, Mantiq
ut-tair (The Conference of the Birds) reveals that the birds themselves are
collectively the Simurgh they are searching for, representing plurality, shared
humanity and a common spiritual bond.
Durriya Kazi
Karachi
November 8,
2021
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