THE SHAH DANCES

DANCING may be a perfectly innocent amusement, but it is certainly not Islamic – we mean mixed as in vogue in the West. The news broadcast with such relish by American news agencies that the Shah of Iran, who is now on a visit to the U.S.A., condescended to dance with an American girl may have won the ruler of the land of Saadi and Hafiz laurels in the eyes of the Western people but to people in Islamic countries it cannot be a matter of pride that the Head of an Islamic country should adopt a culture which is out and out repugnant to the genius of Islam.

In Western countries, dancing is considered a mark of high breeding and a man who cannot dance is to be not quite civilised. Our young men, therefore even grown-ups, when they go to Europe or America, make it a point to acquire proficiency in this art. Many start this apprenticeship in their homelands in the East in anticipation of their going to the West for studies or on business, lest they when the time comes, should be found wanting. This attitude is hardly compatible with self-respect and bespeaks a lamentable lack of moral guts to stand by our own ways of life.

The chains of Western domination over the people of the East are almost broken asunder. The Englishman, for instance, is no longer the ruler of Pakistan. But the chains of mental slavery which he has entwined around our minds and souls are just the same, holding us in bondage. This is seen every day in every walk of our lives. People still prefer to talk in English, however interspersed with Urdu, Panjabi, Pashto or Bengali it may be. They still consider it a hallmark of respectability. The signboards in the shops are still in English. Even where they are in Urdu script, the wording in not a few cases is English. This is a slavish mentality, the legacy of long political servitude and hardly in keeping with the dignity of a people that call themselves a free people.

No Englishman would speak anything but English in his country. No German, Frenchman, or Russian would for a moment speak a foreign language in his daily intercourse with his own people. It is a strange trait of the Eastern character to take pride in things of foreign origin – especially Western. Perhaps this is the penalty that we unconsciously pay for the sin of slavery, even after our masters are gone.

The Shah of Iran may have succeeded in catching the fleeting fancy of the American people by dancing with an American blonde but in the eyes of serious-minded people in that country, even in diplomatic circles, this act of his could hardly have created an impression of dignified self-esteem. Mahatma Gandhi in his loin cloth, commanded the respect of the English and American people far more than the most Westernised of his contemporaries. He had the moral courage to stand by his own Hindu culture. In his historic negotiations with the Viceroys in New Delhi, during his sojourn in England itself on a political mission, and even at official receptions in Buckingham Palace, he never discarded his national dress. The Shah of Iran’s dance may earn him cheap ephemeral popularity, but Gandhi is still regarded in America as the Indian Christ. It makes all the difference whether one stands on his own cultural legs and faces the world with that culture or whether he struts about in borrowed plumes. The Shah of Iran dancing with a typical American girl does not look half as gorgeous or majestic as Gandhi did in his plain home-spun Khaddar loin-cloth.

We have given this apparently minor news-item so much space because we wish to focus attention on this attitude of mind here in Pakistan. Pakistan takes pride in calling itself an Islamic State. No other Muslim country does. It is, therefore doubly her duty to enforce and popularize the Islamic ways of life in every sphere and to discourage the tendency to behave as the cultural camp-followers of the West.

There should be no dance parties in Pakistan embassies in foreign countries. There should be no drink parties either. We mention this because we know that at embassies from other Muslim countries, these things are a common feature. The drink is freely served, followed by the usual dance. Has Pakistan Government made quite sure that this is not the case with our embassies in Western lands? We are afraid even our military clubs in Pakistan, so far as we are aware, are not yet altogether free from these twin evils and many of our young officers, in order to give themselves airs, freely indulge in these.

Omar, in his home-spun patched garments, holding courts and receiving ambassadors in the plain unceremonious surroundings of the Mosque, inspired awe that the mightiest and most gorgeously dressed rulers of Persia and Rome could not dream of as an Islamic State that must be the model before us, the standard of dignity and respectability.

Time and again, have we emphasized in these columns that all representatives of Pakistan who go abroad in any capacity must serve as models of the culture of Islam and simplicity, sobriety, chastity, and decorum are the salient ingredients of that culture. The whole of our administrative machinery must be run on clean, straight, overboard Islamic lines. It is certainly not necessary for us to adopt the ways of Western diplomacy. Islam does not believe in equivocation, double-dealing and double-crossing, even in politics. It is up to this Islamic State to aim at showing the light to the West in every walk of life and holding up before it a higher, purer and cleaner code of honour, both in private and public life.

Just now, men in this part of Pakistan have the pleasure and privilege of a visit by the Governor-General of Pakistan, which has, as usual, been seized upon as an occasion for a whole round of “parties” throwing away good Pakistan money on worthless pieces of cakes and pastry which only spoil the digestion while there are still thousands of our brethren who are living on the verge of starvation. Only the other day a whole family was reported to have been frozen to death in Lyallpur for lack of a warm bedding. Until there is a single soul in Pakistan who goes without two square meals a day or is not provided with sufficient clothing and shelter we must not think of wasting a pice on luxuries: Umar, the Great Whose example should always be before us as a beacon of rulership gave up eating butter, honey, meat and suchlike luxuries when people in a part of the Islamic State were in the grip of famine.

The Shah of Persia’s reported dance is after all just one form of dance – dance in the physical sense. There are a hundred and one other ways in which so many of us in this Islamic State of Pakistan dance daily to the tunes of the West in the moral and intellectual sense. We must take note of these, set our faces against them and put a stop to all un-Islamic modes of life if Pakistan is to fulfil its high mission for which Providence has brought it into being and made it the bearer and upholder of the high culture of Islam.

M.Y.K.

(The Light – Saturday, December 24, 1949)