In The Beginning Was The Word (fiction)

In The Beginning Was The Word

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I have argued elsewhere that 'freedom' is an empty word without meaning in Asia because Asia lacks the experience of large-scale slavery. Zafar Shah tries to teach that words have meaning only in context but doesn't stand a chance against the tide of media indoctrination, historical defeat and the flood of dosh from the west.

Excerpt:

General Haroon-ur-Rashid came to my flat, all pips and gongs.

"Well, Zafar, do you think the students will overthrow me?"

"No, not the students." I put my cold mango juice down. "The donors. By means of the students."

"And why’s that?"

"They don’t need any anti-communist bulwark, anymore."

"But I’m popular."

"I know. They know that, too. But they want free and fair elections. Something they call freedom."

"What can I do?"

"If we had had enough time, we could have fought one idea with another idea. Rather, one word with an idea."

"What are you going on about, Zafar?"

"The idea of freedom has gripped the students: they don’t understand the word, but they like the sound. And who can blame them? The entire western media have indoctrinated them. A few years ago, we could have countered the word with a Perso-Arabic expression: zel Allah."

"Eh?"

The Last Virus

The first western virus to penetrate the Muslim world was nationalism Imagine! Seven hundred years of Ottoman civilisation was permeated by nationalism. Where once, different nationals coexisted cheek by jowl under one government - the Sultan's - now Turkish nationalism reared its ugly head. Today, we have Muslims fighting Muslims, Turks fighting Kurds....What could be sadder?

Then came the second virus, Marxism. Leaders like Nasser ousted their kings and proclaimed Arab nationalism....This didn't work. They married nationalism with another western ideology, Marxism, and even that didn't work. The Arab-Israeli war of 1967 discredited both ideologies, paving the road for Islamic fundamentalism.

Today, the third virus has been taken up by the Arabs: the virus of democracy. How will this end? No doubt in some terrible upheaval.

Why does the Muslim world have to borrow from the west? We have our own political philosophy: the zel Allah, the shadow of Allah. The ruler is the shadow of Allah, but, thanks to western ideology, we demand democracy. That is not our heritage. The khutbah of the mosque prayer prohibits us from criticizing our rulers. How dare we do that?

Surely the Middle East is destined to wickedness...it has sold out to the west, the Great Satan. In a year's time, we shall see chaos in the Maghreb, for these people have disobeyed.