By Ayesha Nasir
LAHORE // For Naila Ishtiaq, 48, the month of Ramadan is a reminder of the paradoxes she lives with every day. A Catholic by birth, Mrs Ishtiaq bears a Muslim name, covers her head with a dupatta and gets more gifts on Eid than Christmas.“Everyone I work for gives me clothes and gifts for my children on Eid, but hardly anyone remembers to do so on Christmas,” she said. “It’s as if people forget that Christians have different celebrations and traditions from Muslims.”
For Mrs Ishtiaq, Ramadan is a month when she fasts by compulsion and not by choice, as all Pakistanis, regardless of their religion, are forbidden from eating, drinking and smoking in public during the hours of fasting.Mrs Ishtiaq works a morning shift at a gymnasium and an evening shift in an upper middle class household where she serves as assistant chef and waitress. “In the mornings, the cafeteria at the gymnasium is closed and the water dispensers are nowhere to be seen, which means that someone who isn’t fasting can’t find even a sip of water or a morsel of food,” she said at the house where she works, wiping perspiration off her face with her muslin dupatta. “Everyone at the house I work at in the evening also fasts so food is not served to anyone till the evening prayer.”
Christians are the largest religious minority in Pakistan, comprising 1.5 per cent of the population of 145 million. According to Amnesty International, Pakistan ranks low in terms of minority rights.Mrs Ishtiaq’s husband, Ishtiaq Masih, had similar complaints. “We have breakfast before daybreak and then from then onward, we can’t even find a sip of water,” he said. “To ask for food would be to invite wrath upon us.”
The prohibition on eating and drinking during Ramadan in Pakistan was implemented in 1981 when the then president Zia-ul-Haq issued the Ehtaram-e-Ramadan (Respect for Ramadan) Ordinance, which made eating, drinking or smoking in public during fasting hours illegal and punishable with a fine of 500 Pakistani rupees (Dh22) and up to three months in prison.While the ordinance has proven popular with observant Muslims, who see it as preserving the sanctity of Ramadan and making life easier on those fasting by removing the sight of non-fasters eating and drinking, rights activists say it impinges on the rights of those not fasting, in particular minorities.
“Basically the ordinance implies that by not fasting you are a bad Muslim or a bad person, and if you’re not observing Islam, too bad; you will still not have access to food or drink,” said Scherezade Abbas, a human rights activist in Lahore. “The law has taken a private religious custom and converted it into a public imposition.”The religious scholar Mufti Ashiq Hussain, who works at the influential madrasa Jamia Ashrafia in Lahore, said the prohibitions on eating and drinking helped Muslims bear the difficulties of fasting and were correct according to Sharia.
“We strongly support such amendments because we believe that in an Islamic country, all laws should be in accordance with Islamic traditions and laws,” he said.Because of the popularity of such viewpoints, few believe the law will ever be repealed.Asadullah Ghalib, a columnist for the Urdu daily The Express, said: “There is no organised movement to amend this law because the minorities in Pakistan are so illiterate and terrified that they rarely ever raise their voices. Also, given the atmosphere of fundamentalism sweeping the country, any amendment perceived to be anti-Islamic will be met with rage.”
On MM Alam Road, a Lahore street known for its upmarket restaurants, almost all the restaurants are shuttered during fasting hours. A single restaurant was conducting business through a side entrance but had huge posters pasted all around stating that only takeaway was allowed and sit-ins would be fined.Mrs Ishtiaq said clamping down on eating and drinking during Ramadan seemed to defeat the purpose of the month. “I thought Ramadan was about exerting self-control and helping Muslims learn how to resist the temptations of life,” she said. “When [Christians] fast, no special arrangements such as these prohibitions are made and yet we manage to fast properly.”
The month is particularly hard for Yusuf Masih, 28, a Christian who works at a hotel from midday until after the breaking of the fast, spending much of his shift in the kitchen preparing food for iftar.“Often I help the chef prepare the evening buffet by chopping up vegetables, stirring the sauces and doing other such chores,” he said. “But even when I am surrounded by the smell of food, I don’t dare taste anything for fear of offending my colleagues. I prefer staying hungry and thirsty.”
(The National)
Friday, September 4, 2009
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Blasphemy law will do damage again!
