Mr. Ishtiaq Ahmed’s article Convoluted Hypocrisy and Extremism published in the Daily Times on May 30, is a curious read affording us a unique opportunity to see the capacity some people have to retain and propagate wrong and distorted ideas! His rather passionate harangue, epitomizing his views on sexual liberation, segregation, freedom of selection, sexual repression and extremism, cultural leadership, west’s cultural and moral superiority, and globalization, contradict such obvious facts and premises of common sense that it seems necessary to discuss all his fallacies in detail under separate headings.
Sexual Liberation and Mental Health:
The main idea of Mr. Ishtiaq Ahmed’s article is that sex is an irrefutable force, which, if suppressed, “goes to head” and becomes manifest in hypocritical behavior, extremism (terrorism etc.) and falling behind in art, culture, technology and science. The solution that Mr. Ishtiaq suggests, for forming a “healthy and balanced society”, is that of sexual liberation. He says that the segregation of men and women is unnatural; that the two sexes should be allowed "to meet and interact freely." He is however against early marriage as Maulvis recommend. He concludes his article on the statement of his belief that “most of our youth just want to be with each other, hold each others hands or talk” and that, “realizing that ours is a very conservative culture, (they) will know how to exercise their freedom within the confines of our value system”.
The thesis that sexual liberation could produce healthy society is an idea, which emerged from Freudian psychology. Freud was of the view that repression of the sexual urge was the reason of the development of various complexes and was a prime cause of psychological ailments. Wilhelm Reich, following Freud, expanded on the benefits of sexual liberty, which in his opinion could be instrumental in producing revolutionists. Both of these ideas however lost there grounds. Eric Fromm in Greatness and limitations of Freudian Thought writes that Freud’s idea about the sexual repression and mental health could not account for the myriad of mental diseases in the western society where sex has become ‘the cheapest commodity’. He says that Reich was also not right in his assumption; as the sexual liberation did not produce ‘revolutionary character’; rather it eliminated their possibility. Fromm writes that sexual liberation is the natural outcome of consumerism.
The Meaning of Segregation:
Mr. Ishtiaq regards segregation as the cause of all ills in society. This wrong practice has however been maintained by many great civilizations of the world. Here it is necessary to clarify that segregation does not mean a sexless society as Mr. Ishtiaq has tried to portray. All such societies had a permanent placement of sex, within their broader concept of life and universe.
In Islam the sexual act between husband and wife is regarded even as a Nay-ki or act of virtue. In Hinduism the sexual union is a manifestation and the symbol of the re-union of the soul with Brahma, the Godhead. Segregation also does not mean repression of sex. In traditional cultures, sex was always accepted as a material reality and marriage was a way to fulfill its demands. In Islam, men are allowed to keep four wives. In golden periods of Islam, women also exercised great freedom in separating from the husband, who could not fulfill their needs.
The wisdom of segregation lies in it being the expression of the distinction of the two sexes. It means polarity and thus increased attraction. The west has witnessed the consequence of the commingling of sexes, which has resulted in weakening of the distinction between men and women, transfer of gender qualities and roles and thus the drifting of sexual attraction from man to man and woman to woman, called homo-sexuality. Thus Dr. Israr’s view (which Mr. Ishtiaq presents as something shockingly strange) about the benefit of segregation could be upheld with the modification that segregation not only keeps men’s virility at optimum levels, it also safeguards women’s womanhood.
