THE LUMINESCENCE OF HOPE AMIDST DIVISION
William Shakespeare
Act 3, Scene 1, Page 3
THE MERCHANT OF VENICE
I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? Fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that. If a Jew wrong a Christian, what is his humility? Revenge. If a Christian wrong a Jew, what should his sufferance be by Christian example? Why, revenge. The villainy you teach me I will execute—and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction.
Whenever public discourse is inflamed by the fevered passions of religious strife or divisive contention, my mind invariably returns to those immortal words of Shakespeare. They are, in truth, so luminously self-evident that they require no exposition. And thus, with due reverence to their wisdom, I turn now to the matter that weighs most heavily upon the minds and tongues of men—the spectre of terrorism and those who perpetrate it.
The world, it seems, will quarrel and kill; it will provoke with malice, mock with impunity, and drown the still, small voice of reason beneath the clamour of its own unrest. For reason is a faculty alien to the fevered mind—and the modern age, by any honest account, is in a state of profound and perilous agitation. One need not be a scholar, nor a political sage, nor even a contemplative philosopher to discern the plain and disquieting truth: this is, at its core, a war not of ideals, but of wealth—a relentless contest for dominion and gold. And those who wield such power have no intention, under any condition whatsoever, of relinquishing it.
What we are witnessing in these troubling times is that the war—ostensibly one for dominion and material gain—has insidiously metamorphosed into a war waged between human hearts. And it is precisely here that my comprehension falters: how is it that the learned, those presumed to be guided by the light of education and reason, are so readily beguiled by the very forces that, under the veil of patriotism, are dismantling the foundations of the nation they purport to defend?
How, I ask, does one pass off devastation as development, when its people are being expertly estranged by instruments of division, cunningly engineered to fracture rather than to unite? It is a fallacy—deeply dangerous and manifestly unwise—to presume that the mere accident of birth into a so-called ‘superior’ caste or class is, by itself, sufficient to pilot a nation toward progress. History, and indeed common sense, teaches us that it is only in the communion of diverse hearts, working in concert and harmony, that a nation finds its true strength and eventual flourishing.
Only this morning, I happened upon a post on that great amphitheatre of modern sentiment—Facebook. It read: “To forgive the terrorists is up to God, but to send them to see God is my duty.” Beneath it, the author had appended the chilling coda: “Let us send every Muslim to God!” And I sat still, momentarily bereft of words, struck not only by the monstrousness of the sentiment, but by the calm confidence with which it had been uttered.
How base must a man become before he begins to mistake vengeance for virtue? Do such persons not realise that in nursing such hatred, they inflict not only wounds upon others but grievous harm upon their own souls? Hatred, like fire, consumes first the vessel that contains it. It burns indiscriminately—not only the object of its fury, but all that surrounds it, including its bearer.
And what arrogance lies in the heart of one who imagines himself to hold in his hands the prerogative of God—to mete out death as if it were his sacred commission! But then again, who is to teach the misled that an ungoverned mob is not a discerning force? It sees neither right nor wrong, neither friend nor foe. It does not examine; it annihilates. It sweeps away all in its path, like a blind tempest loosed upon the earth, bringing only sorrow in its wake.
“I am proud to be a citizen of one the most philanthropist countries – Pakistan, where people changed their profile pictures and put up statuses for what happened in Paris.
Surprisingly, many of us never changed our DPs for any other Muslim/Brown-skinned nation, not even for their own country, when we had casualties, many times more than Paris… Wow!!! This is called immense empathy. I appreciate you for being so global and being so sensitive… (But does this sensitivity only validate for developed/Western countries).
We condemn the attack from the core of our hearts, rather who can empathise the pain better than us, but at the same time, I feel terrible when no one from any part of the globe changes their DP to green and white when we lose 1000s of innocents in a day in bomb blasts and target killing. I feel terrible when I don’t see, “Pakistan” in the list of countries where they deliver online goods. Web pages where they have online subscriptions, universities where they offer scholarships, where they make online sign-in to many mail/web accounts, where they even offer verification to social media and apps – even they don’t offer medical support to Pakistan online...(there are endless examples, these are just to name a few).
We have been offering thousands of lives in the name of war against terrorism over decades, and still we are labelled as a terrorist nation/the most dangerous place on earth. The West rather hates us, or doesn’t even know who we are, and where we exist on the globe.
My heart bleeds for every innocent killed anywhere, but does their heart feel the same when our people are killed each day on the streets?
I don’t mind profile pictures being dipped in the French flag, but I wish the West also treats us equally, and feels our pain as well when our bodies bleed, because WE BLEED THE SAME COLOUR.”
