The Psyche of a Muslim and the Pakistani Cricket Captain

The Pakistani Cricket Captain Shahid Afridi is reported to have commented on a talk show on Samaa news channel to applause from the audience that,

"In my opinion, if I have to tell the truth, they (Indians) will never have hearts like Muslims and Pakistanis. I don't think they have the large and clean hearts that Allah has given us.  It is a very difficult thing for us to live with them (Indians) or to have long-term relationship with them. Nothing will come out of talks. See how many times in the past 60 years we have had friendship and then how many times things have gone bad."  We don't want to fight with each other but a third country – everyone knows which one it is? is trying to spoil our relations. (This country) is taking advantage of Pakistan and wants to take advantage of India. I don't want to go into details but these people will not let us come together.  Our media, which is criticised by people, is hundred times better than theirs.  I think they were both very stupid comments by Rehman Malik and Gautam Gambhir...I wasn't expecting this from Gautam...This is all politics, what do you know about who carried out the Bombay attacks?"

Me thinks that there is a bit of truth in Shahid Afridi's statement and what he says above is indeed the majority Muslim opinion.  The truth portion in his statement is that Indians are not as large hearted as Pakistanis and Muslims; the rest of his comments are bullshit.

A rebuttal to these comments has come, astonishingly from (a Muslim) Mumbai-based Shia scholar Maulana Zaheer Abbas Rizvi

 "If Allah has really given Pakistan and Pakistani Muslims such a large heart, why is it that the minorities, the Ahmedias and the Shias, live in fear there.  It is this supremacist idea of Islam that is forcing well-off Pakistanis to flee that country. While the affluent are leaving the country, the poor are getting killed in the almost daily terrorist attacks in Pakistan."

It is fair to assume that this Shia scholar will be taken to task for speaking out against Shahid Afridi because Shahid is a Muslim.  Here is an excerpt from a related article from a Pakistani news media, titled Pakistan on a Shrink's Couch by Irfan Hussain that probably explains Shahid Afridi and the Muslim psyche

Dr Haider (Mubarik Haider) is of the view that “Pakistan exhibits all the symptoms of a schizophrenic society embroiled in innumerable conflicts”.  He blames state institutions, the political and religious leadership and media organizations of “further fomenting a culture of conflict and paranoia by irresponsibly perpetuating myths about the world”.

These myths are on display in Pakistan round the clock on TV where anchors and their self-important guests hold forth on a large number of conspiracy theories. In this warped worldview, everything from a defeat in cricket to a natural disaster is somebody else`s fault.

 Perhaps nobody is as responsible for feeding our paranoia and our state of denial than our TV channels. Our anchors invariably duck their responsibility of critically examining all the claims and charges flying around the studios. Instead, they fuel this madness by browbeating those few guests who refuse to take part in this orgy of unfounded accusations against dark forces inimical to Pakistan.