Salman Rushdie got knighted over the weekend: he’s now Sir Ahmed Salman Rushdie.
Predictably, government officials in Pakistan and Iran have come out against honouring the “blaspheming” “apostate” Rushdie. It’s a brand of foaming at the mouth that we’re all too familiar with at this point; in a sense, the hostile fundamentalist reaction validates the strong secularist stance that Rushdie has taken since his reemergence from Fatwa-induced semi-seclusion in 1998. (If these people are burning your effigy, you must be doing something right.)
But actually, there’s another issue I wanted to mention that isn’t getting talked about much in the coverage of Rushdie’s knighthood, which is the fact that Rushdie wasn’t always a “safe” figure for British government officials. In the early 1980s in particular, and throughout the Margaret Thatcher era, Rushdie was known mainly as a critic of the British establishment, not a member. The main issue for Rushdie then was British racism, and he did not mince words in condemning it as well as the people who tolerated it.
This morning I was briefly looking over some of Rushdie’s essays from the 1980s. Some of the strongest work exoriated the policies of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and indicted the pervasiveness of “institutionalized racism” in British society. Two essays in particular stand out, “The New Empire Within Britain,” and “Home Front.” Both are published in Imaginary Homelands: Essays and Criticism, 1981-1991. (Another great essay from that collection is “Outside the Whale” — required reading, though on a slightly different topic. And see this NYT review of the collection as a whole from 1991.)Here is a long quote from “The New Empire Within Britain” (1982):
[L]et me quote from Margaret Thatcher’s speech at Cheltneham on the third of July, her famous victory address: ‘We have learned something about ourselves, a lesson we desperately need to learn. When we started out, there were the waverers and the fainthears . . . The people who thought we could no longer do the great things which we once did . . . that we could never again be what we were. Ther were those who would not admit it . . . but–in their heart of hearts–they too had their secret fears that it was true: that Britain was no longer the nation that had built an Empire and ruled a quarter of the world. Well, they were wrong.’
There are several interesting aspects to this speech. Remember that it was made by a triumphant Prime Minister at the peak of her popuolarity; a Prime Minister who could claim with complete credibility to be speaking for an overwhelming majority of the elctorate, and who, as even her detractors must admit, has a considerable gift for assessing the national mood. Now if such a leader at such a time felt able to invoke the spirit of imperialism, it was because she knew how central that spirit is to the self-image of white Britons of all classes. I say white Britons because it’s clear that Mrs Thatcher wasn’t addressing the two million or so blacks, who don’t feel quite like that about the Empire. So even her use of the word ‘we’ was an act of racial exclusion, like her other well-known speech about the fear of being ‘swamped’ by immigrants. With such leaders, it’s not surprising that the British are slow to learn the real lessons of their past.
Let me repeat what I said at the beginning: Britain isn’t Nazi Germany. The British Empire isn’t the Third Reich. But in Germany, after the fall of Hitler, heroic attempts were made by many people to purify German though and the German language of the pollution of Nazism. Such acts of cleansing are occasionally necessary in every society. But British thought, British society, has never been cleansed of the filth of imperialism. It’s still there, breeding lice and vermin, waiting for unscrupulous people to exploit it for their own ends. (Read the whole thing)
That was Rushdie in 1982: “British society has never been cleansed of the filth of imperialism.” And it’s by no means the only strong statement he makes about racism and imperialism in “The New Empire Within Britain”; he also goes after the legal system, the police, and the clearly racist quotas the British had enacted in the immigration policy to reduce the number of black and brown immigrants coming to Britain from former colonies.
If we compare Rushdie in 1982 to Rushdie today, it’s clear that the man has changed quite a bit — but it also has to be acknowledged that British society has itself been transformed, perhaps even more radically. Organizations like the National Front are nowhere near as influential as they were in the early 1980s, and a decade of the Labour Party and Tony Blair have changed the political picture for good. But more than anything, what seems different is the way racialized difference (Blacks and Asians vs. the white majority) has been displaced by the religious difference as the most contentious issue of the day. One you move the debate from race to religion, the parameters for who gets seen as an “outsider” and who becomes an “insider” look quite different.
Rezia,
Why do you call the fatwa ‘token’ if, as a result of it, Rushdie had to literally hide to save his life? Am I missing something?
It’s like if Rudyard Kipling or Joseph Conrad were living today and were honoured in this way
I can see how people would be insulted in such a situation, I can see how people can be insulted in Don Imus’s situation, I can see slightly see how Hindu fundamentalists were insulted by their sacred Hindu women being kissed by Richard Gere, I can see how Muslims who think Rushdie wrote crap about their Prophet could be insulted….That’s fine to be insulted b/c of freedom of speech. Hey I get insulted all the time. But when a group of people, think they have the right to take that insult and threaten another man/woman’s life – that’s what I don’t understand and find reprehensible.
