The Great Circle of Life

When I was in class one, there was a boy in my class by the name of Mir Ali Mir. Quite an exceptional kid, had great brains and always got the first position in the class. At that time, I had recently shifted from Jennings School to DHA SKBZ School and Muma had made it clear that the only thing that she wanted to see on my report card was “1st”, otherwise, no Count Duckula, no Denver the last Dinosaur, no Thundercats or Camp Candy or Pound Puppies. So actually coming first in the class by beating Mir Ali Mir, Sadiq (gosh I still remember the names: D) and Waqar, was obviously a tough ask. But despite all my efforts I still got the third position in the finals and it was only dad’s intervention that stopped muma restricting my TV access (I guess he remembered his own childhood). So the next year I resolved to work a bit harder and finally beat Mir Ali Mir and got the first position. Man, it felt so good at that time. Got a cup at school, was chosen to speak “ Today’s Proverb” at the morning assembly and the icing on the cake was Muma’s gift, a toy jumbo jet that moved around with blinking red lights on its wings and tires which you could fold up if you wanted to hold it in the rear and fly it around the house. On the other hand, Mir Ali Mir looked a kind of forlorn and a sad figure. I have to admit; I never went to him and congratulated him on his second position. And so the reign started, class two, then three, then four and then five. Never there was a test, exam or quiz in which I didn’t come first. And then I grew complacent and over confident and in class 6 I came second. As much it was a shock to me, it was a shock to my classmates as well because everybody had now come to accept that I was the default “first position kid” so actually the only positions that they fought over for were the second and third ones. But this kid called Afaq, had other ideas. Ideas, which were fully demonstrated in the final examinations. When I looked at him, he reminded me of myself in class two, when I had beat Mir Ali Mir. Now, finally I was out of the academic lime light, and I didn’t take it well ( i would like to in the details of tantrums). Well, here I was back in the position of class one and now another struggle awaited me. And I said to myself ok, let’s get on with the life and wait for the opportunity- that opportunity finally came after six years when I was in Uni.

So the point that I want to make here is not that I am a scheming genius or that irritable know-it-all, but that everyone has their highs and lows in this life and that same thing applies to nations as well. Egyptians, Macedonians, Greeks, Romans, Assyrians, Persians, Guptas, all enjoyed domination, power and prestige and all in the end they were conquered by an adventurous band of warriors, intent upon seizing their treasures and carving out a place for themselves in the history. Look at how the Romans were sacked by Alaric; how the gigantic Byzantine and Persian forces were annihilated by the Muslim armies and how a conglomeration of Arab nations couldn’t capture a tiny strip of land, which we now call Israel. Let’s see who sacks New York. These are the times when heroes are born. Everybody loves the story David and Goliath story dont they? That is why we love it when somebody manages to attack USA in one way or another. I wonder how history will treat the Taliban and AlQaeda in the future? A hint can be taken from the treatment of Vikings by history, as now those bloodthirsty and ferocious freaks are hailed as brave warriors and glorified by the history buffs when they actually were filthy and terrifying raiders ( geez i like the concept ), their cruelty was legendary and accounts of that time tell us how they looted and destroyed chruches, villages and cities. And now…… ( chuckles)

So keeping these facts in mind let us now look at our (i.e. the Muslim) situation. Once we were a global super power and now we are struggling and humbled apologists, turncoats and religious zealots. You see, every bomb that explodes in the Green zone in Baghdad, every suicide attack on the US embassy in Kabul, every sniper shot at the Marines, every explosion in Islamabad, Madrid, Bali and London is a graphic illustration of the fact that a dethroned nation doesn’t like to be in the back seat. I mean, what USA is doing right now, is probably something similar we did when we were a superpower, Muhammad Bin Qasim conquering Sindh, Mahmud Ghaznavi attacking the Somnath temple on the pretext of destroying statues a thousand miles away when there were giant statues of Buddha (Bamiyan) in the neighborhood. Tariq Bin Ziyad conquering Spain, Ottomans capturing Byzantine Empire and the Balkans, Mughals capturing India. Yeah, we had our share of world domination, then it was United Kingdom’s turn and now its USA’s. So let it enjoy this time, after all it has gained this status after so much war and bloodshed. And on the other hand other smaller groups will always be fighting against it and finally one of them will succeed and the cycle will go on. But in each of these cases we find that how religion and national interests are exploited. This leads us to the fundamental question. Should religion, national interests, ideologies be exploited for the future progress of a nation? Are propaganda and censorship necessary evils? What do you think?