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DAWN.COM | World | Double click: It?s an identity issue
Double click: Its an identity issue
By Maheen A. Rashdi
Sunday, 16 May, 2010
Double click: The graduation high Double click: The graduation high This weeks most talked about story, most read story and most emailed story has been Pakistans latest villains escapade. And it follows the full conviction ruling for Ajmal Kasab for whom the international media made sure to put nationality before name Pakistani convicted in Mumbai carnage.
Faisal Shahzads stupid stunt has again edged Pakistans notorious reputation on top of the terrorist breeding grounds list. That Faisal Shahzad was working on Pakistani Talibans orders, remained the headline last week. Well, at least we stay in the headlines! When was the last time you heard about say, Costa Rica and Guyana or Tanzania and Turkmenistan and what their common people are up to? But we all now know about the family background of a stupid man from Pakistan called Faisal Shahzad, a nobody two weeks ago but now a recognisable face world-wide.
Just like controversy, notoriety is the new fad.
After Tiger-gate a host of scandalous exploits of personalities (and priests) have become public and being a serial cheating husband is now a macho trait. So when Sandra Bullock got hit by the same train we tsked a bit and then moved on towards more important matters like pronouncing Eyjafjallajökull!
Notoriety and recognition have merged boundaries. Desire for fame and power is nothing new and has led people to treachery many a time Shakespeare anyone?
Faisal Shahzad whom Cyril Almeida has rightly called an idiot four times in his last weeks column seems such a case in point. Though whether Shahzad was aiming for post-martyr glory or immediate worldly recognition cannot be determined yet. His goofy, yuppie face doesnt seem capable of anything profound so Ill assume he was after the more tangible recognition of the worldly kind, under the misconception that he would be claimed a hero by someone.
There are many such Desi-Born Confused Westerners on the loose wracked by severe low esteem stemming from an identity crisis.
Unfortunately the wretched consequence of such episodes is borne mainly by first generation desis who have sacrificed much to give their children an equal status in foreign lands. Where despite decades of hard work and a steady climb up the ladder they are still called that Pakistani guy or the Indian chap.
According to a research analysis, when you start questioning your role in life and you feel like you don't know the 'real you' you may be experiencing an identity crisis. It defines the point in an individuals life when they do intensive analysis and exploration of their own existence. In the current atmosphere of Western distrust against the brown skin and ones religious affiliations, this feeling has spurred youngsters abroad on to a self-questioning path.
In the post 9/11 West, the niqab is another expression of identity aggressively being put forth almost with the intent of creating conflict.
For the more inclusive minded Muslims settled abroad, this aggressive identity search is becoming increasingly hard to handle. Examined minutely on the extent of ones Muslim beliefs there are times when fellow Muslims grill you like the Gestapo, asking you to prove your Muslim identity. Particularly if; 1) you are a woman and you dont wear hijab; 2) if you do not congregate at the Muslim get-togethers; 3) if your kids do not go to the madressa or if you are not part of an active Muslim organisation.
To be noticed as a forceful body is more a mandate than assimilating and standing up as human beings.
Peer pressure almost forces one towards a commitment to follow a religio-political plan. It is this need to prove an identity which blurs the line between right, righteousness and crime for the Faisal Shahzad types who are being bred in diaspora communities and fed mixed messages. In Canada, the case of the Toronto 18 still hasnt ended. These were 18 Toronto-bred young men mostly of Pakistani descent who were caught in 2006 making bombs in Mississauga a wealthy city inhabited primarily by Pak-Muslim immigrants.
Haroon Siddiqui, a prominent Toronto Star columnist who is a strong proponent of Muslim rights in foreign lands reasons that the Shahzad syndrome has become prevalent primarily because of western or particularly American invasion of Muslim lands. But I do not want to find reason in the demented actions of these fame-starved, half-baked terrorists like the 18 Canadian-educated individuals running a home grown terrorist cell; the Nigerian-born, England educated son of a top banker who hid explosives in his underwear on a flight to Detroit or this urban professional son of an influential Pakistani father.
There is no justification for crime. Punishment has to follow. We are left to deal with the consequences of religious perversion. Wed do better to say sorry for the past, present and future sins of all such misplaced idiots rather than find a rationale.
maheenrashdi@yahoo.ca
