Adil Najam
According to a news item in The News, Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) is going to implement a ban on growing beards – except for French beards – on all male cabin crew:
In a recent notification, PIA administration has announced to have reviewed its policy regarding beards, and said now male cabin crew could not grow beards and they could only have French-cut beards.
Not surprisingly, religious scholars and ulema condemned PIA for this, calling the ban a violation of constitutional and fundamental human rights. Whether this is or is not the most important constitutional violation of our age, the ulema are, in fact, right.
Unless there is a sound technical reason for it (and there seems not to be), forcing someone to take off their beard is deserving of condemnation as much as forcing someone to grow a beard. Especially if either of the act is ideologically motivated; no matter what the ideology. Of course, forcing someone to grow a beard on threat of death or violence is particularly disturbing. But, frankly, a threat to one’s livelihood is also reprehensible.
Right now, I myself do not have a beard. And that is not an ideological statement one way or the other. But my own position remains unchanged from October 2006 when I had commented on facial hair for cricketers:
By way of disclosure I should add that I occasionally sprout facial hair of my own but am mostly clean-shaven. But as a deep and committed adherent of people’s right of expression (how can a blogger not be that!) I stand committed to defend people’s right to facial hair, whether they are grown for stylistic elegance or religious expression.
More pertinent was the June 2006 decision by Habib Bank to ban shalwar kameez and facial hair (by the way, can someone please confirm if that policy was ever implemented). In that case the issue had focused more on the wearing of shalwar kameez to work and the argument that this somehow made the person look less “trustworthy” and less “presentable.” Facial hair were also targeted for the same reason. On the issue of beards, trustworthiness and presentability, my argument was rather simple:
Dr. Abdus Salam? Abdul Sattar Edhi? Sir Syed Ahmed Khan?
Presentable? You bet.
Trustworthy? More than any banker I ever met.
As a rather frequent traveler on PIA – in fact, I read this news item on a PIA plane retruning from Karachi to Islamabad, and one of the cabin staff was supporting a huge beard – I too have noticed that the number of crew members with facial hair, especially large beards, has increased dramatically over the years. But that is a factor of what has been happening in society. PIA has plenty of big problems to deal with, and this seems to be the least of them.
At least in my experience, the quality of service one gets is not at all dependent on the amount of facial hair. Maybe the management should focus on that before it starts following the example of the Swat Taliban in judging people by the length of their facial hair (or not)!
As many others have pointed out, this does not at all compare to the barbaric inhumanity of the Taliban mullahs who have been killing barbers for shaving or cutting off their noses.
But it is still wrong. Those who have been condemning the Taliban for stopping people from shaving should also condemn PIA for stopping people from non-shaving. Simple as that.
Bravo to Adil Najam for his even handedness and fairness in condemning both.
Same on the mullah supporters here for suddenly becoming angry at this but never raising a word against the taliban for forcing the beard.
Of course, the issue with beards is ridiculous. However, we have to understand that we’re basing this on the fact that we believe that looks, etc should not influence one’s ability to get and maintain a job. Do we really think that looks are not a factor in hiring stewardesses? This is basically the other side of the same coin.
Also, I find the irrelevant jabs at PIA’s service to be quite absurd. No, I’m not saying that it’s the best airline; in fact, they could use a lot of help in getting their reservation system working properly, etc. However, inflight service is usually pretty good and the cabin staff really do go out of their way to accommodate people. I must say that the minor issues that come up from time to time are almost always due to the sense of entitlement and general disrespectful attitude shown by our expat betters.
Asim, I don’t want to indulge in any unending war of arguments, and we shouldn’t be. My only effort is to bridge the divide among the Muslims.
For Businesses, service matters and not the look of the persons behind those services. Have you ever fly with any Indian Airline, they have airhostesses supporting “bindis”, but no one ever complain. Instead, the airline is proudly presenting it as their culture. Same is the case with the Singaporian airlines, whom I just recently fly with. They have the airhostesses wearing weird gowns. Why we should have inferiority complex about our religion.
As far as scientific contributions are concerned, these are the products of a system which is based on the strong social & moral norms. We cannot produce those type of products unless we’ve the similar system of processes. Now, you will ask me, why shouldn’t we follow that system. I agree with you, we should follow the system that ensures maximum amount of fruits for us. Scientific contributions by West in today’s world are peanuts compared to the scientific contributions made by Muslim’s world in the past centuries. Now, you’ve the choice which system you want to adopt and follow.
Then you talked about the image. My dear friend, I’m reading a book “Orientalism” by Late Edward Said now-a-days. In this book, the author proved that Power creates knowledge, and knowledge then helps building the image of different sections of the humanity. As far as power is in the hands of those who dislike Islam and it’s followers, we can’t expect our image to improve provided we left Islam. Instead, we should worry about the image of ours’ infront of Allah. I believe that would be the key to the positive transformation of our society.
Its just the beginning , if we give way to these kind of laws and thinking , the next scenario will be darker.
@ Adil
It is, indeed, the most important constitutional violation of our age,…
Adil, i was expecting better from you.
The most important constitutional violation of our age (and in deed of Islam–Holy Quran is foremost constitution) is to tell one reciter of Kalima-Tayyaba (i.e. Muslim) that you are NOT a Muslim. And Majority decides religion of others….
especially when this Constitutional violation is NOT based on Holy Quran.
Holy Quran says (in my words): Don’t declare some one Kaffir who uses Muslim salutations (i.e. salam).
When i hear some Christian (e.g. British MP George Gallaway) saying Aslam Alikum, i wonder if we can still call him Kaffir????