Today I planned to drive my two nieces to a near by shop, so that I could buy them some candies. Once in the car I turned on the ignition key and was about to drive out, when my youngest niece aged 3 asked me to put on an Indian song that she really liked. I had no idea which CD she was talking about because I had come back to Pakistan after a long time, so was not up to date with what was current. My eldest niece, who will be turning 5 this May inshAllah, reached into the glove box and took out the CD and handed it over to me to play. When I was about to play the CD, she requested that I play track no. 2 because that was their favorite song. I couldn’t believe myself when I heard the lyrics of that song; I was shocked and thought how could their mother even allow them to listen to this kind of music. I didn’t think it was suitable for them at all and so I turned it off, but little had I known that they would both start yelling and crying. So I had no choice but to let it play. I later talked to my sister about it, but she just took it lightly as if it wasn’t a big deal. No matter how much I tried to convince her that it’s not good for the children, she just kept saying that it’s just a song.
After this incident I couldn’t help but ask myself questions like, how did this happen and when, and how can we let such things carry on. The answer was right in front of me I hadn’t comprehended it as yet. A few days later I was visiting my sister and I was sitting with her while she was watching Cable TV. To my surprise both my nieces walked into the room and started watching the TV with us. My sister didn’t switch channels over either, to Ptv or cartoon network. She kept on watching one of those Indian channels. I saw both my nieces staring at the TV screen absorbing everything on it good or bad. At that moment it struck me that now I had answers to all my questions, questions that had been bothering me for a whole week.
The cable TV has desensitized our minds. What ten years ago, we would have never dared to even think of watching with our parents, we were not only now actually watching those shows, but also discussing them with them. What was once considered as taboo in our society has now become part of it. I can still remember when I was in 7th grade at school and we had got our satellite dish installed. At that time everyone in school was either talking about Bay Watch or Beverly Hills 90210 series. I remember I used to sneak into my dad’s room to watch these shows, just so I could go to school the next day and not feel left out. My father had put the receiver in his room because he had not wanted us children, to see those shows.
There are two points I am trying to put forward here. Firstly, we would never have imagined that a time would come where we would even think about watching satellite TV with our parents let alone watching Beverly Hills 90210, and secondly, my father had felt that such programs were not good for us to see.
Now let’s talk about the present situation. My nieces come over every weekend to spend time with us. We have cable installed in EVERY room. My father watches cable TV in the same room that my nieces are playing in. The same person who never allowed us watch anything on TV 10 years ago now doesn’t feel the same for his grandchildren. Its not that he doesn’t care or love them but it’s just that these things are not taboo or considered bad in our societies any more. And anyone who tries to go against such things is labeled as a fundamentalist or old fashioned.
When I talk to people about it, they always tell me that this is part of globalization and they can’t stop it, and if they did happen to try then they would not be able to progress as a nation in this world. I want to make myself clear here, I am not saying we should totally isolate ourselves, but we have to be very careful of what we show to our youth, our future. Why do we need to have MTv on cable, how does that help us advance as a nation? How does Indian television help us as a nation? We have our own religion, our culture and our way of life so why can’t we advance into 21st century with that. Why do we have to absorb the western or even Indian (Hindu) culture and teach that to our children. The reason we are not a progressive state has nothing to do with not being westernized enough but a lot to do with us forgetting our roots, our identity as Muslims. We shouldn’t just sit and think over this but take action against this if we seriously want our next generation to prosper as a Muslim nation, and to prosper as a nation we don’t need to educate ourselves about the TV, but about sciences, technology, medicine and most importantly Islam!
I ask Allah (SWT) to give us the ability to understand and act upon what is good for us in this life and hereafter. Ameen!