Friday, January 30, 2009

Occident verses Orient Debate

Occident verses Orient Debate
Syed Ali Mujtaba

Protestantism, Reformation, Renaissance. These are the key to progress and development of Europe. The history book says so and so the entire world accepts this as a gospel of truth.

I have been reading this for quite a long time now, my submission is do we need to follow the same path to reach the final destination.

Why do we need to ape the west - if they feel liberated and have reached the apogee of human progress then good luck to them?

But can’t we have our own roadmap to progress and development. Can’t we do that without tampering our Dhrama and Karma module?

Why do we want to shake our social system will this bring any good to us or disturb us more? Now having said that let me give you some piece of India history.

When Protestantism, Reformation, Renaissance was happening in Europe, in India there were experiments were made by the idea of Sulahkul - peace with all, a new faith called Deen- e -Ilahi was experimented to find answers to multiculturalism of India.

There was also treatise like “Majmaul Baharain” - Mingling of the oceans were written to find answers to the complex problem of adjustments of various faiths.

There were people like Kabir, Tulasi, Dadu and Nanak were propagating the idea of universalism of all faith.

When Protestants and Catholics were fighting in Europe, the Shias and Sunnis were praying in the same mosque in India. The Hindus and Muslims were not on loggerhead with each other as they are today.

However, much water has flown down the Gangetic valley civilization. All of this has become centuries old story.

Now in this globalize world how can we get there bypassing the three milestones of European history.An answer to this will be the key to Occident and Oriental debate.

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Syed Ali Mujtaba is a working journalist based in India. He can be contacted at syedalimujtaba@yahoo.com

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