Adil Najam
Pakistan is a land of creative cell-phone ringtones. Sometimes, I feel, a little too creative.
You are sitting in a meeting with some very self-important and staid people – officials, businessmen, buzurg grandfather types – and one of their cell-phone rings: and the ring-tone is a computer synthesis of “Sanou Nehr Waaley Pul Tey Bulla Kay” or “Nawa Aaya Aye Soonia.”
Even though the first is one of my favorite Noor Jahan songs and the second my all-time favorite movie, my head spins and I wonders if in a society where everyone is always so proper and so cognizant of “loug kiya sochaiN gay” (what will people think?), cell-phone ringtones are like catharsis. One of the things that lets people show that little bit of their “fun side” that they were otherwise suppressing. Kind of like the otherwise all-too-serious professor in the US coming to class wearing a Mickey Mouse tie (I actually own more than one of those).
Yet, it seems that the vigilantism of the piety police that is the extremist fringe in Pakistan wants to even snatch (literally) this little pleasure from us.
Here is a small news item in the Daily Times (January 18):
Militants snatch computers from ringtone shops
LANDI KOTAL: Local Taliban militants snatched computers from ringtone shops in the main Landi Kotal Bazaar on Thursday, sources said. Earlier, they added, the militants had warned them to stop downloading ringtones onto mobiles, terming it an “un-Islamic†practice. Around 10 armed Taliban came to the bazaar and took away computers from ringtone shops at around 5pm.
Whatever else you do, folks, please do not try to answer the question in the headline. It is rhetorical. Frankly, I have very little interest in what anyone, least of all some militants, have to say about this and I am sure that God has far more important things to deal with right now than how my cell phone rings.
I have chosen to write about this question because I think there are two types of people who do take things like this seriously. So serious are they in their beliefs that they are even willing to condone violence in the name of those beliefs. I am afraid of what the fanaticism of these two extreme groups can lead to, especially in Pakistan.
One type are the puritanical extremists within Islam who think that they and they alone have a monopoly on piety and theirs and only their view is right and who are willing – even eager – to impose, even violently, their view on all others. The Taliban, of whatever ilk, are one such group. The second type are those who obsess about things that are supposedly wrong with Islam and who love to believe such nonsense because it reinforces their existing prejudices. Who are prone to taking such actions by the extremists and then project it as if all Muslims are like this. This set of people are often equally extreme in their beliefs.
Luckily, neither is a majority. Unfortunately, the ranks of both are swelling. Oddly, but not surprisingly, these two extreme types have much – too much – in common; including the monopoly they think they hold over the truth.
Sadly, but also not surprisingly, these two groups are probably the biggest threat to Islam and Muslims today, including and especially in Pakistan. Even though I fear their impact and influence in Pakistan and on Pakistan, I – like most Pakistanis I know – reject the message of both these extreme groups. I prefer, instead, to listen to cell-phone ringtones that go “Sanou Nehr Waaley Pul Tey Bulla Kay” or “Nawa Aaya Aye Soonia.”
@Rafay: My point exactly. If you re-read my post, I also said that I am not allowed to infringe upon the rights of others.
I am just averse to the idea of a “moral police” enforcing their version of right and wrong upon me. Whether I listen to music or not doesn’t hurt someone else, and I should always have that right with me, as long as I am not disturbing someone else, like listening loudly in a public place.
You mention the case of cigarettes. The authorities determined that smoking hurts other people, and thus the ban of smoking in public places. The society reached that consensus through a law making process, not by some bunch of people deciding one day that smoking is “wrong” and destroying cigarette shops and snatching cigarettes from ‘misguided and westernized’ people.
Guys, you are all falling for the wrong thing.
This is not about religion at all. This is about GHUNDA TAX. These taliban are now the new criminal gangs and ghundas. They get recruits because they pay them well. How do they pay them well, largely though drug trade and also through ghundabaazi and extortion (kidnappings have also increased in some places). Remember the MQM was doing the same in Karachi, in India a lot of Mumbai politics is also same, even in US history it was similar in some places.
The tactics are very clear, the Lal Masjid people were doing the same.
You go to a shop and threaten them, cut off the nose of a barber or something, this way you create fear. Once everyone is afriad you now send you people to others in the same business again, asking for “protection money”. Sure, they will give it to you. Now you have a regular stream of money to fund your campaign of terror across the country. Now you have the funds to have your minions go and blow other people up in murder across the country.
Always follow the money!
Adil’s point is well taken. However, it reminds me of the early “moderates” congress that tried to fight the British.
I just dont hear/see something really inspiring or revolutionary in its scope.
Radical fringe or moderate middle, both or constrained in their belief that Truth is locked in a book. Rather is it not that the book represents Truth? The book is locked by Truth, the keys in its bosom? Severely important distinction. But seemingly missed by whole mass of Muslims.
The taliban or the dictators are just pawns in a bigger transformation underway.
Adil Najam,
my felicitations to all ashiqan-e- ‘ringtones’.
@ just now my very pleasant ringtone “buzzed” and
I heard the news from resources that “they have arrested”
the murderers of Benazir, also on GeoTV headlines.
now what ?
Rui Passos Rochas,
Talibans are the mirror of perverse combination
of Secular/Capitalist leftists agents of super powers.
try to reformulate your phrase :
“Since Islam is still supreme force of muslim societies,
they still have long way to go, towards modernization ”
it does’nt make sense !