These words were penned by Imran Abbas—an architect by training, a poet by sensibility, and an actor by vocation. Yet, if one listens attentively, one realises that his utterance transcends the narrow boundaries of nationality. He is not speaking merely of Pakistan; he is pleading for humanity itself. For a race that, despite its long inheritance of wisdom, has grown startlingly numb—calloused, not by necessity, but by choice; drenched in a quiet and corrosive disgust.
In Imran’s lament, one hears not a cry for pity, but a clarion call for dignity. For inclusion, yes—but not the patronising sort that stoops to condescend. Rather, he speaks of a society in which no man need fear alienation for being different, and where respect is extended not as a favour, but as a fellow’s due. His voice resounds with a yearning for a world in which equality is not a slogan painted upon banners, but a condition etched into the daily conduct of men.
We delude ourselves if we suppose that radicalism was born out of a vacuum. It is, in truth, the grim harvest of a long and bitter season: centuries of ridicule, repression, and quiet humiliation. It is the result of being consistently spoken down to, subtly excluded, made to stumble over obstacles needlessly placed in the paths of ordinary existence—at home, with neighbours, in places of employment, even among supposed friends. And when the soul has borne such weight for too long, what, pray, do we expect it to do?
It may, for a time, endure in silence. But there comes a moment—always a dangerous moment—when the heart, cornered and exhausted, begins to tilt towards any glimmer of hope, however flickering or false. It is precisely in that vulnerable instant that sinister voices take root, offering not peace, but vengeance disguised as light; not fellowship, but fury cloaked in the garb of redemption.
This, I fear, is what compels some Muslims to turn to violence—not out of some innate proclivity, as the prejudiced would claim, but because we as a global community have, knowingly or not, contributed to the conditions that imprison them. And whether through silence or action, indifference or incitement, each one of you—each one of us—has, in some way, helped press their backs against the wall.
And who, then, are these so-called purveyors of terror—the infamous ‘outfits’ that haunt our headlines and hijack our peace? The answer, I daresay, is not so deeply veiled as some would have us believe. Most who have cared to observe the course of recent history know the answer well enough. And for those who remain unaware, let it be said that the vast repository of the Internet holds ample testimony—grim, detailed, and instructive—to illuminate the matter for any willing seeker.
As for myself, I shall confine my remarks to what is both evident and sobering: that a number of these factions—now cast as the enemies of civilisation—were, in fact, conceived, sponsored, and meticulously cultivated by some of the world’s most powerful empires. Empires that, in their pursuit of strategic dominance, sowed seeds they imagined they could forever command, but which have since grown into thorns too wild to tame.
Permit me to recount a message that found its way to me through that most modern of heralds—WhatsApp—on the very day the tragic attacks in Paris unfolded.
“If the terrorists are behind the Paris attacks, then who are behind the terrorists? Simply put, they are entirely created, funded and directed by the United States, Britain, France and other NATO countries. The Anglo-American Intelligence apparatus has coordinated its actions for geopolitical purposes all across the world both at home and abroad. The attacks on Paris are the trademark of their handiwork. So now, the media reporting of the Islamic fanatics against the Christian West really doesn’t hold much water. Because if you step back and look at it logically, if the government was responsible for creating these people and these people shot the citizens, then it is the government who is responsible for targeting its own people. It is no longer an ‘us against them’ scenario, it is more of a ‘them against them’ or an ‘us against us’ situation, depending on who is looking at it.”
Let me make plain that I do not seek to diminish the horror of terrorism, nor do I treat lightly the anguish of its victims. And yet, one cannot help but observe a growing fatigue among the general populace—a weariness born not from indifference, but from the relentless onslaught of grim narratives: death, division, and devastation hurled like missiles, day-after-day, across our screens and into our homes. People, I believe, are becoming disillusioned—not merely by the violence itself, but by the manner in which it is incessantly magnified, exploited, and paraded for political gain.
The citizen is no longer asking who struck the first blow. He is crying out instead for something more elemental—peace. A quiet life. A society in which neighbour may dwell beside neighbour without suspicion, and children may grow up in a world where coexistence is not a dream but a daily practice.
It was Gwynne Dyer—a man of considerable intellectual stature, holding a doctorate in military and Middle Eastern history—who articulated this disjunction most incisively. He remarked, with a historian’s composure and a realist’s clarity: “We lost two people last year to terrorism, and about two hundred and fifty each month on the roads. The Americans lost 3,000 lives on 9/11, but also 3,000 to road accidents and another 3,000 to gunshot wounds—many inflicted by those closest to them.”
