Blowing up the shrine was bad?
March 8, 2009
Why blowing up of the shrine of the Pukhtun’s greatest poet does and doesn’t matter.
In the early hours of March 5th someone with an expert knowledge of demolition strapped high explosive charges to the main columns of the shrine of the poet Abdur Rahman Baba. Mercifully no one was injured when the bombs detonated in a shower of masonry and smoke.
But what does this explosion mean to Pukhtuns and to those watching with increasing angst as the NWFP becomes embroiled in sectarian conflict?
In one sense it matters a lot, in another sense it doesn’t matter much at all.
The concern is that the explosion highlights the rise of ruthless totalitarianism. It’s pretty gutsy to try and destroy the shrine of the Pukhtun’s greatest icon – a superstar Sufi poet. He died over 300 years ago, but his poetry is still on everyone’s lips.
Similar lurches toward intolerance were the hallmark of the Pol Pot regime in Cambodia and a host of other countries in which the private lives of citizens became regulated by those who thought they knew best.
By some the bombing of Rahman’s tomb will be applauded as a genuine attempt to rid the NWFP of theological error. A strict interpretation of Islam does, after all, prohibit prayer through an intermediary saint; even if he is a great poet.
But an attempt to control the private beliefs and behaviour of others is a risky business.
The drive towards the instant certainty of a strict code of behaviour is at first sight an attractive option in an uncertain world. But eventually it may lead to what the Cambridge scholar T. J. White has called the ‘poverty of fanaticism’. The slippery slope begins with intolerance towards those with other beliefs and leads to the steady eradication of the cultural diversity so vital to the fabric of a healthy state. By the time Pol Pot’s regime ended in 1979 his firm vision of the way to improve society had resulted in the eradication of over 25% of the population, many of them tortured and killed by his ruthless henchmen.
On the other hand the bombing doesn’t matter much. There is a resiliency in the human spirit which resists the advance of totalitarian ways. Intimidation, violence and a disregard for the rights of others may have their day, but it will only be for a season. Eventually shooting sportsmen, depriving girls of education and preventing others from exercising their own religious freedom will be seen for the folly it is. The deeper values of culture and human independence will bubble up again from the base, like a spring of fresh water which cleanses itself.
But what values will do the job? By a twist of fate the highest values of tolerance in Pukhtun culture are expressed in the poems of the one whose shrine was blown up. It is these values which are now the vital antidote to militancy and which hold the greatest hope for the region. He was the one who said:
If another does you harm, return them good,Or evil will devour you too.The heart that is safe in the storm is the one which carriesOthers’ burdens like a boat.
These are ideas which can’t be blown up.
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