What Plagues Pakistan ?
The writer, broadly speaking, is motivated by three overriding factors. First, his irrepressible love for his country where he was born, nurtured and educated and blossomed into a youth of impeccable integrity in an ambiance reeking of deceit and duplicity, dung and corruption; second, his deep concern with the ideological moorings of his country being eroded by the voracious greed and power lust of its rulers or looters; and thirdly, his immeasurable love of his own religion, the religion of true peace and progress, growth and nourishment, not the superficial and cosmetic development which the west never tires of boasting but which has largely produced tainted glamour and spawned sleaze and immoral rubbish.
Dr. Tanvir is steeped in religious feeling, not in an aura of religiosity which is more synthetic than real. For most of us religion is only a series of rituals which we perform as drills, without any emotional involvement. But for Tanvir religion is alive, tingling with the warmth of divine presence. In the early days of Islam when people really practiced what they preached, Shakespeare’s quotation “One may smile and smile and be a villain” did not apply to the Muslims at least because there was no incompatibility between their outer and inner selves.
But now the table have turned. Muslims are humiliated all over the world, and they have acquired such notoriety that all acts of terrorism are slapped on them. Even when they are innocent, their innocence is dismissed as another act of deception. The Nine Eleven episode was engineered and masterminded by the Jews but the west found a handy scapegoat in the Muslim community and very conveniently, and without a qualm of compunction or scruple of regret, slapped the stinking allegation on the Muslims. The post-Nine Eleven scenario was also hatched by the Jewish conspirators as they have some old scores to settle with the Muslims though the absence of all the Jews from the scene of mayhem and carnage is an eloquent proof of their involvement which is reinforced by the absence even of those Jews who were notorious atheists and agnostics. The situation is totally reversed; the Islamic code of honour is now being labelled as the code of dishonour, especially by the westerm media which are trigger-ready to pick on the slightest foible’s of the Muslims and balloon them out of all proportion as monstrous deeds. And our rulers compound the heart-burn; instead of siding with their own people and flapping their wings to defend them, they side with the western world to makes some quick illegal bucks and build spurious reputations for themselves.
Dr. Tanvir, being a true Muslim, has reacted against the inhuman and evil practices that have bombarded the world of Islam as a result of the Muslims’ deviation from its original message and which is as transparent as a believers conscience. He is totally unbiased and his coterie of friends is drawn from all Muslim sects because for him Islam is above sectarian divisions. His mission is to unite the Muslims, especially those who are living in the country of his birth. The book is particularly designed to shake the Muslims out of their rabbit sleep to underscore the evil practices that have permeated all walks of human life. His style is quite congruent with his emotional pitch and the brood and extensive sweep of his sentences conveys the depth and intensity of his feelings. Sometime he even uses slang to make his message more effective because an ordinary word would have proved ineffective to express the oven- heart lava of his sentiments.
Dr. Tanvir is a highly individualistic, independent person and he is outrageously critical of all human parasites who depend on other human beings for their survival. His articles are consonant with his creative approach to life and to all that life entails. Allah has blessed him with a first-rate mind and an unquakable faith. Persons like him can change the destiny of a moribund, sleep-rumpled, fatigue-frumpled, and sloth-crumpled nation like ours. What Ann Rynd has expressed in one of her most popular novels about man and his contribution to mankind fits Dr Tanvir to the dot.
“Man cannot survive except through his mind…But the mind is an attribute of the individual. There is no such thing as a collective brain. There is no such thing as a collective thought…We can divide a meal among many men. We cannot digest it in a collective stomach. No one can use his lungs to breathe for another man. No man can use his brain to think for another…The moving force is the creative faculty. This creative faculty cannot be given or received, shared or borrowed. The creator originates, the parasite borrows. The creator faces nature alone, the parasite faces nature through an intermediary. Men have been taught that it is a virtue to agree with others. But the creator is the man who disagrees. Men have been taught that it is a virtue to swim with the current. But the creator is the man who goes against the current. Men have been taught that it is a virtue to stand together. But the creator is the man who stands alone.”
Written By
Iftikhar Ahmad
Professor of communications
University of Central Punjab , Lahore .
Former Chairman English Department Punjab University , Lahore .
Former Chief Instructor in English Language, Civil Services Academy , Pakistan