Danger of ideas

Politics, religion and sex -- all the ingredients for banning a book

By Babar Mirza

"An idea that is not dangerous is unworthy of being called an idea at all," said Oscar Wilde In 'The Critic as Artist.' However, governments can't live with this and try to keep a check on ideas that may arouse a challenge the status quo, especially the norms (the legal word for dogmas) of politics, religion and sex.

You must have heard about a number of political, philosophical and literary works that are or were banned in one country or another: The Bible, 'The Satanic Verses,' 'Candide,' 'Confessions,' 'Ulysses,' 'The Rights of Man,' 'The Communist Manifesto,' 'Mein Kempf,' 'Did Six Million Really Die?', etc. These bans are imposed on importing these books or producing them locally. In Pakistan, the former is achieved through the Customs Act 1969 (Section 15, 16) and the latter thorough Pakistan Penal Code (Section 292), Criminal Procedure Code (Section 99-A), and, until its repeal in 2002, West Pakistan Press and Publications Ordinance 1963.

Under the Customs Act, it is prohibited to import "any obscene book, pamphlet, paper, drawing, painting, representation, figure, photograph, film and article." Moreover, the federal government can prohibit importing or exporting of any good of specified description by notification in the official gazette.

The list of such notifications concerning books, pamphlets, etc. makes quite an interesting read. Yes, 'The Satanic Verses' is there. So is Martin Lings's 'Muhammad.' In addition to books considered hostile to the state's version of Islam, proscribed publications include, among others, those that espouse Pakhtoonistan or other ethno-nationalist movements in Pakistan, call for revolution by the masses, discuss or describe sex, extol the Jews or mar the image of the Pakistani government or the Saudis.

Let's now have a look at some notable mentions in the list. Dr Fazlur Rahman's 'Islam' was banned in 1969 due to its modernist approach. In case the name is not familiar, Dr Rahman was the first Muslim to receive the prestigious Giorgio Levi Della Vida Award in 1983, and had been appointed by President Ayub to serve as the director of Central Institute for Islamic Research from 1962 to 1968.

Norman Daniel's 'Islam and the West,' which in fact "explores the political and religious considerations behind distorted Western views of Islam," was banned twice, first in 1961 and then in 1967. 'Preaching in Islam' by the famous British orientalist Sir Thomas Walker Arnold -- who was the teacher of Allama Iqbal and Syed Suleman Nidvi -- is also banned. Other great works included in the list include Bernard Lewis's 'The Arabs in History,' Hendrik Van Loon's 'The Story of Mankind' and V. S. Naipaul's 'Among the Believers.'

Some important books about Pakistani politics, including Collins and Lapierre's 'Freedom at Midnight' and 'Mountbatten and the Partition of India,' Tariq Ali's 'Can Pakistan Survive?' and Fakhar Zaman's 'The Prisoner,' are also duly mentioned in the list. Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto's 'If I am Assassinated' and 'My Pakistan' were banned, as you might have guessed, in 1979. Three other books about Z. A. Bhutto -- written by Shahid Javed Burki, Victoria Schofield and Salman Taseer (the current governor of Punjab) -- were also banned in 1980.

Except for Saadat Hasan Manto's 'Shikari Aurtein,' most of the books that are banned because of their obscene contents are pulp fiction or anthropological and psychological studies. It is fun just to read through their titles: 'Abnormal Psychology,' 'Woman: Her Charm and Power,' 'Turkish Art of Love,' 'Diseases of the Male Genital Organs,' 'Sir Naked Blade,' 'Angelique and the Sultan,' 'The Cradle of Erotica,' 'Sir Rusty Sword,' 'The Pirate,' etc. Why? And does it mean that some pervert in fact read these books before banning them?

Evading the general categories of politics, religion and sex, there is another category in the list that I call the 'nuggets'. Read this April 1957 notification: "Any book, magazine, pamphlet, leaflet, newspaper, or other like publication, which contains stories told, with the aid of pictures, without the aid of pictures or wholly in pictures, being stories portraying (i) the commission of offences; or (ii) acts of violence or cruelty; or (iii) incidents of a repulsive or horrible nature." You might think that this still leaves you with books on taxonomy, but sorry; it doesn't. Next is Ludvik Vecera's 'Classic Roses: A Concise Guide in Colour' which contains the history, descriptions, superstitions, and legends of roses.

Then there is a July 1981 notification, whereby eight books concerning Jews (including Collin and Lapierre's 'O Jerusalem') were banned, the last of which is the source of my unquenched curiosity as to its subject matter: its author is not mentioned and it is titled 'My Bigtime Book.' H. G. Wells's 'Pocket History of the World' and Sir Walter Scott's 1923 historical novel 'Quentin Durward' (which is about a Scottish archer in the service of French King Louis XI) are also among the 'nuggets' for which there is no rational excuse for being kept on the list.

