Knowledge At Work - 4

Khuda Kay Liye

The time during and after the tragic incident of the bombing of the Twin Towers in America, is shown through different perspectives in the movie ‘Khuda Kay Liye’ or ‘In the Name of God’. One is exposed to orthodox Pakistani, Muslim families which live around the world and the way in which they follow along with going against what they believe in about Islam. On the other hand, we are also shown that part of the society who are willing to do absolutely anything in the name of Islam.

The movie uses the way of emotions immensely, to convey varying messages and to force the viewer to be more open-minded and have a different approach to all the situations which unfold through the plot. Every character is seen to have an individual perspective about common issues and daily events which take place. Therefore, through the use of these specific characters, one is given an insight to the wide range of ideologies which lie behind a solitary incident. And further, the viewer sees shifting points of view in the same culture, which are practically extremes of one another.

Emotion plays a crucial role in the development of characters as it is skilfully used to alter their perception towards their own beliefs. The example of Sarmat shows this clearly. He loves music, it is his true passion but he also believes in Islam and in Allah. However, the Maulana attacks his emotions which lead to a changing of his perception to such an extent that he stops playing any instruments. The impact that he has on Sarmat is so powerful, that it shows how Sarmat changes his personal believes because of an authority, and could be seen as authoritarian worship. However, the movie also throws light upon great levels of hypocrisy and the double standards that exist in almost all the different classes of people. The facial expressions and the body language of the people in each scene clearly illustrates the thoughts, views and emotions that they are feeling at any given point of time about a certain situation.

The role of emotion is so intertwined with all the events in the movie, as it also acts as an obstacle. The attack on the Twin Towers leads to the development of great fear within the Americans and also the development of anger. As the attack was done by Osama Bin Laden, who is Pakistani it leads to a biased perception that made the Americans as well as people all around the world look at Pakistanis in a negative light and with suspicion. In the movie this biased perception causes Mansoor, an innocent Pakistani musician living in the States, to be capture and tortured by the American police. This is an act of fallacious reasoning where the individual gives in to his biased irrational perception. And this form of reasoning only results in the use of emotive language which can completely misguide and is acts like a stereotype. A line from the movie that clearly shows emotive language is when the officer says to Mansoor, “All Pakistanis are not terrorists, but all terrorists are Pakistanis.”

The movie makes one question the authenticity of our beliefs. If they truly were authentic, would they be so easily changed and overpowered by our emotions? The story unravels the disgusting way in which the Maulana so easily manipulates Sarmat’s and thousands of other young men’s thoughts and changes their perception for what he says our his beliefs and what he interprets Allah’s beliefs and desires to be. The movie is an eye-opener which truly keeps the viewer in thought about how people are constantly being wrongly accused and stereotypes are being continuously formed.

Journal Entry - 20/04/2009

Whose intuitions should you trust? Are some people's intuitions better than other?
An intuition is the gut feeling that an individual experiences and it comes true. However, a person’s intuition is extremely personal and is not usually felt with the same amount of intensity by anybody else. The only intuition that I would trust, would be my own, as it is my inner feeling about a situation or event, that I cannot accept anybody else’s intuition on it. Everybody’s intuitions vary according to their own experiences and their perception towards things. One cannot say that somebody’s intuition is better than another person’s intuition, because, as stated earlier, it is a personal feeling and solely depends on the way the individual chooses to think and perceive the entire situation. Therefore, for me, I would not be able to completely trust anybody else’s intuition over my own.

If something is intuitively obvious must everybody agree about it?
No, it is not necessary for everybody to agree upon something that maybe intuitively obvious, because most things are never intuitively obvious to all individuals. What may be extremely intuitively obvious to one person may be completely bizarre to another. For example, the fact that the Earth was believed to be flat, was intuitively obvious to almost everybody, except the few that were able to reason out this stated fact, question what they were told and come to conclusion about how it was truly absurd. And later, proving that the Earth was not flat, in fact it was round. This example shows how what may seem to be intuitively obvious, does not have to be agreed upon by everybody as all intuitions vary from person to person.

