http://paktribune.com/news/index.php?id=213613
Alice in Talibland-1
Tuesday April 14, 2009 (1617 PST)
Anwaar Hussain
[email protected]
Alice fell straight down the rabbit hole. Suddenly she landed on a heap
of sticks and dry leaves and the fall was over. She saw a Talib running in
front of her through a long labyrinthine passage. It looked like some
underground cave system. Alice started to follow the Talib. He appeared to be
in a great hurry.
She almost lost sight of him but caught up with him near a bend. Fearful
that she would lose him again, she caught his shirt tail to make him stop. At
this the Talib came to an abrupt stop pushing her hand away.
"You cannot do that," said the Talib, "You are a female!"
"But I am only 12 years old!" replied Alice. "That's old enough,"
retorted the Talib in a gruff voice. Alice blinked, failing to understand the
Talib's meaning.
"Now here is the deal," the Talib said in a commanding voice. "You follow
me while I attend to a few urgent chores and stay quiet. When I am done, I will
answer any questions that you have. Agreed?"
"Agreed!" said Alice meekly and started following the Talib a respectful
distance behind.
Presently they entered a hall where they found a group of Taliban holding
a miserable looking old man in shackles. In a corner, a Talib was sharpening a
butcher's knife. The smell of blood was every where. From his looks, he
appeared to be a poor farmer.
"What is his crime?" asked the Talib with Alice. He behaved like the
group's leader.
"He saw us beheading a man and said something blasphemous," said one from
the Taliban group.
"What did he say?"
"He said that if we were doing what we were doing in the name of God then
we could not be worshiping the same God. He said that his God was merciful,
loving and forgiving."
"Ah! That's blasphemous indeed. But why was the man being beheaded?"
"He was being beheaded for saying exactly the same thing when he saw us
digging a dead man's grave."
"And why were you digging a dead man's grave?"
"Because he had escaped beheading for saying the exact same blasphemous
words when he saw us beheading yet another man for a similar blasphemy but died
a natural death before we could reach him. We wanted to dig him out and behead
his dead body to correct the lapse."
"That seems reasonable," said the Talib with Alice. "Off with his head
then!" said he and motioned to Alice to continue with him.
Soon they approached a dark cave from which heart rending shrieks of a
girl were coming. Trembling slightly, Alice peeked from behind the Talib and
saw a strange spectacle. Three men were holding a girl face down while a Talib
was flogging the girl mercilessly. With each lash, the girl would beg for mercy
at an even higher pitch. That in turn would urge the flogger to whip her with
ever greater fervor.
Seeing the Talib and Alice, the group at once stopped the activity. "What
is her fault?" the Talib asked.
"She loved," said one from the group.
"What? Loved? How evil. Continue the punishment," said the Talib. "But
who are the men holding her down? She cannot be touched by every one." He asked.
"Oh, the ones holding her arms are her brothers and the one holding her
feet is her father. We took care that every thing is done according to the word
of God."
"God is great. That is good then. Carry on."
With that, the Talib led Alice out of the caves to a dark, unlit opening.
A pale moon was visible in the sky. Under the eerie light, the Talib turned
towards Alice and said, "Now you may ask your questions."
Gathering her nerve, Alice asked her first question, "Is it possible to
have a religion that makes me happy, balanced, moral, and intellectually
fulfilled?"
The Talib thought for a while and then replied, "Well! I am afraid your
very first question is a loaded one. You see religion is all about morals.
Happiness is just an idea. Balance and intellect are twin-evils born out of
lack of faith. Some far gone devils call it reason and rationality too. When
one has faith, it doesn't matter whether he has balance or intellect or any
thing else. I hope I have made myself clear."
"Quite clear, I guess," said Alice. "My next question then is why a
religious belief is necessary in order for us to have acceptable morals? And if
that indeed is the case then why not cut out the middlemen and go straight for
the moral choice without the religion?"
The Talib looked stumped for a while. He blinked a few times as if trying
to comprehend the real import of the question. Then he shook his head and
simply said, "Told you that religion is all about morals. And you cannot cut
out the middlemen because that is US. And WE are ordained by God to carry out
his will. So we are told and so I am telling you. That was really a stupid
question."
"I am sorry!" said Alice. "Well let me ask you this then. Why when a
single person is superstitious, we call him sick, delusional, schizophrenic
etc. but when millions suffer from a mass delusion we call it their religion
and are asked to respect their religious beliefs?"
"Because there is not only safety but sanity in numbers too, that's why."
the Talib replied tersely. He seemed to be increasingly getting angry with the
turn the questions were taking.
"What is God?" asked Alice abruptly.
The Talib looked at her with glazed eyes.
"God is all around us. HE is in every thing. HE is nature. That is why my
religion is the closest to nature..the truest and the best religion." the Talib
intoned with zealous fervor.
"Ok. Have you ever heard of Carl Sagan?" asked Alice.
At this apparently disconnected question, the Talib looked at her with a
bemused look on his face and said, "No, but from the sound of his name he seems
to be some infidel heathen."
"Oh, well! Carl Sagan once said, '. . . if by "God" one means the set of
physical laws that govern the universe, then clearly there is such a God. This
God is emotionally unsatisfying . . . it does not make much sense to pray to
the law of gravity.' What do you say to that?"
"Be careful girl. You cannot ask questions about God or how He does
things. You are only to believe, to have faith. You are getting dangerously
close to being blasphemous." The Talib warned without answering the question.
"Oh ok! I am sorry. I thought that was an innocent query. But then you
have to answer another question that is far more important." said Alice
"I want to know why it is perfectly possible to question who made a watch
and how he made it but not who made this universe and how he made it?"
"Be careful girl!" the Talib growled in a menacing way.
Alice continued without stopping, "I want to know how to answer people
blaming your's as a violent religion when in the protests in the wake of Danish
cartoons demonstrators were photographed in Britain bearing banners saying,
'Behead those who say Islam is a violent religion'.
"Be careful girl!" the Talib hissed.
"I want to know what to make of Ralph Waldo Emerson's quotation in which
he says, "The religion of one age is the literary entertainment of the next",
can you?"
"Be careful!" the Talib growled. But Alice had lost all control of her
emotions. She went on recklessly.
"I have seen your killings and your beheadings of fellow human beings in
the name of God and I say we could not be worshiping the same God. My God is
merciful, loving and forgiving. Your's is not."
"May you rot in hell!" shouted the Talib with foam flying from his mouth
and his eyes narrowed down to mere slits.
"Off with her head!" he ordered a group of approaching Taliban.
x-x-x
(To be continued)
http://www.truthspring.info/publichtml/?p=57
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