Compassion – A Path to Peace in Pakistan

Few days back my most beloved friend Sidra Saeed wrote a blog “Empty Vessels Make Much Noise” in which she highlighted some thought provoking points about the people of Pakistan who see many violent riots in the country and ignore it by some mere condemning statements but don’t take any remedy actions to eliminate the ongoing sectarian violence under the shadow of religious terrorism. She closed the discussion by leaving a big question mark that “How can we fight the terrorists in our country if we cannot accept each other and without using our “so called brains” we will continue to smoke the whole country?

This brought a typhoon in the silent sea of my mind and compelled me to think over it and try to find out the solution. On the basis of my limited knowledge when I recalled the history, I realized that the conflicts in Pakistan are originally of the political nature but later they become endless ‘holy wars’ with sacred missions having no pragmatic solution. That typhoon put me in more trouble when I reflected that I being the young activist should have the task to create a pluralistic society where all peoples can live together in mutual harmony and respect but again the question arises HOW?

It took me around two days to find the brightness on the other side of tunnel and finally found out the heart of all faiths and religions which is called Golden Rule – for which every religion professes ‘Never do to others as you would like them to treat you’. Same thing was uttered by Prophet Mohammad on an occasion where he said: ‘Not one of you can be a believer, unless he desires for his NEIGHBOR what he desires for himself,’ – which shows that Prophet used the word neighbor without putting any foot notes – he did not say that neighbor should be a pure muslim – here neighbor means any human being no matter from which faith or sect he belongs to.  

Categorically when we see in the history of Pakistan; we find religion has been the root cause of all wars (including proxy wars) and other conflicts. In fact, it is greed, envy, and ambition that cause conflict, but all too often these self-centered emotions are given a religious justification which is common in our country. On one side, the terrorists are using religion to authorize their atrocities by quoting scriptural verses from Quran out of context and violating some of the most sacred values of Islam which they claim to defend and on other side, the religious leaders who wait for their turn like the vultures add more fuel to the fire as recently done by the chief of religious party, Jamat-e-Islam - Syed Munawar Hassan (born and raised in India) who passed the misguided statement on the death of Taliban commander Hakimullah Mehsud by calling him the “Martyr” and disrespecting the martyrdom of Pakistani soldiers who lost their lives in the attacks by Taliban.  

Coming back to the main discourse that HOW to co-exist peacefully – I think it is not something impossible because we have the history where our ancestors lived together peacefully.  The only thing is to understand and realize the word “Compassion” and “Golden Rule” which only says, ‘feel the pain of others and own it’. Karen Armstrong has beautifully defined it in her “Charter for Compassion” in which she says, ‘we need to look deeply into our own hearts, discover what gives us pain and then refuse under any circumstances to inflict that pain on anybody else.’

Reciting Holy Quran or any other religious manuscripts will be of no use until and unless they are put into practice. It is very much obvious to see in Pakistan that the compassionate voice of religion is getting drowned by the voices of extremism, prejudice, and self-righteousness. So here comes our role, we need to amplify the compassionate voice which is in the favor of mankind and bring it to the forefront of people’s attention in our society and beyond but this is not an easy going job. You can easily operate a brand new micro-wave oven or any other household electronic machine by reading its manual provided by the manufacturer but you can not learn to swim by sitting on the side of the pool and watching how other people do it. So the full meaning of compassionate teachings will only become clear when we try to put them into practices of our own lives.

It is common practice in our society that we keep our children away from understanding the other faiths and traditions which makes us the part of these conflicts unintentionally. Once, I happened to visit my friend (belongs to a moderate muslim family) where I found him having a theological discussion with his 5 years old nephew. His nephew was of the view that “Hindu janwar hotey hai aur muslimaan achay hotey hai” (Hindus are animals and muslims are good people) which was very shocking for him but the way he handled the discussion was wonderful. He firstly made that child to understand the word “Humans”, I was the passive listener only as my friend took 30 minutes to have a very polite discussion with her nephew where he shared the values of being human which is superior than all the attributes. Interestingly, he asked from that minor child about his favorite hero – he abruptly replied, ‘I like Harry Potter’ than my friend said – look, Harry Potter is not muslim but even then you like him and then the child realized and said “Hindu achay hotey, sab insaan achay hotey hai” (Hindus are good, all human are good). Story doesn’t end here, actually it is the start, we all need to be curious, in the best sense about others which will help us to broaden our horizons and expand our sympathies. We should engage ourselves as well as our younger generation to have deeper understanding of other faiths, sects and traditions which will surely challenge some of the misconceptions or unconscious prejudices as that minor child was having. Purpose of telling this story is to let you realize that many people (like my friend) are on the right path and they are doing their best to break the empty vessels and the day will come soon when their efforts will kindle the fire of peace and co-existence.

I am at peace now because I have finally found the answer of that big HOW. If you also want to get inner peace then it should be your prime duty to preach the message of compassion in order to counter the cruelty and terror of your time. This is not the time to throw up your hands in despair. Let’s break those empty vessels by changing ourselves. Don’t wait for things to change because change doesn’t start out there, change starts within – most importantly – all change starts with YOU and you will see a new dawn emerging in our society sooner or later.

Sahir Ludhyanvi – I still standby with your lines in which you said:

Wo subah kabhi to aayegi, wo subah kabhi to aayegi,

In kaali sadiyon ke sar se, jab raat ka aanchal dhalkega,

Jab dukh ke baadal pighalenge, jab sukh ka sagar chalkega,

Jab anbar jhoom ke naachega, jab dharti naghme gayegi,

Wo subah kabhi to aayegi, wo subah kabhi to aayegi ……..!

At end, I will add, “WO SUBAH HUM HI SE AAEY GI.”