Modern Freedoms And Human Rights

 

 

THE ISSUE OF MODERN FREEDOMS AND HUMAN RIGHTS- THEIR RELEVANCE TO SUFI ATTITUDES


As already pointed out the West has been an arena of extreme turnabouts resulting from the imbalances in its soul. For example, nowhere else religious dogma and practice have been as extremist as there and then the escape from both, until today, unbelievers have all the effective powers, and religion has to choose between either a withdrawal into a private inner world of believers or membership of extreme, manipulative and exploitative cults run on ruthless business lines by accomplished crooks who are often also semi-madmen. In between are exploiters of both camps. Mainly positioned among the artists and artistic industries like the motion pictures these deliberate social schizoids are responsible for works which pretend to commemorate the likes of the Christ while at the same time depicting such heroes in the orgies of sexual love ‘a la hippy’!
But the main driving ethos of modern Western culture is the erosion of traditional moral and social values and its chief hunting game is married life. No opportunity is missed to find fault with it and offer and advertise alternatives to it. Every sly effort is made to discredit it while supposed better alternatives like ‘free love’ with or without birth control, parental roles outside the biological and even gender considerations and most audacious of all, involving homosexual couples in roles analogous to traditional parental roles with or without laboratory and surrogate-aided production of babies and their rearing with no consideration for the most basic biological and emotional needs of the child, like entitlement to its natural mother’s milk and her unmatchable parental skills and potentials.
Everything is geared to denying and excluding God while playing God is the real if undeclared hobby. All good observation suggests that such phobia against and rivalry with God issues from negative, traumatic experience with religious people, often parents who themselves projected an image of  bigots and fire and brimstone preachers ruthless in their demands on their children and sadistic in their persecution on the grounds of poor compliance by their standards. An example of such a bad and traumatic upbringing was seen at our academy a few years ago: Two young women, both staff at a TV channel, had visited us to see what we could do for them in the matter of exposing another young woman to a Sufi group experience. We invited them to take part as observers in our then running class and at one point asked one to read a certain passage in the Qur’an to see what the loving mercy of God was like according to Islam. She read out the passage to us. We soon found that she was very much moved and said after the recital that she was so sad that her parents had so much scared her out of her wits with their terrible descriptions of God’s wrath and the torments of Hell and that with no balancing description of God’s love and mercy. She confessed that that had cooled her off religion but that she could only admire and appreciate the version in the Qur’an. No wonder Christianity shot itself in the foot in the hands of most of its teachers and imposers and that must be reason why the Western soul became sick and eventually not only anti-clerical but mostly anti-Christian and by extension, against all religion.


This clerically-imposed oppressiveness of religion had to be reacted against by a rebellion whereby all the Christian institutions like the church and the traditional family had to be put to account and subjected to rejection together with all their moral teachings and injunctions. This is so peculiar to the West that no religion outside Christianity could live through such a trauma. If they lived at all in isolated instances they did so only lately and that as  a result of some non-Christians being subjected to Western secular education or at least to first-hand Western influence like living under Western colonial rule, especially as employees of it. We can call these classes of non-Westerners phenotypical pseudo-Europeans and they distinguish themselves by abhorring their origins and lusting after Westernising their race in culture and manners irrespective of the actual merits of these foreign items.  Naturally these also may join the family’s and other traditional values and institutions’ destruction effort in their countries.
What are such modern Western alternatives to traditional values which apply to both Christianity and all other great world religions with some variations and exceptions? They are mainly the following:

 

 


1.
Basing morality on secular, i.e. non-religious precepts derived from supposedly free thought with no reference whatsoever to religious beliefs and teachings. The self-styled free-thinkers are unaware that all thinking is part conditioned by already existing beliefs and prejudices and part by some big or small free thinking; when it comes to challenging any old beliefs not only new scientific beliefs or opinions but also the personal grievances and ambitions of the thinker contribute to their shaping. For example, a man in a royal age defending the abolition of royalty and opening up headship of state to anybody who, according to himself satisfies criteria he himself formulated may have a personal grievance towards the king as well as an ambition for ruling the state or at least punishing the king to any extent he can manage. Though these psychological factors behind his opposition to royalty may not entirely invalidate his critique of royal government it does not either make sure that his alternative thesis is right. All revolutionary free thought is like this- tainted or compromised by the thinker’s grievances and/or ambitions, even by proxy (putting a favourite of his to the job). Not only political but all else, new economic, educational, sexual etc. theses draw significantly on personal resentments and ambitions. Any science quoted or invented is tainted upfront, for science is not as exact and impartial as alleged but often is another form of prejudiced philosophy in disguise. Can we imagine- despite all the evidence to its favour, great Einstein could not reconcile himself with the ideas of the Quantum Theory nor to this day all scientists, including my humble self could quite agree with some of the reality scenarios of the Theory of Relativity, like the Identical Twins paradox or that the presently calculated theoretical speed of light cannot be exceeded under any circumstances. 