Is there anything that everybody agrees about?
There are innumerable facts and truths which have been proven to be correct, which everybody agrees about. Things which have been scientifically proven to be right, such as the evolution of man, or about facts told about from history. But at the same time there are several issues that are still questioned by most people who have shifting beliefs about the same. Things which may be slightly more controversial and have a number of points that could be counter arguments against the issue.

Could you be wrong to think that something is intuitively obvious?
Many a time our gut feelings, or instincts may not be entirely true, and sometimes they may not be true at all. And therefore, it is wrong to think that things are always intuitively obvious, because that might not always be the case. However, by ALWAYS thinking that things cannot be intuitively obvious, one is taking for granted that intuitions do not exist, which in itself is an intuitively obvious statement that individuals should believe in. The gut feeling that we have, is often so strong and so accurate that it would be foolishness to assure yourself that something is not intuitively obvious.

Might you one day come to see that something you thought was intuitively obvious is in fact a deep rooted prejudice?
Very often, things that individuals may feel are intuitively obvious, turn out to be just the opposite and are merely deep rooted prejudices. This is extremely common for almost all individuals. For an individual who feel that it is intuitively obvious to hate all Muslims because they feel that it is intuitively obvious that all Muslims are terrorists. May someday befriend a Muslim and realise that what he thought to be intuitively obvious, was merely a prejudice that he held. And his feelings may change drastically in relation to this situation.

Journal Entry - 15/04/2009

The use of emotions has been proved to be extremely important and very useful. Expressing emotions can lead to varying perceptions of absolutely anything. But the use of emotions can often be faced with obstacles which hinder the knower from thinking straight and lead to biased perception which results in fallacious reasoning whose outcome is emotive language. This shows how closely inter-twined the four ways of knowledge are to one another.

The perfect was to highlight the above theory can be seen in the following example. The issue of India being colonized by the British can support the above statement about emotions. At the time of colonization almost all the Indians were looked down upon and treated in the most inhumane ways possible. This lead to the growth of fear within the Indians and only continued to increase in intensity with the passage of time. This intense fear which was brought about by the British who acted like the external stimulus, lead the Indians to have a biased perception about anything that related in any way to the colonizer. Like the introduction of telegraph poles in India, because of their growing fear they thought that these telegraph poles were built to hang any Indian that tries to defy the British rule in anyway. This perception only resulting in great fallacious reasoning, which was that they chose not to accept the introduction of the telegraph poles positively this would have only helped in the development of the country. Instead they used emotive language and said statements like “the British has only come to exploit and harm the country.” And this only completed the cycle that begins and ends with growing emotions due to external stimuli.

We also looked at the concept of Stoicism which fascinated me because the idea that follows this concept has always appealed to me. A valid co-relation with Stoicism which can be seen in History as well as literature is through Brutus. He was a true stoic who always suppressed his emotions, even when his wife Portia died, he didn’t shed a tear. The suppression of emotions is obviously extremely difficult but at the same time, as emotions are a medium of feelings, passions and moods which when expressed communicate plenty of messages. That is why, suppressing them could lead to varying amounts of miscommunication and misconceptions could be formed.

Journal Entry - 6/04/2009

The concept of the balance between emotions vs. reason was looked at from a very creative point of view. The animated video that we watched appealed to me as it clarified the concepts for me. We often think that emotions play a greater role in daily actions and that reason is put into the backseat. However, the video changes that misconception by informing us about how reason sits in the front seat and it guides emotions which are shown through our actions. The video interested me to a great extent as it was easy to understand and at the same time included important Ways of Knowledge which often are not understood clearly. However, I disagree with the fact that reason must always drive emotions, and feel that the video was slightly biased towards Reason. When talking about Hitler, the video shows how he uses emotions to brainwash the people and how that eventually leads to all the destruction. But at the same time if emotions over powers reason it can be beneficial, which is not mentioned in the video, for example when dealing with a child. If one tries to reason out their every act thy will not be able to look after the child easily, while if they use their emotions, the child can relate to it and the task will be easier.