The hypocritic oath

It is increasingly common among immigrant Muslims in the West to claim that one is carrying the banner of Islam to these lands, or that Islam does not recognize national boundaries and, since all land belongs to Allah, there was no such thing as migration.

(Daily Times, Lahore, 22 July 2004)

Medical doctors all over the world, upon entering their profession, take the Hippocratic Oath.  Named after Hippocrates, the Greek physician of antiquity, it is a pledge by physicians to “always act so as to preserve the finest traditions of my calling” and “experience the joy of healing those who seek my help.”  Muslim immigrants, upon gaining permanent residence or citizenship of Western countries, seem to sign on to what may be called the hypocritic oath, which entails living in denial, claiming to adore what they shun and pretending to abhor what they covet.

At a party recently in Sydney I met a young man, living a prosperous life and with none of the overt signs of religiosity, who was vociferous in his support of the Taliban regime.  When I retorted that he was “an opportunist,” he flared up saying that I was “accusing” him.  To which I replied that I was not accusing but describing him.  How else, I asked, could I describe a person who wanted to enjoy the benefits of life in a Western country, yet praised a regime that offered nothing but amputations and empty promises? 

My mind goes back about a quarter of a century.  Not long after the Khomeini revolution in Iran, I was at a Pakistani get-together in Cincinnati, USA.  Well-heeled Pakistanis, accompanied by their smartly dressed wives dripping with jewellery, seemed in agreement that Pakistan too needed an Ayatollah Khomeini, whereupon I allowed myself the audacity to ask if they would like to return to such a Pakistan.  They seemed flabbergasted.

The above examples are not exceptions, but representative of the blatant hypocrisy that engulfs Pakistanis living in the West.  One even compared his own migration to the West with American expatriates in the Middle East.  He seemed unimpressed with my argument that, while the Americans had signed job contracts upon whose expiry they would return to their country, nearly all the Pakistanis had left for the West permanently and many of them had done so on the basis of forged documents, false statements and contrived marriages.  Often, even genuine marriages had been entered into primarily to gain immigration.

Some Muslim immigrants have redefined the words “lie” and “fraud” to suit their convenience. In trying to justify their readiness to provide false information in order to gain financial and other advantages from the state, they claim that Islam only forbids those lies (jhut) that “cause hurt (takleef) to someone else.”  A more shameless school of thought brags that the Islamic concept of honesty does not apply when dealing with a “Christian” state.  It avoids the question why, then, would a Muslim want to emigrate from one’s native Darul Islam to a “Christian” state.

A maulana in Sydney was heard admonishing a fellow-Pakistani for conceding that he was an economic migrant.  Because economic migration is not permitted in Islam, the maulana said, one should never admit to being an economic migrant!  It is increasingly common among immigrant Muslims in the West to claim that one is carrying the banner of Islam to these lands, or that Islam does not recognize national boundaries and, since all land belongs to Allah, there was no such thing as migration.

The age-old saying “In Rome, do as the Romans do” has now been turned on its head.  The prevailing wisdom is “In London, tell the Londoners what to do”!  Not to mention their enhanced religiosity in the sense of increased adherence to rituals and boasting about their “superior” values, Muslims (Arabs and Pakistanis in particular) stand out by their propensity to wear their national dresses in public. 

Pakistanis make themselves conspicuous by their shalwar-kameez. Women take to the scarf and burqa more readily than they would in their homelands.  Children who attended English-medium schools in Pakistan are enrolled in Islamic schools wherever possible.  Discussion topics at get-togethers are halal meat, the lost utopia of the Afghan Taliban and the latest innovative ways to beat and cheat the system and to extract the maximum benefits from the state.

I am told of a Pakistani who wished to marry an Australian woman without converting her to Islam.  When the maulana objected, the young man contended that Islam permitted marriage to Christian and Jewish women.  To which the learned holy man replied that while this was true, it only applied to “real Christians,” which the present crop of Westerners were not, whence the necessity for conversion.  Yesterday’s humble immigrant has, today, arrogated to himself the right to judge the Christianity of Christians!

Having made a shambles of their own countries – dozens of them – they are now out to Islamise the West, in the nominal sense.  The most blatant such attempt, of course, was the Muslim Parliament of Great Britain.  People guilty of persecuting religious and ethnic minorities in their own countries by word and deed are the greatest votaries of multiculturalism, secularism and minority rights where themselves in a minority, as in the West.  Thus far, that is, for if they have their way, the situation will change sooner rather than later.

A Bangladeshi friend once shared with me the happy news from a magazine that, based on statistical projections of migration, conversions and birth rates, the United Kingdom will have a Muslim majority within 50 years.  When I wondered whether this would be such a good thing, he looked utterly dazed.  I explained that the UK was a haven for tens of thousands of migrants – legal and illegal – from his country and mine, seeking to improve their lives.  It stands to logic that, with a Muslim majority, the UK would descend to the same level of chaos and corruption as is now evident in their native countries.  Looking a bit depressed, and in a momentary lapse from the hypocritic oath, he half nodded in agreement.

When faced with arguments about the alleged “decadence” of the West and our supposed “superior values,” I have pointed to the West-bound human traffic. The statistics are stark and brutal and speak for themselves.  The Western countries, whose Muslim populations have soared from virtually zero to tens of millions within less than 50 years, are struggling, with little success, to limit further arrivals.  On the other hand, assisting would-be emigrants, both legal and illegal, is a roaring business in most of the Muslim countries.

The vast majority of successful Muslim immigrants, however, continue to live a dual and duplicitous life, denouncing and undermining the values which lie at the foundation of Western societies while reaping their benefits, and espousing those whose abject failures forced them there in the first place.

By Razi Azmi