The National Assembly’s Standing Committee on Human Rights has urged the government to re-examine the blasphemy law and improve its procedure. When we say “re-examine” we may be expressing a secret desire to change the wording of the law to prevent it from victimising innocent people. We still don’t say “repeal” although that is what it deserves after what it has done to a lot of innocent people in Pakistan, of which nearly half have belonged to our poor Christian community.
The Standing Committee is still a bit pusillanimous and has quickly added “procedures” knowing full well that the procedures have been changed a number of times in the past with no effect. The police doesn’t care for procedures or is perhaps forced to discard them in the face of those who want to exploit the Blasphemy Law. Yet, it should have noted that it is just one organisation — the banned Sipah-e-Sahaba — that causes most of the violence to take place under the law.
A Lahore High Court judge is painstakingly recording the evidence of the wronged Christians of Gojra when their houses were torched in the last week of August. His pace is quite remarkable with 320 statements of eye-witnesses taken down. Meanwhile, however, the banned Sipah has not stopped its savagery: the Christian community of Mariamabad, a Catholic village in Sheikhupura district, has received threatening phone-calls from it vowing to reduce it to a pile of ashes like Gojra.
The Standing Committee has complained that the intelligence units of the police do nothing to pre-empt Sipah attacks. Everyone knows that trouble starts from the mosques which can be put under unobtrusive surveillance if our spooks take time out from fighting mythical battles with Mossad and RAW. (And offering up a “desk” analysis saying Gojra was done by India.) As the PMLN leader Mr Javed Hashmi courageously and rightly stated in the house, the law has to be changed to prevent persecution of innocent Pakistanis.
(Editorial of Daily Times)
The Standing Committee is still a bit pusillanimous and has quickly added “procedures” knowing full well that the procedures have been changed a number of times in the past with no effect. The police doesn’t care for procedures or is perhaps forced to discard them in the face of those who want to exploit the Blasphemy Law. Yet, it should have noted that it is just one organisation — the banned Sipah-e-Sahaba — that causes most of the violence to take place under the law.
A Lahore High Court judge is painstakingly recording the evidence of the wronged Christians of Gojra when their houses were torched in the last week of August. His pace is quite remarkable with 320 statements of eye-witnesses taken down. Meanwhile, however, the banned Sipah has not stopped its savagery: the Christian community of Mariamabad, a Catholic village in Sheikhupura district, has received threatening phone-calls from it vowing to reduce it to a pile of ashes like Gojra.
The Standing Committee has complained that the intelligence units of the police do nothing to pre-empt Sipah attacks. Everyone knows that trouble starts from the mosques which can be put under unobtrusive surveillance if our spooks take time out from fighting mythical battles with Mossad and RAW. (And offering up a “desk” analysis saying Gojra was done by India.) As the PMLN leader Mr Javed Hashmi courageously and rightly stated in the house, the law has to be changed to prevent persecution of innocent Pakistanis.
(Editorial of Daily Times)
Sunday, August 30, 2009
The Health Care Debate, Early Church Style
As Christians join the rest of the country in jousting over the proposed changes to our health care system, one significant fact should inform the Christian debate: modern health care is a Christian invention. The reasons Christians developed the world's first health care system—as opposed to simply medical practitioners—are as relevant today as they were 2,000 years ago.
How and why early Christian health care came about is the subject of Gary Ferngren's book Medicine and Health Care in Early Christianity. Ferngren, a professor of history at Oregon State University, argues with his fellow academics who believe that early Christians opposed medicine, thinking that all illness was caused by demons. Instead, Ferngren says, "Christians of the first five centuries held views regarding the use of medicine and the healing of disease that did not differ appreciably from those that were widely taken for granted in the Graeco-Roman world."
Many of Ferngren's colleagues in this field of research must think that early Christians believed demons brought on disease and that exorcism was the only cure. Nothing else could explain the lengths he goes to—two-thirds of the book—debunking the notion.
Medicine, as developed by the Greeks, was a naturalistic field. Doctors studied the body, made observations, and practiced their art without appeal to Greek divinities. So Christians had no reason to oppose its practice. They did, however, advise fellow believers on how to use medicine. For example, some preachers taught that the truly spiritual would forgo medical care, relying on prayer alone, but all taught that God heals through the work of the physician. In addition, medical literature—a piece of classical education—provided a wealth of metaphors and illustrations that educated Christian preachers wove into their sermons.