I personally believe that, having not inspected the whole universe (an impossible task) it is premature to decide thus. In the case of the Twin Paradox, an experiment is impossible and the concept of relativity which must be true will be offended when relativity is suspended and one twin lives longer than the other in absolute time terms- such absolute terms simply demolishes relativity. I may be wrong though but that should be proven experimentally. Red shift is another paradox- since speed of light is absolute why a Doppler Effect in light should exist? Obviously, I say to myself, it is not absolute and invariable but also relative within some narrow limits. After all there is no any absolute vacuums in universe nor areas free of gravity. Again I may be wrong. After all I am not a theoretical physicist but a mixture of a chemist, mathematician and physicist and technologist, all rolled into one as a chemical engineer. Only my common sense is putting me up against some theoretical or rather hypothetical and philosophical claims of Relativity. Otherwise as a piece of theoretical work it is wonderful- within limits. If it is about relativity it should not claim full absoluteness in any physical observation or prediction.

 

   
2.
Working out the new moral rules more on the basis of freeing the human beings from their traditionally-instilled scruples and especially pushing for anything and everything which offend such scruples until any interfering and objecting voices of established conscience is drowned and its anathemas are practiced. Hence, for example, the proliferating unnatural and unethical sexual practices despite their proven great health risks and social and economic cost. Take the example of nation-wide cervical smear campaign on the part of British National Health Service. This is not its only headache and financial black-hole. It also has to deal with AIDS, syphilis, gonorrhoea and many other sexual epidemics as well as their extensions into non-sexual areas like proliferating psychological problems and criminal activities: False cures sold at astronomical prices, websites dedicated to exploiting and profiting from personal and social problems caused by ‘sexual liberation’ of the masses. Sex is not the only liberated activity which bleed the national economy to perpetual anaemia; taking drugs to make up for the loss of consolations and ecstasies religious faith would otherwise confer is another very costly alternative: Many times more are paid to drug barons and their manufacturer, smuggler, pusher and briber armies than could ever be paid to churchmen in the business of similar consolations and ecstasies peddling. In other words religious exploitation has never been worse and costlier than the secular spiritual except when the religious organised crusades  (holy wars) which of course were not everyday affairs like drug- taking and sexual indulgences, which are daily and at mass scale.


3.
Offering alternatives to everything religious or traditional irrespective of their any established benefits, alternatives with the exclusive merit of being new and secularly formulated. No account of the emotional, moral, health and economic costs are taken of such bird-brained pioneering experiments, the main motivation being the challenging of what is old and established and replacing it with what is new because it is new. An Arab proverb observes: “Kullu jadeedun lazeeizun”, i.e. every new thing tastes delicious- which incidentally applies to all sexual perversions and drugs and juvenile crime for the thrill of it- all main if unofficial planks of modernism.

 

 


4.
Increasing leniency towards criminals at the expense of their victims: court psychologists leave no stone unturned to explain that crime is the collective responsibility of the whole society rather than the criminal; the criminal himself is a victim of the society which failed in its duty to educate the failed citizen wrongly labelled a criminal and should in fact compensate him at least by looking after him well while in prison and preparing him for a good life once out. Both advices mostly do not work in practice. Most of even the best treated serious criminals reoffend once out, because unbeknown to the psychologists living over the clouds they are plain evil and delight only too much in their evil.

 

5.
Freedom of thought is internally guaranteed to all who want it but not saying everything you think is true, i.e. freedom of speech should not be guaranteed as  a human right- otherwise why laws punishing insulting others or revealing national or company secrets or inciting hatred etc? It is the same with religious, national and sexual issues- sane and responsible people should not offend others’ sensitivities in these matters but should keep their mouths shut. Any criticism, if unavoidable and badly called for  should be carefully worded, cautious, tentative and with a readiness to withdraw as soon as signs of taking offence is noticed in the ‘accused’ party. Only those charged with an objective crime may be criticized more directly and bluntly, otherwise, there can be no police or court proceedings.

 

 


6.
All avoidable dangerous acts with no significant and objective benefits to exonerate them should be censored and banned and their commission punished. There can be no doubt that intoxicating drinks and other mind-deteriorating substances and methods, all mutual sexual acts other than bisexual married acts come under this category. Surely many shall still commit these but their commission in secrecy is less harmful than their liberalisation and commission in public or with notoriety. One should not be free to test his ability to behave safely while under the influence of drinks or other abusive substances or his ability to test his resistance to sexual temptations and opportunities like when the two sexes mix freely and expose their attractions: This is like drivers driving without roads or road markings, traffic lights, speed limits etc. just because they feel freer and more elated then.