Sexual Repression and Extremism:
Mr. Ishtiaq has also tried to link what he calls extremism with sexual repression. However before entering into any debate on the relationship it seems necessary to see what extremism means. Extremism is a neutral word in the sense that it can be attached to any situation of imbalance. Interestingly enough the word had no equivalent in Urdu. And when the term became rampant in the world media, a word Shiddad Pasandi had to be coined for it. Extremism is in fact the most prominent spirit of the west, where the word was created. If Mr. Ishtiaq had some knowledge of the history of the west, he would know that the western world has been swinging among extremes like a pendulum for last many centuries. From Catholicism to Puritanism, from orthodoxy to atheism, from rationality to romanticism, from capitalism to communism, from Nazism to European fraternity…..the western pendulum has continued to swing. Even in sexual liberation, the west has touched the extremes and the society, which once had as strong a code of sexual morality as any eastern nation, has now gone to such a pit of sexual experimentation, where the carnal love has lost all its glamour. Even in a relatively religious society of America, the sexual perversion has touched such a limit that as large as 12% of its population has had the experience of incest. The situation is still worse in the Europe and the sexual inclinations of the people have started disregarding all relations. Rape, sexual assaults, child abuse, and other sexual crimes and perversions are rampant and incidents are continually encountered that even overshadow the horrors of Marques de Sade.
The extremism and terrorism in the Muslim world, which Mr. Ishtiaq defined as having a socio-sexual bases have no such bases at all; as Muslims are neither extremists and terrorists. If Muslims, in his words, are blowing themselves up, it is because they have been left very little scope to resist the western imperialistic forces vying to snatch their right to maintain their identity. It is not “sexual frustration converted into collective anger and a lethal force in the Muslim world,” it is among other things a just reaction against the great injustice wrought by the west through out the globe.
Sexual Liberation and Cultural Achievements:
Mr. Ishtaiq says that he is convinced that “the West’s ability to lead the world in science, arts, technology and philosophy has a causal link with its sexual liberation.” He may believe whatever he wishes to, as he has the right to remain wrong. However this statement of relationship is not corroborated by the history of the west. Perhaps Mr. Ishtiaq is not aware of the fact that west was not like this since time immemorial and there used to be a strict moral code practiced in many European countries. He perhaps has not heard about the Victorian morality. Sexual emancipation in many parts of the west does not date back even half a century! As has been mentioned earlier Eric Fromm calls it a product of capitalism and increasing consumerism. As I have little confidence left in Mr. Ishtiaq’s general knowledge, I would like to inform him that a bulk of the great artistic, intellectual and scientific achievements had already been made in an age, which would definitely qualify according to his standards as period of repression.
Then there are the biographies of the great a people which tells us a different story. We may start from** Isaac Newton, who, according to E.T. Bell and H. Eves, “had no other recorded sweethearts and never married,” once his beloved betrothed married to someone else at his early twenties. Charles Darwin was a monogamous creature with 10 children from the same wife. Einstein was also not a promiscuous nature. The great physicist of our time, Stephen Hawking, on the other hand, is a paralyzed being since his early thirties, and it is out of question as to whether he was able to receive the fruits of sexual liberation for his great discoveries made much later.**
**Freedom of Selection of Partner: **
Talking about sexual liberation, Mr. Ishtiaq talks about the “the right of the individual not to be hounded by custodians of morality about his or her freedom to choose partners.” If this is his definition of sexual liberation, then such liberation is available in the Islamic society. All Muslim men and women have the right to choose their partners. Islam neither forces nor encourages a forced union as the marriage does not take place without the consent of both the parties. In a real Islamic society there is no point of any body being ‘hounded by any custodian of morality’ to select or not to select someone as his or her spouse. Selection of husband and wife is no sin in Islam or any traditional religion.
West Moral Superiority:
Overgeneralization is a grave problem with Mr. Ishtiaq and he falls a victim to his habit again in his deducting inference of the western moral supremacy on the basis of his experience at Stockholm,** where “young girls can go to work or return home in the middle of night without fear of being molested.**” He perhaps has not seen the statistics about the rate of sexual crimes in various other western nations. According to the US Justice Department’s report for years 1992-2000, more than 0.4 million people become victims of rapes and rape attempts each year. It means that each day more than one thousand people are subjected to sexual crimes in a country which enjoy the benefits of complete sexual liberty!
Islam’s Repressive Culture?