Imago Dei and ancient health care
When an epidemic struck in the ancient world, pagan city officials offered gifts to the gods but nothing for their suffering citizens. Even in healthy times, those who had no one to care for them, or whose care placed too great a burden on the family, were left out to die.
Christians found this intolerable, and they set about to take care of these people and others similarly afflicted. They did so because, Ferngren writes, "Early Christian philanthropy was informed by the theological concept of the imago Dei, that humans were created in the image of God."
This led not only to a belief in the responsibility to aid others and the inherent worth of every human being, but also to a belief in the sacredness of the body itself. "It was to save the body that Christ took on flesh in the Incarnation. Not only the soul, which in traditional pagan thought was eternal, but the composite of body and soul, which constituted man, was to be resurrected."
The idea of imago Dei also led to a redefinition of the idea of the poor. Rights in a city or society were given to members, and all members received benefits. Those outside were offered none. Christianity, in addition to seeing all people as "neighbors," developed a special consideration for the poor. Just as God demonstrated in the Incarnation his solidarity with those who suffer, so the members of his "body" must demonstrate their solidarity with the suffering poor.
The classical understanding of civic care for those who suffered "was not merely insufficient to provide the motivation for private charity; it actively discouraged it," writes Ferngren. "Christianity, however, insisted that the love of God required the spontaneous manifestation of personal charity toward one's brothers: one could not claim to love God without loving his brother."
Christian health care
As a result of these theological beliefs, Christians developed a robust system for caring for the poor, the ill, widows and orphans, and other members of society in need of care. When the plague struck, this system provided an opportunity for churches to quickly expand and care for those outside the church.
As early as A.D. 251, according to letters from the time, the church in Rome cared for 1,500 widows and those who were distressed. A hundred years later,
Antioch supported 3,000 widows, virgins, sick, poor, and travelers. This care was organized by the church and delivered through deacons and volunteer societies. The churches in major cities had significant resources at their disposal, and though their care was not professional, it is likely to have saved lives and aided the growth of the church.
When the plague of Cyprian struck in 250 and lasted for years, this volunteer corps became the only organization in Roman cities that cared for the dying and buried the dead. Ironically, as the church dramatically increased its care, the Roman government began persecuting the church more heavily.
Dionysius, bishop of Alexandria, wrote, according to Ferngren, "that presbyters, deacons, and laymen took charge of the treatment of the sick, ignoring the danger to their own lives. … Their activity contrasted with that of the pagans, who deserted the sick or threw the bodies of the dead out into the streets." This care was extended even to those persecuting the church at the time.
This care likely led to much higher rates of survival for Christians. And after the plague, with a staff of workers and an existing administrative structure, "Christian medical care became outwardly focused, now enlarged to include many who were victims of the plague."
Finally, when Emperor Constantine legalized Christianity, these services were formalized in a number of institutions, including the first hospitals. "The experience gained by the congregation-centered care of the sick over several centuries gave early Christians the ability to create rapidly in the late fourth century a network of efficiently functioning institutions that offered charitable medical care, first in monastic infirmaries and later in the hospital," Ferngren writes.
Modern health care
The experience of early Christian health care sheds light on what ought to be of foremost concern to modern Christians as the country reforms its health care system: beyond cost savings and the ability of a government agency to deliver health care, Christians must be concerned about the poor receiving care.
In the U.S., hospitals cannot typically refuse care to those without insurance; however, insurance is most often the key to receiving health care today. And expanding coverage to those who are without should be, based on Ferngren's study, a major concern for Christians.
The best way to provide care to everyone in the country may be up for debate. We may argue over whether to prefer new regulation of insurers and health care providers or a government-run plan. The need to provide care for the poor, however, was settled centuries ago.
(Christianity Today)
How and why early Christian health care came about is the subject of Gary Ferngren's book Medicine and Health Care in Early Christianity. Ferngren, a professor of history at Oregon State University, argues with his fellow academics who believe that early Christians opposed medicine, thinking that all illness was caused by demons. Instead, Ferngren says, "Christians of the first five centuries held views regarding the use of medicine and the healing of disease that did not differ appreciably from those that were widely taken for granted in the Graeco-Roman world."
Many of Ferngren's colleagues in this field of research must think that early Christians believed demons brought on disease and that exorcism was the only cure. Nothing else could explain the lengths he goes to—two-thirds of the book—debunking the notion.
