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Dr. Mohammad Omar Farooq
July 20, 2000
Dear Shetubondhon Friends,
Salam and greetings.
I can't speak for others, but as far as myself is concerned, my participation in Shetubondhon as a forum that desires to work toward civil discourse and bridge-building has been a valuable learning experience. Of course, participation in many other forums is easier because you can say pretty much whatever you like and in whatever way you like. However, unless we also want to see this forum reduced to any other, we all, including myself, need to think and rethink before we throw our arrows.
Mr. Sohail Ahmad wrote:
> [ personally, the author visited India and had a very very bad experience
which could never happen in any democratic society. ]
It is unfortunate that Mr. Ahmad had a bad experience while visiting our neighbor, India. Bad experience is bad experience. Even though Mr. Ahmad hasn't elaborated as to what kind of "a very very bad experience" he had, I would like to make two observations. First, I can think of not "a", but numerous "terrible", "rotten", "disgusting" experience right in Bangladesh in the hands of not our neighbors, but of our own people. So, what is the point of having "a very very bad experience" somewhere else? I can also refer to one or two bad experience here in the United States during the twenty years I have been living here. However, in comparison to those bad experience, I must say for every one bad experience, I have ninety-nine pleasant stories to relate. Should that one bad experience cloud or overshadow my feelings and thought? Should that one bad experience even come up in my communications? I am trying to educate myself, though it is not easy, that in this life one pleasant experience is more precious to me than all other bad experience. Is it that our minds are focused on the bad and negative than pleasant and positive? Or, is it that we are too "obhimani"? Dr. Sen quite appropriately points out that such observations might be "An example of being color-blind and looking only at the black spots."
Mr. Ahmad also wrote: "... in terms of family values and other issues - they have completely failed in this regard. One might argue whether they have any "family" at all."
In response to the above, Dr. Sen wrote: "We can be modestly proud of our close family ties but that doesn't give us the right or ability to judge and qualify others on such intimate issues."
He also correctly points out that our "stable" families are not really bastions of "piety, love and goodwill". However, in one respect, I have to differ with him. He wrote: "I guess all nations have good and not-so-good families."
While in general and on the surface this observation is innocuous, I believe that it misses a fundamental point. Living in this country for twenty years in six different states, from high-flying California to rural Iowa, I have seen many a older families celebrating their 15th-50th anniversary. At the same time, as my own children are growing up, I am also seeing another trend.
My elder daughter is bound for high school in a small rural town, where basically everyone knows each other. Being in a small rural town, my daughters don't have any friends from any family of Muslim or subcontinent background. Out of 9-10 friends she currently has parents of five of them are divorced/single, four are remarried (two first remarriage, one second, one third), and one just unmarried living together. By the way, most of them are nice, pleasant, neighborly people. All these kids have boy friends, one of them (14) is now having his 13th boyfriend. Of course, this does not make the life of either us as parents or that of my daughter any easy. But we are surviving, and my daughter, alhamdulillah, still awaits the one and only real one in her life.
Among my four American colleagues in the same department, one single/divorced/female (doesn't want to remarry, ever), one separated (wife just moved away), another one got separated (husband left; the colleague didn't want to live here any longer; she left too); and the other one single (living with his older girlfriend and her 12 year old daughter). Once again, they are all nice, pleasant, neighborly people.
I don't want anyone to think that I am generalizing anything from my own observation and experience. Others' experience might be different. However, my experience seems to mirror the publicly available surveys/trend/statistics.
But this should be hardly any information to most of you. The reason I wanted to differ with Dr. Sen is because apart from the trend, the very definition of marriage is changing in this society. In some states now, same-sex marriage is now legally recognized. With all the problems with family in our societies, we, including Muslims, better take a harder and closer look at themselves and make conscientious effort to deal with those. However, one can argue that family in our society is infested with problems, it's diseased, but still we are talking about what we regard or what still is known in our society as family. But once the definition is changed, and it is changing in a fundamental way, it's a whole new ball game. Family as an institution is under fundamental distress - or should I say, threat - even here in the U.S., as powerful forces of our time, including the school of thought such as Secular Humanism, are actively and vigorously promoting such openness.
Among the Affirmations of Humanism: A Statement of Principles is: "We attempt to transcend divisive parochial loyalties based on race, religion, gender, nationality, creed, class, sexual orientation, or ethnicity, and strive to work together for the common good of humanity." [http://www.secularhumanism.org/intro/affirmations.html] By the way, these people are also nice, pleasant, decent people. And, they are also "deeply concerned with the moral education of our children." [the same URL above] Curiously, - is it just a coincidence - the very word "family" does not appear even once in those Affirmations. A Secular Humanist Declaration, a more elaborate statement, does not contain the word "family" even for once either. [http://www.secularhumanism.org/intro/declaration.html; Yes, I am aware that Secular Humanism as a school of thought or the group as an organization does not speak for everyone secular.] Indeed, the organization now has a special initiative Secular Family Network the goal of which includes: "help all kinds of people, in all kinds of family patterns, achieve a fulfilling home life." [http://www.secularhumanism.org/library/shb/cherry_13_3.html; the reference particularly mentions same-sex partners]
A publication, jointly by the Council for Secular Humanism and The Pink Triangle Trust, observes: "Research comparing this arrangement with heterosexual parenthood indicates that there are no important differences between homosexual and heterosexual parenthood." [Gay and Lesbian Rights: Why Humanism Cares; http://www.galha.freeserve.co.uk/glh172f3.htm ; by the way, if you don't know what Pink Triangle Trust is or what is so pink about it or what is a "secular humanist" option of wedding/affirmation ceremony, you will find more information at http://www.galha.freeserve.co.uk/pttcerem.htm .]
As the time is changing (or some might call it, progressing), now whenever someone is getting or got married and we are invited, I guess we won't be able to take it for granted and have to politely ask whether it is "heterosexual marriage" or "same-sex marriage" because family, marriage and their definitions are in a fundamental flux. It seems that automatically presuming a marriage to be heterosexual is not only politically incorrect these days, but it would represent outright judgmental attitude, bigotry, intolerance, narrow-mindedness, parochialism, and even inhumanism. Dictionaries, such Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary, are still old fashioned. They define marriage primarily as any of the following: the mutual relation of husband and wife : WEDLOCK c : the institution whereby men and women are joined in a special kind of social and legal dependence for the purpose of founding and maintaining a family. But it's probably only until the next edition or software upgrade.
Human experience in general and western experience in particular are valuable depository of lessons, insight and wisdom for us. There are lot of excellent, positive and dynamic aspects of the western experience that we must not gloss over or fail to benefit from. At the same time, whether we earn our livelihood off a western land or elsewhere, we must not gloss over certain realities.
Mr. Sohail's remarks about family may lack sophistication and
balance, but are those necessarily off the point?
Does exaggeration ever help anything?
Is balance not equally needed to counter such exaggerations?
Or, is it just a RACE?
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