Life as an Atheist in an Islamic Republic
By - Abbas Syed
Your Feet in Our Shoes
Imagine yourself trapped somewhere… a place where you have to follow all
the established rules but you cannot demand your rights; where you cannot
complain, no matter how many times you get abused or attacked, where
raising your voice for social justice is a crime, where calling a spade a spade
is punishable even by death. A place where, as soon as you step outside
your front door every morning, you have to brace yourself for any possible
harm that might come to you, your house, or your family members. A place
where you cannot sleep at night for fear that someone might come and burn
down your house for no logical reason, where your children have to suffer at
school on a daily basis, where you are bound to honor certain people or
traditions no matter how inane they may be. For many, this nightmare of an
existence is no mere imagination.
I have spent more than 19 years of my life living in Pakistan, an Islamic
Republic. If you wish to see what hell might actually be as a non-believer,
skeptic, freethinker, atheist – pay a visit to this country. Islam rocks the
cradle here but I do not talk of Pakistan in particular; you may visit any
religion-dominated country, especially if it is an Islamic republic, and find
yourself stifled. You are not allowed to openly express your views, simply
because they do not match those of the religious fanatics who rule the
country. You cannot ask questions openly, you cannot refuse to believe in
something that has been asserted without evidence. You cannot decide how
you want to live because what you will think and follow was decided even
before you were born. The most likely scenario is that you will sell your life
at the cost of your breaths, and satisfy yourself with mere survival. Either
you would get brainwashed and deluded, your capability to critically examine
eradicated from the very beginning; or you would become a freethinking
skeptic, living in fear.
What I Have Seen & Been Through
As a child, I was educated at an army-oriented school in my hometown. The
subject of Islamic (not general religious) studies was embedded into the
curriculum of each grade until the first semester of my engineering program.
For non-Muslims though, there was another subject of elective English
language. But those like me who belonged to Muslim families, Islamic
studies was not optional.
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