Blaspehming Blasphemies

A version of this post was originally published here.

The Blasphemous Blasphemy Law
i usually don't do smash and grab super quick blogs, and i try and avoid politics and internet activism like the plague. however, a couple of days ago i was asked by ahsan butt of fiverupees to do a post, and since ahsan is the dawood ibrahim of paksitani blogging* i couldn't say no.

*(if you don't believe me, check out the untimely demises of Aslam Kana'a Senior, Chotta Bubs and Nithoo Bhola to see what i mean)

the post in question is to talk about the upcoming rally to protest the blasphemy law. in case you don't know about it, check out the details here. (Ed: the protest has since been cancelled until further notice)

but in order to avoid this event becoming a glorified GT, we have to get our heads wrapped around what argument we are proposing to place on the agenda. as mosharraf zaidi pointed out in his excellent article, the for and against camps in the blasphemy debate are often speaking at cross currents.

for many of us, the blasphemy law is abhorrent because it is so frequently misused and abused. however, we can't expect to present this argument, because it shifts the focus away from the legitimacy of the law to a question of how it is being enforced. which leads us into the cesspool of arguing over how to implement laws properly in pakistan.

for others, the blasphemy law needs to be repealed because it is a violation of freedom of speech. this is the exact point (you might as well mark it and take a picture with it) where the anti-blasphemy law campaign finds itself being portrayed as a bunch of 'liberal-extremists' licking the soles of western boots.

why does that happen?

if we are to accept freedom of speech as a valid value to cherish, then it means that we believe that we think everyone has the right to say what they feel. that's great in theory, but in practice it boils down to two things.

first of all, it ignores the fact that in pakistan, by and large, you don't have rights, you have power. if you have power to say what you feel like, you might pretend you are exercising your rights, but in reality you are flexing your considerable muscles. which means those without power are by and large without rights.

secondly, it implies that the only thing sacred is the right to free speech, and the sanctity of that right exists above and beyond anything else which might be held sacred. for the pro-blasphemy camp, this essentially translates into saying that people 'should' have the right to trash all that is sacred.

i might be wrong here, but i can sense that you are tensing up a bit. fear not - for many of the 'progressive' crowd, words like sacred and holy are immediately problematic and uncomfortable.

unfortunately, the problem is that until we can frame our debate in those very contexts of religion and things that are sacred, we are always opening up ourselves to be outflanked by claims that we are brainwashed from abroad and that we have no clue about what it means to be a pakistani.

so why don't we take this debate on in a religious context?

the reason we don't is that we seem to imagine islam like a supercomputer which we can only use once we have learnt C++ and Java and other more complex languages.

let me explain myself.

a few weeks ago, there was this thing on twitter where everyone was tweeting as their 16 year old selves. my favourite tweet of that day was by someone who wrote "one day i am going to learn arabic, interpret the Quran the right way and then all our problems would be solved."

i know a lot of people who can relate to that feeling that there is a truth out there that we can get to if only we are learned enough.

however, we grow up and come to assume that the supremacy of islamic knowledge lies with those whose day job it is to memorize it, and thus we can't hope to enter into a religious argument with them without resorting to non-religious points of views.

well that's just bullshit.

because if the blasphemy debate is to be won over, and i am talking in pragmatic terms here, it has to be framed in the context of religion itself. whether we like it or not, that is the context wherein the majority of our society can converge upon. that is not to say that we are all rabid fundos or enslaved by the opium of religion, but rather the fact that it is the most widespread mode of articulating ideas in our society.

and there is no reason we can't frame a progressive argument in religious terms. this doesn't mean looking up ayahs and tafseers and hadith, but employing some basic logic.

the problem with the idea of blasphemy, particularly at the level of personal insults, is that it implies that the Prophet or God or the Book are some sort of virginal brides in see through chemises whose honor can be irrevocably slighted with even the smallest speck of dirt.

unleashing the law to punish business card trashing and water bringing betrays a supreme sense of insecurity about the perceived value of that which is meant to be sacred, because it implies that something as mundane as those actions would bring the whole edifice of faith and religion crashing down.

so we need to ask the pro-blasphemy camp - is the Prophet an idea, an example, a person so weak and defenseless that even the naming of a teddy bear will tarnish his image? is your faith so weak that it needs to kill an impoverished woman to save itself? is your religion so wobbly that a business card can bring it down?

even if you don't believe in the sacred history, the more or less accepted versions of historical islam admit that the Prophet bore some hardcore persecution of his people and his self without feeling the need to avenge them. so why is it that his followers 14 centuries on feel so insecure about any criticism thrown his way?

the blasphemy law needs to be repealed because it is a blasphemy in its own self. it reduces that which is supposedly sacred into an idea so weak and powerless that only the most violent action can seem to save it. the blasphemy law is an insult to anyone who has faith, because it claims that an idea which requires blind belief can be shattered by something inconsequential.

you might not agree with me, and you might not feel that you can carry this debate with anyone armed with tafseers and hadiths. that might be true, but i honestly believe that even if this is a losing argument, it is not a futile one. because it zeroes in on the realm of religion - the very realm the pro-blasphemy camp seems to believe it owns, and can thus manipulate it for its own purposes.

at the end of the day, the reason we should wish to repeal the blasphemy law, or amend it is not because we would like to see the triumph of our own political belief and agenda. we should wish to take this stand because we don't want to see innocent, powerless people be mercilessly persecuted and murdered.

the reason we should wish to make this argument should not be about politics, but about humanity.