Why should couples of people relate casually when transmission of serious diseases, possibility of unwanted pregnancies and their painful and sometimes also criminal consequences or emotional traumas are so clearly present? Yes, nobody can stop such acts from happening in an absolute sense but bans and taboos can go a very long way in reducing them. In short, no acts with more danger in their commission than their perceived or alleged benefits should be part of human rights. In other words safety of the generality should take precedence over the freedoms of individuals. Mutual consent to a dangerous act should be no licence to commit the act.
WHAT TRUE HUMAN FREEDOM IS
Consider two drivers. One is aware and appreciative of all motor vehicle and traffic regulations and gladly observes and obeys them. He naturally loves all other drivers who believe and act like him. If we call these good drivers’ beliefs and sympathies religion we can see what a good religion is all about – religion is a system of regulating the behavioural traffic.
These are good drivers because they are good citizens; they are good citizens because they liked learning all the rules and laws of good citizenship and have been enjoying their fruits for so long now. They surely are aware of only too many defective citizens who are too self-centred and too lazy for bothering with learning about and observing rules of social life but given their own psychological maturity and gladly obtained technical (i.e. social, moral, ethical, basic legal etc. knowledge and their sincere appreciation) they are realistically prepared to accommodate these pathetic semi-savages if they do not want trouble which they don’t. A semi-brute of a man is a very tough opponent and if not diplomatically accommodated or tactfully avoided he can ruin more than a life at a time in one sense or another. Recent news in the media tells about decent neighbours challenging the offensive and the abusive and being beaten or stabbed to death on their or their neighbour’s doorstep as  a result. One semi-brute driver tries to overtake another at a most inappropriate place on the road and when frustrated he somehow overtakes and blocks his frustrater. He jumps out of his car, bangs on the windows and kicks the car of the uncooperative driver who did not cooperate for very good reasons like for not breaking the law and/or endangering others. Assuming that this threatened driver is the mature person we described above; he will choose not to defend himself let alone to argue and instead will ‘apologise’ to the semi-brute and try to placate him by his best possible acting skills. Because the brute is, deep down, aware of his brutishness (for He also has God in him if a bit too deep down and as a palest possible image) he will be taken aback by this extraordinary humility and apologetic sweetness and enjoying every bit his temporary lordly status he can only like to kindly forgive the ‘foolish offender’ who now learned his place, will he not?  What is more the apologetic Sufi (for that is what Sufism is about: it is about psychological maturity and realism of the highest order as attained in the Light of Allah) himself will enjoy the confrontation he won by deliberately losing to his opponent)! Such a seed of future maturity may then be planted into the heart of the apparent victor that no amount of formal education could easily achieve.


Now let us ask ourselves: who is more free- a person who is delightfully liberated from his unrealistic perspectives and assumptions and psychological immaturities whereby he can both control himself under all circumstances against acting unwisely and also against antagonising others more while winning them is an option and another who is so puffed up with proud and necessarily unrealistic self-importance that he cannot see facts and brighter options as they are but swims in a mental sea of delusions, greeds and anger so much so that he will rashly act out any and many misguided urges of his, like stabbing a rightly protesting neighbour or similarly rightly defensive fellow driver? Of course I am aware that people do not come in such all-white and all-black mental and moral colours but the unmistakeable dilemma is there to see. Which is better- to mature up over time or remain in and even regress to brutishness?
Now please tell me:  What educational effort whether personal self-education or formal public is the worthiest overall- education towards being a more decent, socially beneficial and blessingly harmonious citizen or no such education or education which does not tackle such moral and psychological maturity issues but confines itself to equipping the students with physical, mere academic and eventually economic skills? 
Perhaps now we can answer our cardinal question “What true human freedom is?”. Let us first see what it is not.
It is not true freedom to gratify all his senses that twists one’s stomach or itches one’s sex organs or warms his palms like in a prospective money grabbing exercise or balloons his heart while in the prospect of a promotion.  All the just mentioned even when some health hazards or injustices are risked. Such is an animal mentality unworthy of mature human beings. Similarly being proud, arrogant, demanding, provocative, abusive... simply because such behaviours relieve some tensions in you is not freedom. All these are forms of slavery within oneself and causes of tyranny towards others.


The true freedom is freedom from automatic obedience to one’s unexamined urges and instincts and instead being perfectly able to see what is mutually or collectively juster and pleasanter in all situations and contexts and the unhindered, in fact pleasurable commission of all acts conducive to safe and happy outcomes for all concerned, at least in the longer run.


If that was seen by all what need or use could remain for all sorts of human relationship, economical, diplomatic etc wrongs and crimes and their variously tragic consequences?


Please let my dear readers not think that I am expecting to make a perfect world of love, peace and prosperity- by all historical evidence that seems quite a pipe dream and God surely has His very good reasons why He should allow this world’s virtual imperfections. It may be that the imperfections are there as the seeds of perfections in a higher and more permanent world albeit after some further processing. What I want to impress on my readers is that each and every one of us, if we can appreciate and want badly enough, can help ourselves to the acquisition and stable incarnation  in us of all such wisdoms as above and elsewhere and lead lives of such high psychological and often also physical quality we could not possibly imagine before. 


Then and only then we shall know what freedom really is and how sweet it tastes and how youthful it can keep us and what a beneficent centre of spiritual blessing it can render us. Then and only then we have our freedoms, our true human rights.  Amen. 
  

 

 

 

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