What, then, are we to make of this? “The scale of terrorism,” Dyer continues, “is infinitesimal compared to the enormity of its presence in the media.” And the prudent response? Not frantic overreach. Not the dispatching of battalions to distant deserts, nor the unleashing of aircraft to perform vague, indeterminate operations under the lofty banner of justice. “It’s just dumb,” he concludes—bluntly, perhaps, but not unjustly.
In fact, Dyer issues a sobering warning. He suggests that any further escalation by Western powers—particularly through expanded bombing campaigns in Syria—will serve not to weaken the Islamic State, but to lend it strength. It will validate the very narrative ISIS seeks to perpetuate: that Muslims are under siege from Western infidels. And in doing so, it becomes a most effective instrument of recruitment—drawing the disaffected, the wounded, and the desperate into its fold.
“You poke the bear,” Dyer explains with an apt metaphor, “and the bear descends in fury—not only upon you, but upon those nearby, and upon innocents far removed from the original quarrel. And in that collateral chaos, some find themselves driven straight into the arms of the revolutionaries.”
Such is the tragic alchemy of our times: that in fighting monsters, we risk becoming their makers.
Tempers, as one might expect, are inflamed. And it seems, with a mournful irony, that we are no longer merely at war with the terrorists—we are at war with ourselves. To hope, in such a climate, for the steady voice of reason may be to hope beyond measure. Yet, despite this, we must face a truth both simple and severe: the hatred we now lament is the offspring of hatred we ourselves have sown. The high-handedness that whole peoples have endured—silently, bitterly, and over centuries—is now rebounding upon us with force and fury.
One cannot help but think that a part of the solution—if such a word is not too bold—is to offer people something better than despair. A life imbued with purpose, dignity, and the prospect of flourishing. For when all one sees is darkness, even a false light can become a lure. But if we could but lift their gaze to higher things—if we could present them with hopeful alternatives to hopelessness—we might disarm the appeal of destruction at its root.
Let us never forget that one does not win hearts, nor influence minds, by cruelty. One cannot hope to civilise the wounded by bombing their dwellings, or persuade them by obliterating their livelihood. If we are to build peace, it must be done not with missiles, but with mercy. Not by ruin, but by restoration.
Let us then set our hands to the work of mending what has been marred: by building schools where ignorance once reigned, hospitals where only suffering stood, and places of learning where the soul may once again rise to its full stature. Let us engage the minds of the disillusioned, not with slogans, but with meaningful labour—by drawing out their talents, not dismissing them.
As the old adage goes, the idle mind is the devil’s workshop. And these, alas, are times in which both rich and poor find themselves cast adrift in the same fragile vessel—alike in their desperation, and alike in their yearning for something solid, something good.
If we can but help them perceive a flicker of brightness within the prevailing gloom, they may yet turn their faces away from the sirens of destruction and towards the steady lamp of hope. For even a single light, honestly kindled, can keep the night at bay.
Whatever the fate of this weary world a century hence, I often find my mind returning to a remark once made by my business partner, Rahul—a man of clear thought and sober judgement. “It has nothing to do with religion,” he said with characteristic composure, “people will abandon religious distinctions the moment they see that you serve a purpose in their lives. In the end, it is simply about economics.”
I have no wish to re-enter the oft-trodden debate about why man takes up arms against his brother. That wearisome circle has been walked a thousand times, and with scant gain. But what I will say is this: it would be an honourable beginning if those who are inciting others to violence would, at last, abandon their theatrics and cease their deceits. For the world, though bruised, is not blind. The common man—long patronised by ideologues and demagogues alike—now knows that those who exhibition themselves as saviours are often the very architects of the devastation they claim to heal.
How does one stand, with unflinching face, and watch one’s own kin be slaughtered, only to then don the garb of the redeemer? Murder is not merely a transgression of law; it is an affront to the sacred order of life itself. Assassins, let it be said without apology, have no place on this earth, and no place—if such there be—beyond it. But let us not spare the puppet-masters behind the scenes, those manipulators who draw blood with clean hands. Their guilt is no less grave; indeed, it is perhaps more chilling for being so calculated.
As Imran rightly observed, the moral outrage of the world must not be reserved for select victims, as though the value of a life were tied to the shade of one’s skin or the soil beneath one’s feet. Every life, every single one, is sacred. Every pulse, every breath, matters. Let that be understood. Or at the very least, let us begin the long, slow process of learning it.
Allow me, if you will, to draw your attention to a particular work of art—Urainge Uss Aasmaan Mein—a song of uncommon poignancy, conceived, composed, written, arranged, and rendered by the gifted Ali Zafar, with acoustic accompaniment by Danyal Zafar. This offering was not born of commercial ambition, nor fashioned for acclaim, but rather emerged as a solemn tribute to the one hundred and forty-one souls whose lives were so brutally extinguished—among them, one hundred and thirty-two innocent schoolchildren.
