Fundamentalists Of The World Unite

The News, Pakistan

March 10, 2006

Opinion

Farooq Sulehria

Fundamentalists in different parts of the world have a kind of relationship that Khalil Gibran's Father Samaan has got with Satan. Father Samaan was in constant war with Satan. One evening, he saw an unclothed dying man. Father Samaan came close to the man and saw a strange face with contrasting features: intelligence with slyness, ugliness with beauty, and wickedness with softness. He withdrew to his feet sharply and exclaimed, "Who are you?"

"I am Satan", comes the reply.

Father screams: "God has shown me your hellish image and justly caused me to hate you; cursed be you forever more!"

Satan tells Father, "Be not in haste" and explains:" Do you not realise that you will starve to death if I were to die? What would you do tomorrow if you allowed me to die today? What vocation would you pursue if my name disappeared? For decades you have been roaming these villages and warning the people against falling into my hands. They have bought your advice with their poor denars and with the products of their land. What would they buy from you tomorrow, if they discovered that their wicked enemy no longer existed?...."

Father Samaan quietly walks to the village with his back bent under Satan's heavy burden, his lips moving in fervent prayer for the life of the dying Satan.

The fresh clash of fundamentalisms we are currently witnessing, this time initiated by Jyllands-Posten, is yet another manifestation of Father Samaan and Satan episode. Editors at Jyllands-Posten try to test the tolerance of a religious minority in Denmark. Their Nigerian counterparts in turn killed members of a religious minority. An Italian Father Samaan asserts freedom of expression by wearing a T-shirt and his Libyan counterparts express theirs by setting an Italian embassy ablaze. Satan (perhaps Father Samaan) blows up the twin towers and Father Samaan (Satan for others) destroys Iraq and Afghanistan. Satanic Likud leads to the victory of Father Hamas. Sangh Parivar wants Akhand Bharat and razed the historic Babri mosque. The Jamaat-e-Islami reciprocates by vowing to hoist a green crescent at Delhi's Red Fort and Islamic zealots raze Lahore's Jain Mandir without bothering to find out it was not a Hindu temple. By the way, Buddha statues at Bamiyan were not demolished by anyone according to Iranian film maker Makhmalbaf. Buddha fell down out of shame, he thinks.

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