Encountering the notion of “diversity” in the United States was quite a monotonous experience. This idea simply put is that America is a country comprising of a multitude of races, ethnicities, cultures and religions. Thus anyone from any of the above mentioned categories is part of the American story. Similar notions of diversity are also observed in other parts of the Western world. Diversity is currently a hot buzz word found in all walks of life. Thus in Boston, America was portrayed as a hub of diversity, a beacon for the rest of the world. A melting pot of cultures and traditions that was to be emulated by the rest of the free and “unfree” world. You could walk down Comm Ave and come across a hot dog shop, next to a pizza shop, next to an Indian restaurant. People conversing in a variety of tongues. You, the immigrant, can aspire to be your “truest” self. Yet despite these seemingly utopian slogans, something felt oddly homogeneous. The Indian, Caucasian and Arab were all united by a singular purpose of prospering economically by becoming valuable cogs in the global economy. They all would go through the same academic and professional rigours in unison. Apply for jobs to the same establishments, regurgitate the same curriculum on exams, and worry about the same mundane purchases that the algorithm would coerce them into making. Behind the veil of diversity lay great conformity and homogeneity. The proponents may argue that well all humans have the same aspirations. To live prosperously. But what counts as prosperity? Who defines its parameters? Silicon valley? It seems to me that the contemporary model of plurality is but a myriad of outward cultural and religious displays united begrudingly by a market and “propsperity” obsessed ethos. The Muslim worships one God, the Hindu several million, the atheist could care less meanwhile the Zoroastrian two but all of them have been rendered homogeneous in their pursuits. To maximise pleasures and gain enough fleeting comforts so that ones mind does not wander towards “uncharted” territory. What is all of this? Where am I going? What am I really doing? What struck me as peculiar was the overtly implicit expectation for everyone to conform to the same cutting edge ideas regarding morality and ethics. What if someone did not subscribe to a purely profane moral framework? What if they held the sacred to be true? What if they found the notion of a highly individualised and atomic society problematic? Immigrant children would generally end up emulating the accent and body language of their white co patriots. Not to mention the internalisation of assumptions and axioms of the majority. The progressive majority in the US feigns ignorance with regards to the cultures and modes of living of those from the East. An ignorance coupled with arrogance, that their way is the only way, and that way must be hoisted upon all the peoples of this world. They expect us, those of the East, to ascend on their ladder of progress, rife with their assumptions about existence. Is there no room for those from the rest of the globe to choose what ladder if any exists, we would like to ascend? Is the journey and the destination the same for any racial or religious group that resides anywhere in the world? Why must the Hindu, Jew or Mussalman in the West be united by the aspiration to become a more avid consumer, distinguished only by their per capita incomes? Why should they be unified in any sense in the first place. They all must conform, they all must lean a certain way politically, they all must look different yet act the same. Some of them prostrate on the ground, others worship idols, while others sing in Church. They must be receptive to insidious and overly simplistic binaries, Good/Bad, Liberal/Orthodox, Free/Oppressed etc. They may consume curry, naans or baguettes. But what must bind them together is the hollowing out of their traditions so that what remains is an empty husk of rituals that the average secular Westerner finds acceptable. A fine addition to his collection of trophy communities, who have been prevented from actualising their unique life philosophies so that the wheel of hedonistic progress never stops. Why should the minorities then feel burdened by the expectation of the majority to conform if in fact every culture or tradition is equally valid in the eyes of the modern state? Why can’t the majority bring itself to bear more resemblance to the minority. The state it would seem is not neutral, cannot be neutral. This paradox became more clear as time went by. The facade became more self evident. Many of us felt the crushing expectation of making themselves more amiable and presentable to the White majority. We felt the omnipresent need to adjust and integrate, and no matter how much we bent over backwards, our loyalties were perceived ambiguous at best and our worldview as backwards, oppressive and violent. Our sahibs would subtly enquire, if we believed the same things they did ? Whether we wished to live the same way they do? Did we believe in the same destiny as theirs? Under pressure some of us would affirm all of the above with resounding yeses, however despite that the carnage continues unabated. The Palestinian, Iraqi and Afghani living the American Dream in Manhattan cannot prevent their new newfound homeland from decimating their friends and family back in the “villages”. For in order to maximise freedoms in the “Free World”, the rest of the world must face the wrath and fury of the never-ending gears of progress. Paradox abounds!
Afkar-e-Qurtuba 