Let me offer a word of context: Ali Zafar is not a man known for broadcasting his benevolence. Indeed, he adheres to a politer creed—one that urges silence in the act of giving, and teaches that when one has received abundantly from society, one ought to give in quiet return, without trumpet or applause. And yet, in this singular case, he stepped into the light—for reasons that become abundantly clear when one hears the song and allows its words, drawn from the deepest recesses of his heart, to inscribe themselves upon one’s own.
This is no ordinary composition. It is, rather, a lament and a vow—grief transfigured into beauty, sorrow turned into resolve. I urge you to listen, not with ears only, but with the whole of your soul. For in these verses, you may find not only the echo of tragedy, but the stirring of hope, and the moral courage to rise, as the title itself proclaims, into that sky once more.
The Lyrics
Haan thode se bikhre huey hain haare nahi hum
Ye bereham zulmat ki tere maare nahi hum
Yes, we are a little broken, we haven’t lost.
We aren’t bound by this merciless injustice.
Haan zinda hain hum chaahe aankhein hai num
Sahenge nahin hum koi sitam
Jahaan ko dikha denge kaun hai hum
Humein maaon ke aansuon ki kasam..
Yes, we are alive, even if our eyes are numb.
We will not stand any such pain.
We will show the world who we are.
To us the tears of mothers are sworn upon.
Urainge uss aasmaan mein
Rahenge aise jahaan mein
Jahaan dard ka koi maara na ho
Akela na ho be-sahara na ho
Koi maa se bichhda dulaara na ho
Siva ishq ke koi chara na ho…
We will fly in such a sky
Live in such a world
Where no one quivers in pain
Where no one is lonely or left alone
No mother is stranded from her child
Where there is no option but to love.
Urainge uss aasmaan mein
Rahenge aise jahaan mein..
We will fly in such a sky,
Live in such a world.
Khili si wahaan nikli ho dhoop
Nikhra hua har su ho roop
Gum ho jaayein taariqiyaan
Aao chale milkar wahaan
There the sun will rise with more light,
Every being and soul will shine,
Darkness (wickedness and evil) will be vanished away...
Come. Let us all go there together.
Urainge uss aasmaan mein
Rahenge aise jahaan mein..
We will fly in such a sky,
Live in such a world.
Jahaan dard ka koi maara na ho
Akela na ho be-sahara na ho
Koi maa se bichhda dulaara na ho
Siva ishq ke koi chara na ho…
Where no one quivers in pain,
Where no one is lonely or left alone,
No mother is stranded from her child,
Where there is no option but to love.
Urainge uss aasmaan mein..
Rahenge aise jahaan mein.. (x2)
We will fly in such a sky,
Live in such a world. (x2)
What the soul finds itself yearning for, in these turbulent and wearisome times, is the gentle solace of A. R. Rahman’s voice—that rare fusion of serenity and spirit which, like balm upon a wounded century, brings fleeting relief to the ache of existence. His music, when it reaches us, is not merely heard; it is felt—as a kind of holy hush that stills the world, if only for a moment. It offers no solutions, perhaps, but provides a brief and blessed catharsis, a sanctuary in sound.
And yet, of late, even this wellspring seems to have receded. Rahman himself has, it appears, retreated from the public expression of his inner world—perhaps not from want of feeling, but because he, too, has been made to endure the unmerited lash of controversy. One senses he has withdrawn not out of indifference, but in quiet protest; not because he has nothing to say, but because he chooses to say it no longer in a climate that distorts truth and punishes beauty.
It is a loss not only to art, but to the weary human spirit—so often lifted, if only an inch, by the hush of a note or the tremble of a chord.
My earnest entreaty to you is this: lay aside, for a moment at least, the thorny entanglements of politics. This discourse is not a treatise on the politics of religion, nor a survey of the demarcations drawn upon maps. Such divisions, as we well know, serve chiefly those whose appetite it is to keep the public restless, ever poised upon the precipice of discord. Yet, beneath these manufactured walls, the hearts of men and women—whether in one country or another, across every clime and continent—beat with the same simple truth: a profound aversion to division, and a yearning only for the embrace of mutual love.
What I offer here is but a humble attempt to cast light upon the quiet luminescence being shed by those I know—souls who, with steadfast hands and hopeful hearts, strive to cleanse the earth of enmity, and to kindle in its stead some fragile semblance of concord.
If we find ourselves unable to lend our support to such a noble endeavour, then let us, at the very least, refrain from undermining the sincerity of those who dare to believe in the possibility of peace’s triumph.
May you remain blessed.
