We were driving around the campus in the University of Missouri, Columbia the other day; building after building passed us by, each dedicated to a special academic discipline. Looking at them my thoughts traveled to the people who had envisioned and created these huge departmental facilities, and how much of thought, effort, money and tireless work had gone into the creation of these portals of learning. I mentioned this to my daughter, and both of us started talking about the sum total of initiative, ingenuity and endeavor that had gone into building not just this University but all the other American schools as well, and about how many lives and careers had been touched by them. And living as we do in an age of terrorism, and the destruction that is synonymous with it, the conversation turned to how easy it was to destroy all these in a matter of minutes!
Talking of destruction, the first name that came to mind was the Taliban, which had destroyed timeless architectural marvels and museums in defiance of international appeals. We got to talking about how sequestered a society the Taliban is, and my daughter remarked that the Amish are also sequestered, but how different from the Taliban. Following the Amish school shooting, we had been thinking and talking about their culture and my daughter’s remark set off a train of thought about these two societies.
Joined at the Hip……?
The Taliban and the Amish culture are shockingly similar in terms of the broad philosophies underlying their evolution; the Taliban, meaning ‘Students of Islamic Knowledge ‘ was an offshoot of the Deoband Movement which was launched in the latter half of the nineteenth century by Muslim scholars, as a response to the British occupation of the Indian subcontinent. The aim of Deoband was to strengthen Islamic scholarship by liberating the lay Muslim mind from ideological corruption, and to revitalize intellectual and spiritual thought in the Islamic world. The Deoband was highly respected as a center for learning Islamic sciences, and this quest for intellectual reform attracted large numbers of students. The Taliban were meant to be the students of this Islamic revivalist school of thought; but ironically at some point in their evolution this elitist group, in the shadow of the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, morphed into the international pariah that it is today.
The Amish, on the other hand, were a breakaway reform group within the Mennonite movement of Europe; protesting against the lack of discipline in religious and cultural matters, the Amish separated from the parent Mennonite faith in the seventeenth century and migrated to America. An additional reason to flee Europe was to avoid the mandatory military service, because the Amish religion believes that any form of military action, even in self-defense, is disrespectful to God.
Metamorphosis of societies and cultures makes for a fascinating, and somewhat disturbing, study. Starting as reform movements the Taliban and the Amish have traveled their own separate ways. Both these communities are introvertish, are far removed from mainstream cultures, and deeply and unshakably committed to their way of life. The ideological fountainhead of both societies is the determination to stay as far away from the trappings of modern technology, and the western lifestyle that goes along with it, as possible. The end products of these journeys are, however, startling in their contrariety, and offer an amazing study of what obdurate fundamentalism on the one side, and abiding faith on the other, can do to a group of people.
Ignorant and Intolerant
The Taliban sought to impose a purist way of life, to be led according to the Quran and based on the principles of the Islamic Shariat laws. This was implemented by closing down all secular education, and in fact all forms of art, music, learning and recreation. Women, who were considered ‘inferior’ creatures, were made ‘safe’ by being banned from schools, workplaces, and all social activity outside the home. At no time in the history of the modern world have women been persecuted as much as in the Taliban regime; they were denied access to health and medical care, education, and all forms of personal embellishment and development.
The population was pushed into a bottomless well of benightedness and ignorance, rendered even more fatal by the perverted fundamentalism, which fuelled these measures. The Taliban’s rules extended into the most mundane of activities, and included bans on clapping, kite flying and squeaky shoes. Interaction between the sexes outside the home, or outside marriage, was forbidden and invited horrendous punishment like stoning to death; even ordinary thefts carried mutilation sentences. The cornerstones of Taliban authority were fear, betrayal, punishment and violence.
Conservative by choice
The Amish too live by the Bible and, in fact, interpret it literally, like the Taliban do the Quran. Their lifestyle is determined by the unwritten rules of the Church called ‘The Ordung’, similar to the Islamic Shariat. For the Amish, living by the Bible means living by the tenets of duty, honor, personal loyalty and religious calling. Their philosophy is based on the Biblical exhortation – ‘ Be ye not conformed with the world’- to distance themselves in appearance and lifestyle from the other societies around them. To achieve this exclusion, the Amish allow very little technology to enter their lives, and reject any change to their simple, uncomplicated lives.
