Tahira Khan
Before delivering lecture regarding Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527), The Italian thinker who is best known for his masterpiece ‘The Prince’ where he has put emphasis on the endorsement of rule being based on deceit, fear and divorce of religion from politics, the respective teacher posed a Question that what, actually, we meant by The Enlightenment Era ?
In response of the asked question different answers surfaced in the classroom. Some said the era of reason while others insisted on the age where religion was separated from politics and logic started prevailing, itself, in all spheres of life. In the end, the most refined definition came to be in the following words;
“The period of time where society as a whole refused to accept anything being based upon metaphysical concepts devoid of logic and empiricism.”
It needs to be mentioned that Niccolo Machiavelli is considered as the most influential thinker of enlightenment epoch and, thus, known as the father of modern Political Science. Now, I think, it makes sense why the particular question was asked.
This particular era is also known as ‘The age of reason’ which starts from Francis Bacon’s Novum Organum (1620) and ends with Immuel Kant’s critique of Pure Reason (1781) Or we can say that it opens at the end of Thirty years of war (1648) and stretches itself till the conclusion of French Revolution (1789).
Before moving further and drawing analogy between the enlightenment period and the present day Pakistan (21st Century), we must first define the era, properly.
According to the New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Enlightenment means:
“An intellectual movement of the 17th and 18th centuries marked by the celebration of the power of human reason, a keen interest in science, the promotion of religious tolerance and the desire to construct governments free of tyranny”.
So, here we will discuss the current phase of Pakistani society in accordance with the development of reason and logic, evolution in Science, level of religious tolerance and machinery of statecraft by comparing it with the age of reason.
As far as Science and religion is concerned- both the notions go side by side- we are somewhere struggling in the dark ages. Science is purely based on observation and experiments but we see it to be a sort of secular and even atheist construct, thus bringing both terms at extreme odds.
When people seek even to inquire, not challenge, about superstitions or traditional beliefs they’re actually considered as sinful or infidel but, unfortunately or may be fortunately, inquiry along with the usage of common sense is the very first step towards scientific explanations. People are, then, killed when they dare to oppose traditions, particularly the religious ones, which explains the zero tolerance level for human reason and logic even in the 21st Century.
We can blame both Zia’s Islamization policies and Afghan war for all our ills and problems related to extremism and sectarian violence but, now things have been changed. Zia is no more with us. If we look into the situation more deeply by taking logical parameters, the main reason behind violence would be the absence of culture of reasoning and critical thinking which is snubbed even at the school level.
The culture of extremism has replaced the culture of enlightenment which seeks democratic, pragmatic and rational thought to structure the societal values for humanism and peace to take their respective roots. And, for this we have to absorb new ideas (broad mindedness) and start questioning the parochial outlook which is the sole reason behind our stagnation, orthodox thinking and conservative way of life.
The respective teacher who asked the question about enlightenment era also said few things about Bible. According to him, Bible renounces every step which is put forward in order to revenge. So, instead of moving further and learning something beautiful and constructive about another religion students started whispering saying;
“Look! What I said, Sir is Atheist. Now, it has been proven.”
Amazingly, none of us asked what is being Atheist or being Secular or does these things, really, have anything to do with us, especially when it comes to someone’s personal affairs. We don’t even bother to know what, actually, Islam says about that.
Definitely, we don’t have to as we are the Ummah of Last Prophet (SAW) and we have achieved some extreme level of narcissism where the tolerance level has dropped even below zero. So, no questions. We are absolutely on the right path.
If this is the thinking paradigm of a University graduate who considers theology as the sole knowledge of human race and looks down upon the basic reasoning; what else we should expect from the major portion of our society where education hasn’t been reached yet.
Shocking revelation but yet no surprise, unfortunately.
Last but not the least, the current political scenario, undoubtedly, is the pure imitation of Machiavellian style of statecraft having deceit and fear with the sole exception that Machiavelli advocated separation of religion and politics whereas our political system is deeply imbedded in the belief of religion. Since its inception in 1947, Islam has been used as a tool to achieve the selfish political ends.
So, before indulging any further in the hot debate of religion, science and human reasoning I must conclude because I don’t want myself to be labeled as the beacon of Insanity.
In his essay ‘What is Enlightenment?’ Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) describes that the striking slogans of the enlightenment period were ‘Dare to know’ and ‘Have courage to use your reason’. So, can we raise the very same catch line and cry in the current phase of 21st century? May be, yes but, most probably, No.
All I want is to think, at least, for a while and don’t let this edging to destroy the whole scenario because diversity is our only beauty. We can’t wait for our governments to reform the education system completely as this is not going to happen even in the coming decades. We, now, have to shoulder some burden on ourselves rather than waiting for the events to happen or the change to come.
Writer is a team member of Balochistan Voices.
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