Two worlds

Years ago, as a little kid, I once heard a character on TV say something the city where the show was set in. All these years later, and I have still not forgotten those words, especially since these words seem to become more and more true with each passing year, and in every corner of the world.

The character in question was remarking on how the city they live in is essentially not one but two parallel cities. He talks about the duality of air-conditioned skyscrapers where the elites of society indulge in their foods, drinks and other luxuries, while right from their bedroom windows one can see a young mother mourning her child, fallen victim to starvation and malnutrition. He was talking about how these two worlds never meet, and inhabitants of one world find it hard to believe that the other exists. Even though they interact multiple times every day, the apathy of the privileged blinds them, and their walls and guards keep the destitute out of their abodes.

As luck would have it, in the years since then my own hometown, Dhaka, has become one such city, housing five-star restaurants with buffet menus while two blocks down from slums where rice is a luxury and meat a dream beyond imaginations. But even that is not the full extent of it. The whole world, it seems, is becoming not one but two parallel words, with their unique set of opportunities and challenges, and maybe soon the worlds will no longer overlap. They will go their extremely different ways, and if and when they finally meet again, I fear that the result will be nothing but chaos and destruction.

It has been more than a month now since the Nigerian extremist group Boko Haram has kidnapped more than 200 girls, whom it threatens to sell off as slaves. These girls are guilty of the same transgressions that once saw Malala Yousafzai being shot by extremists in Pakistan, proving once again that fundamentalists all over the world have an inherent fear of education, female education in particular.

The girls are guilty of wanting education, and the commensurate punishment they deserve is forced conversion or being sold off as slaves. Apparently the very name of the group, Boko Haram, means "western education is prohibited/sinful". Today they have abducted 200 little girls for daring to get an education. But one must not lose sight of the bigger picture. Boko Haram is not simply against female education. They are against western education, for everyone within their reach. If these kidnappings go unpunished, then it will give them the message that force and terror works. It will not be long after that when they decide that young boys should not get education either, and men should not get to shave their beards, and women should not be allowed out of the kitchen. The more quarter you give to them, the more they will demand. Extremist movements like these are like infections that can only grow and occupy more area if ignored. Steps must be taken as soon as possible to counter these people and put their methods of terror to an end.

To the many Muslims around the world who are, at best, silent about Boko Haram's atrocious deeds and at worst, supportive of it, I have to say this. I fully understand that you are a fervent believer in Islam, and maybe even subscribe to some of it rather hardcore ideas. However, put yourself in the shoes of the parents who have spent the past month fretting over the fates of their daughters, not knowing whether the girls are alive, and forever living in fear of a newsflash that drives home their worst nightmares. If you are not filled with compassion for these poor parents, if you are not outraged at the idea of little girls being held captive and being threatened of being turned to slavery, something went very wrong in all your religious education. If you hold fringe ideologies about worldly education being undesirable more dearly than the lives and happiness of innocent families, maybe you are not the best spokesperson for Islam anyway. It is bad enough what Boko Haram has done and is still doing. Don't make it worse by trying to justify their actions or claim that they represent the majority of Muslims around the world.

Lastly, I have to admit that maybe even the western world has a role to play in this unfortunate set of incidents. When fringe groups can materialise based on the sole agenda that they do not support western education, when tens of thousands of people around the world buy such an agenda, and a large chunk of the Muslim world seems to be have reached a consensus on how western civilisation is the enemy, it is at least possible that there are aspects of the western way of the life that are, at the very least, misunderstood. Ignorance is the most detrimental thing in the world today, and a lot of extremist groups around the world are operating based solely on the fact that western society is sinful and hedonistic. Maybe it is time all of us came together and thought of ways to clarify these common but inaccurate beliefs. There are hedonistic people all over the world, in every country and from every culture. There is nothing about this that is unique to the western world, and this message needs to be communicated to all corners of the world. If we start now, maybe in a decade we will reach a point where the world will be less willing to jump on the bandwagon of western-culture bashing, and it will thus be more difficult to recruit young men based only on a mission statement that preaches hatred for all cultures that are different. The world is full of so many different cultures and ethnicities. It is this diversity, this plethora of different people, languages and lifestyles that makes this world beautiful. If a little more flow of information, a little more mingling of cultures, and a little more conscious effort of being accountable to each other will make our world more accepting of all that is different, then surely it is worth the time and effort. In fact, it might be the single most important investment we can make for the future generations.

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Hammad Ali is a teacher at BRAC University.