Medicine, as developed by the Greeks, was a naturalistic field. Doctors studied the body, made observations, and practiced their art without appeal to Greek divinities. So Christians had no reason to oppose its practice. They did, however, advise fellow believers on how to use medicine. For example, some preachers taught that the truly spiritual would forgo medical care, relying on prayer alone, but all taught that God heals through the work of the physician. In addition, medical literature—a piece of classical education—provided a wealth of metaphors and illustrations that educated Christian preachers wove into their sermons.
Imago Dei and ancient health care
When an epidemic struck in the ancient world, pagan city officials offered gifts to the gods but nothing for their suffering citizens. Even in healthy times, those who had no one to care for them, or whose care placed too great a burden on the family, were left out to die.
Christians found this intolerable, and they set about to take care of these people and others similarly afflicted. They did so because, Ferngren writes, "Early Christian philanthropy was informed by the theological concept of the imago Dei, that humans were created in the image of God."
This led not only to a belief in the responsibility to aid others and the inherent worth of every human being, but also to a belief in the sacredness of the body itself. "It was to save the body that Christ took on flesh in the Incarnation. Not only the soul, which in traditional pagan thought was eternal, but the composite of body and soul, which constituted man, was to be resurrected."
The idea of imago Dei also led to a redefinition of the idea of the poor. Rights in a city or society were given to members, and all members received benefits. Those outside were offered none. Christianity, in addition to seeing all people as "neighbors," developed a special consideration for the poor. Just as God demonstrated in the Incarnation his solidarity with those who suffer, so the members of his "body" must demonstrate their solidarity with the suffering poor.
The classical understanding of civic care for those who suffered "was not merely insufficient to provide the motivation for private charity; it actively discouraged it," writes Ferngren. "Christianity, however, insisted that the love of God required the spontaneous manifestation of personal charity toward one's brothers: one could not claim to love God without loving his brother."
Christian health care
As a result of these theological beliefs, Christians developed a robust system for caring for the poor, the ill, widows and orphans, and other members of society in need of care. When the plague struck, this system provided an opportunity for churches to quickly expand and care for those outside the church.
As early as A.D. 251, according to letters from the time, the church in Rome cared for 1,500 widows and those who were distressed. A hundred years later,
Antioch supported 3,000 widows, virgins, sick, poor, and travelers. This care was organized by the church and delivered through deacons and volunteer societies. The churches in major cities had significant resources at their disposal, and though their care was not professional, it is likely to have saved lives and aided the growth of the church.
When the plague of Cyprian struck in 250 and lasted for years, this volunteer corps became the only organization in Roman cities that cared for the dying and buried the dead. Ironically, as the church dramatically increased its care, the Roman government began persecuting the church more heavily.
Dionysius, bishop of Alexandria, wrote, according to Ferngren, "that presbyters, deacons, and laymen took charge of the treatment of the sick, ignoring the danger to their own lives. … Their activity contrasted with that of the pagans, who deserted the sick or threw the bodies of the dead out into the streets." This care was extended even to those persecuting the church at the time.
This care likely led to much higher rates of survival for Christians. And after the plague, with a staff of workers and an existing administrative structure, "Christian medical care became outwardly focused, now enlarged to include many who were victims of the plague."
Finally, when Emperor Constantine legalized Christianity, these services were formalized in a number of institutions, including the first hospitals. "The experience gained by the congregation-centered care of the sick over several centuries gave early Christians the ability to create rapidly in the late fourth century a network of efficiently functioning institutions that offered charitable medical care, first in monastic infirmaries and later in the hospital," Ferngren writes.
Modern health care
The experience of early Christian health care sheds light on what ought to be of foremost concern to modern Christians as the country reforms its health care system: beyond cost savings and the ability of a government agency to deliver health care, Christians must be concerned about the poor receiving care.
In the U.S., hospitals cannot typically refuse care to those without insurance; however, insurance is most often the key to receiving health care today. And expanding coverage to those who are without should be, based on Ferngren's study, a major concern for Christians.
The best way to provide care to everyone in the country may be up for debate. We may argue over whether to prefer new regulation of insurers and health care providers or a government-run plan. The need to provide care for the poor, however, was settled centuries ago.
(Christianity Today)
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