It's only appropriate to mention that those intending to visit Pakistan in near future need not be alarmed, as customs people actually never check your luggage for these books, and most of the better known books in this list (except for 'The Satanic Verses') are easily available on bookshops and libraries in big cities. Taxpayers, however, do need to be alarmed as it is their money which is used to pay the officials who write these notifications.

Free speech activists also need to be duly informed that this or any other official list is not the problem in Pakistan, but the fact that Pakistanis don't read. We chat about politics, ogle at women and remain silent about religion. Consequently, reading doesn't really figure in our popular culture.

Lastly, I must point out that although I had a 2006 edition of the Customs Act, the list therein went only so far as 1989 (this list is also available on paksearch.com). So I had to plod through the Federal Bureau of Revenue's website which hosts government's notifications from the year 1970 to 2008. Apparently, there was only one Section 16 notification in the past 19 years (compared to 229 in the previous 42 years), dated June 2002 and banning 'Tareekhi Dastavaiz: Shias, Muslims or Kafirs?' written by Mrs. Ziaur Rahman Farooqi. Knowing how well organised government websites are, I hope that those who write law books shall soon furnish any deficiency in the list for the purposes of both information and entertainment.

(To be continued)

Utopia for me
Without a trial lens

By Babar Mirza

"I mean Negative Capability, that is when man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason."

John Keats's famous definition of the quality crucial to form 'a Man of Achievement' has inspired many in literature and philosophy. I heard about it only a couple of years ago from a friend who has a good taste in literature (though my good luck in this regard doesn't compensate for the regrettable rarity of this breed now a day).

Initially I thought of it as a hedonistic ideal implying an escapist lifestyle: complacency, the lack of will to explore, or submission to a chaotic or false reality. Moreover, I found it beneath human dignity to stop being curious about that deceptive specter called truth, or being incensed by the malicious lies I am told? But, as soon turned out, I was too drunk in youthful adventurism to understand its real meaning.

Truth no doubt is a worthy ideal; seeking it has always been the lofty ambition that distinguishes humans from other living species. In the beginning, nature crafted those superstitions that labelled fear and dependency as truth. The more sophisticated social systems, later on, derived the strength of their foundations from an unknowable but certain supernatural force. But the more we came to know, the more we doubted the certain. After the failure of nature and God to deliver 'objectively' verifiable certainty, science made the last attempt to give definite answers to the same 'big' questions, but ended up miserably with the Uncertainty Principle.

In social theory, liberalism (a euphemism for capitalism) leaves the individual free to find any answer he or she likes as long as it doesn't conflict with the business interests. Not much help there. Communism, on the other hand, held the very questions to be irrelevant and exploitative and concerned itself with the material only, which, it claimed, fashioned the inner-self or the spirit. Notwithstanding the moral appeal of communism to struggle for a better future, the idea of a purely biological, materially determined life doesn't give me much to live on. Existentialism is another notable modern philosophy that urges human beings to discover and actualise their true potential; for me, it's a rephrasing of the problem, not a solution.

'To be or not to be?' had always been the question, and, it seems, shall always be. In fact, reviewing major ideologies of the past and the present seems like trying different lenses on an optometrist's trial frame until you can read the images on the last line of the box; the only difference being that here you never find the right match for your eyes. The answer seems to exist but doesn't reveal itself. We try to guess and even be reasonably sure about it, but soon time and events collapse the castles built on our interpretation of those blurry images.

It was at this point that I realised the true import of Keats's immortal sentence quoted in the beginning. The result was a tendency to look at things without any trial lenses. Hence I found in me a passive submission to the uncertain, but this submission is only provisional, and in a delicate balance with active struggle for truth. I must reach after 'fact and reason', but without any haste or irritation, and even if I never get there, I must not lose sight of the essential ingredients of my life -- the natural beauty and the unique individuals that surround me.

In short, I should be content with the certainty I have at any given point, and that I can do through finding common grounds among people and understanding and tolerating other's eccentricities, even relishing in a union of dissimilar individuals. These are the sources of that peace of mind that give me reason to live.

Some intellectuals proudly boast about how they are interested in ideas and not people. I pity them. It's hard for an idea to apply equally to two individuals, let alone a community or a nation.

However, my motive is strictly personal. It's my utopia. Having realised that truth is not out there, I don't see any point in fretting over it. Caring to look above every night to see how beautifully the moon wanes and waxes and the utter delight felt on seeing it round with a milky light; trying to feel the pain of others and, subject to my capacity, helping them assuage it is the summary of my utopia, and no cost appears to be too much for it.