DAWN, 02 December 2000 | Mazdak
CONCEPT OF SECULARISM
By Irfan Husain
FOR the rich, the first thing that comes to mind when they are contemplating Ramazan is not renunciation of material things and prayer: they are more concerned about pulling their money out of their savings accounts so that zakat is not deducted on the first day of the holy month.
But this applies only to the Sunni majority as the Shias fought to get exempted from this religious levy when it was first imposed by Zia in the early eighties. Indeed, thousands of Sunnis have declared themselves Shias to escape this tax. Non-Muslims are already exempt. Indeed, this is one of the few advantages of being a member of a minority in this country; the other being able to legally buy booze. Unless, of course, you are an Ahmadi, in which case prohibition laws apply. So the poor Ahmadis have all the problems of being declared a minority without being able to benefit from their status.
I bring up these exceptions in the legal system as an example of the confusion caused by trying to frame laws in accordance with a religious faith that is not followed by all the citizens of Pakistan. Under such a dispensation, it is inevitable that every law does not apply to every citizen, and this is the essence of a civilized, democratic order. In a society like ours, all citizens cannot be equal, and for people like me who maintain that everybody must be equal in the eyes of the law, this is an unacceptable situation that has led to many of the contortions and distortions our legal system has been prone to.
By definition, democracy implies equality, and yet by basing laws on a faith that is not universal, we are excluding people from the ambit of the democratic order we are trying to create. In both Israel and Pakistan, the two states created in the name of religion in modern times, citizens who do not subscribe to the faith of the majority have been marginalized. In Israel, non-Jewish Arabs cannot buy property in certain areas. But while they suffer from discrimination in many more subtle ways, they do not face persecution to the degree Pakistan's minorities do. They do not, for instance, face the consequences of the iniquitous blasphemy law, and nor do they have to contend with the divisive system of separate electorates.
In Pakistan, secularism has been a pejorative word because of the unfortunate (and inaccurate) translation of this concept into Urdu: 'Ladinyat' or irreligiousness. Yet my Webster's Third New International Dictionary defines secularism thus: "...a system of social ethics based upon a doctrine that ethical standards and conduct should be determined exclusively with reference to present life and social well-being without reference to religion." No mention of godless heathens here.
In the recent book 'Confronting Empire' containing interviews with the late and much-missed Eqbal Ahmad, the interviewer, David Barsamian, asked the famous teacher, activist and columnist about his views on religion. Eqbal replied: "I am very harshly secularist. But let's be clear about what 'secularism' means to me, and ought to mean generally to everybody else. In its original meaning it doesn't mean that you are irreligious or that you are opposed to religion. Secular to me means that the laws of the state, the laws of society, will not be enacted in accordance with some divine injunction; they will be enacted in response to the needs of society. Law treats everybody equally - be they Christians, Jews, Hindus, or Muslims - and is made for everyone equally. That's secular to me. It's in that sense that to me Israel is not a secular state, nor is Pakistan, but the United States is."
There is a general misconception in Pakistan that only religion keeps the tidal wave of immorality from inundating Pakistan, and if we were to become secular, we would be swamped by obscenity and all kinds of evil western influences. We tend to forget that most Muslim countries are secular and the standards of morality are generally far higher there. Indeed, nations like Turkey, Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria have smaller non-Muslim minorities than we do. Granted that they are not all shining examples of democracy, but their laws do not distinguish between one faith and another. We need to reflect on the universality of values: the aim of all major religions and value systems is to promote harmony, honesty and equality. There is thus no basic contradiction between secularism and religion: the former only suggests that faith is a private matter between the individual and his Maker. Edmund Burke, in his opening speech at the impeachment of Warren Hastings in 1788, makes this point very well:
"The laws of morality are the same everywhere, and... there is no action which would pass for an act of extortion, of peculation, of bribery, and of oppression in England, that is not an act of extortion, of peculation, of bribery and oppression in Europe, Asia, Africa, and all the world over."
The problem with states created in the name of religion is that politicians and bigots tend to justify the existence of their countries with an excessive outward show of religiosity. Thus, Israeli rabbis try to block all transport on Saturdays, the Jewish Sabbath, while our mullahs are on the verge of declaring interest illegal, thus precipitating a major financial crisis. In both cases, the zealots do not have the education or the sophistication to grasp the requirements of modern states plugged into a global economy.
As experience has taught us (or should have done by now), democracy and bigotry are incompatible, whether this ideological fervour stems from religious belief or a blind commitment to any other kind of dogma. These positions lead followers to assume an attitude of righteousness that is the very anti-thesis of democracy. Dogma teaches that only one point of view can be correct; and if this is so, all those who have not seen the light are wrong, and therefore deserve to be treated as second class citizens, if not as actual enemies of the ideological state.
In 1947, there was a famous case in the United States (Emerson versus the Board of Education) in which the plaintiff pleaded that the government should permit the teaching of Christian dogma in public schools. Mindful of the fact that many non-Christians were enrolled in the school system, and that one kind of religious instruction may offend certain sects, the court threw out the plea. In his ruling, the judge, Hugo La Fayette Black, said:
"The First Amendment has erected a wall between church and state. That wall must be kept high and impregnable. We could not approve the slightest breach."
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