I saw in the New York Times yesterday that the fundamentalist Muslims are targeting the Sufis, who are the majority population, in northern Pakistan. They bomb their mosques and gathering places. They don't like the dancing, the joy and emotion these esoteric branches of religion display. I'm crazy about Sufi music and admire their devotion and attempts to understand via non-linear and logical methods. But I think it is the joy that is the crime in Taliban eyes. How can a way of thinking based on power and subjugation begin to understand an inner power that is available in equal measure to all?
If we look inside ourselves, we may find what others are looking forward outside themselves, in the bodies of very fallible and perhaps misguided human beings. If we learn to trust ourselves, isn't that the greatest threat to those who want us to trust them to lead us? I hope there is a way to stop this violence and the bloodshed of innocent people wanting only to live their lives and their beliefs in their own way. But history is not reassuring. Tibet is haunting me, and now, when I think of the Sufis, I pray that they do not lose their land and their security. Might makes wrong, so often, and gentle, peace loving people are not defended. I hope this doesn't happen in Pakistan, but I have no idea for a solution. The state is clearly not strong enough to protect its people.
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