Talking about the causes of extremism, Mr. Ishtiaq calls Islamic culture, repressive, “where everything artistic, (that is), music, painting, films, dance, photography, mixed marathons, going to movies etc., is forbidden” and which makes “young men feel guilty about anything spontaneous, artistic and natural.” Here we encounter the problem of a man conditioned to regard the west as the only civilization. What Mr. Ishtiaq has done is that he has enumerated the cultural products of a civilization, which are non existent in the other civilization, and on the basis of this non presence has declared the other one inferior. It is just like comparing apple and orange, and saying that as orange does not have smooth surface it is inferior! It is a principle that comparison is possible only in the varieties of the same thing and not essentially different objects. The thing that is needed to be understood here is that Islam has created a civilization with its own ‘artistic, spontaneous and natural things’. The creative genius in the Muslim world has found expression primarily in poetry, calligraphy and architecture. And in these three domains it has made contributions, which are simply miraculous in their beauty and perfection. The other cultural institutions of the Islamic society have also been different from those enumerated by Mr. Ishtiaq, and these institutions will start forming, re-emerge and activating once we do away with ‘our westernized sensibility’ and plunge deeper into the essence of our civilization.
Acceptance of Globalization:
It is Mr. Ishtiaq Ahmed suggestion that we should not try resist globalization and Westernization, should not try to revive “the chaste Islamic culture; as the Saudis, Imam Khomeini and the Taliban have tried to do that;” He says that the thing that is needed to be done is to do serious analysis and policy input. These suggestions are very important; not because they have any worth but because they provide a classic example of the mental process of a non creative spirit without any ability left to think and act independently. Mr. Ishtiaq is surely not aware that anti-globalization movement is global phenomenon with stalwart supporters even in the western world. It is a movement to save the world from becoming an exploitative, homogeneous and variety-less place and people from all over the world are working for its cause. On the other hand the revival of chaste Islamic culture is also the aspiration of millions of people throughout the globe. This aspiration is continually making its manifestations as the prime force of resistance to the western political, economic and cultural agenda. This force is continually unfolding realty and its global presence is a sign of the fact there still are people who have the courage to dream and act in spite of the almost complete western onslaught.
Definition of Hypocrisy and Conclusion:
According to the Oxford Dictionary the word Hypocrisy is derived from Greek in which it means feigning or acting. In English the word hypocrisy is used to refer to insincerity, pretense and false claim to virtue. In Arabic, the word regarded synonymous to hypocrisy (Nifaq) is essentially a religious term, referring to the spiritual state of the people who posed themselves as Muslims but who inwardly had no belief on its doctrines. Here it is to be noted that hypocrites many a times acted as per the dictates of the religion. Their problem lied in their ‘insincerity’ towards Islam and Muslims.
Thus all the people who act against their professed believes are not necessarily hypocrites as hypocrisy may and may not become manifest in acts. Hypocrisy is a mental attitude, involving the psychology of deceit and cunningness. Moreover a man while sincerely believing in a doctrine may act against it due to the compulsions of body, compulsions of emotions, compulsions of ego and above all compulsions of society. In all such cases he although his acts may be criminal he is not thought of as a hypocrite.
In this perspective all the people who engage themselves in some act regarded obnoxious by their beliefs (such as browsing nude sites) may not be hypocrites. They should rather be regarded as weak people, so long as they show a healthy recognition of the wrongness of their acts. However on the contrary all such people who hate religion but who do not express their hatred and contempt directly; and take the indirect route of venting their pent up scorn on the things and symbols associated with religion are hypocrites indeed and this is the type of simple hypocrisy, I would like Mr. Ishtiaq Ahmed to think about. Mr. Ishtiaq has rightly said that “the present era is an information age” and that “we have enough scholarly, scientific research available to understand how sex affects individual and social behavior.”
I would in the end like to recommend Mr. Ishtiaq to take benefit from that great treasure of knowledge for it would definitely help him to modernize and humanize his views on sex.
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wht u ppl think and say …**
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ok ok i kid 
but a guy indeed!
Keep it up, have fun.