I think I could understand how someone would/could be insulted by Rushdie’s writings…I haven’t read the book, but I do hope that people who say they are insulted have read the book at least.
Do you agree with me, in not understanding how people can react with violence or violent threats, (that are believable enough threats that you have to hide, and your life is turned upside down)b/c of something a writer wrote?
Do you agree with me, in not understanding how people can react with violence or violent threats, (that are believable enough threats that you have to hide, and your life is turned upside down)b/c of something a writer wrote?
Ye-ees. I agree with you PS. Violence is not a good response and totally self-defeating. Violence is not the answer to Rushdie. I’ve always thought that the Muslim world would have done better to ignore him–not give him the fame he seeks. He is very offensive in every way so fuggedaboudid. The award now is especially offensive. Like one for Kipling would be.
OK I’m done here. I’m not replying anymore, not because anybody’s superior logic has caused me to change my mind about anything…but because I’m going to Paris for a week and I need to start packing.
The novel really is — and again, I would encourage you to actually read it cover to cover — a critique of fundamentalisms (including Sikh, Hindu, and Christian varieties as well as Muslim), not a manifesto “against Islam.”
Amarpeed, I’ll read TSV cover to cover if you read the Quran cover to cover.
The fatwa really was more of a token thing from Iran, where I don’t think Rushdie ever lived. Yes a lot of sheiks, and probably a lot of muslims agreed with the fatwa, but that is something that a non-muslim, or non-religious person would never understand.
The Fatwa, as a death sentence issued by one government against a citizen of another country, was a violation of international law. It led the British government to sever diplomatic ties with Iran. It was not a “token” thing. The people who ended up acting on the Fatwa, in Japan, Italy, and San Francisco (to name just three places where it led to acts of violence) were not necessarily Iranians, or for that matter Shias.
Rushdie wrote filthy things about the prophet (SAW); now don’t tell me he did not, it is really entirely known that he did.
You lose your argument right there. You don’t even know what he said! “It is known that he did” — by whom? Who told you this? Someone at your Mosque? Your parents? See for yourself, or you really have no basis on which to argue. If you simply blindly accept what people tell you, you’ll never learn the truth.
I’ll read TSV cover to cover if you read the Quran cover to cover.
Actually, I have read the Quran “cover to cover” — in English translation.
“Actually, I have read the Quran ‘cover to cover’ — in English translation.”
Reading the Quran “Cover to Cover” is not of a piece as reading a novel or another text from beginning to end. The arrangement of the suras or chapters in the quran have their own peculiar sensibility (insofar as there is a sensibility to be sensed there at all). A novel or even a mathematics text builds on itself and layers of meaning accrue in later chapters or parts of it. The same doesn’t necessarily hold of the Quran. The beginning may have a relationship to a historic relationship to the middle and the end suras may actually have been historically received at the outset of the revelatory onset of Islam. So when someone says they have read the Quran from cover to cover, unless they were/ are believers or doing some sort of personal or scholarly research and can then say that they came up with sort of a meaningful insight onto the phenomenon of Quran/ Islam and Muslims, I have a tendency to take their avowal of having read the Quran from “cover to cover” as nothing more than having leafed through it from the beginning until the end. Unfortunately there is no Cliffs Notes or Idiot’s Guide to the Quran available, so even these cannot give one aid in making a somewhat derivative, though transparent, statement about the text. Saying that one has read the Quran from “cover to cover” is a proclamation that makes apparent its own shallowness, especially in the absence of an assessment that comes to terms with the Quran and its transformative historical effect. If you did not become transformed (and you have no accounting for it) your reading the book from “cover to cover” was nothing more than a distant scanning through without benefit of secondary sources to assist you.
there is. see this.
Tabeer, especially in the absence of an assessment that comes to terms with the Quran and its transformative historical effect.
What do you mean by this? “comes to terms with the Quran”….I think that is something that fundamentalists have a hard time understanding, but isn’t coming to terms with Quran pretty subjective? I mean look at all the different sects within Islam.
He is not making any statement here about the quran. YOU are the one basing your whole offence on heresay. Just fyi.
Rezia, Satanic Versus is a work of Islamic Art, and depending on your view of Rushdie’s writing style, a very good one. Read it and provide an informed opinion, or mitigate your ignorance with some humility. And no, you don’t need to be religious to produce spiritual art. You can find God in the poetry of (Communist) Faiz Ahmed Faiz. It’s damn hard to find God in the writings of Maududi.
Read Rushdie with an open mind, the way you’d listen to an alcohol soaked urdu-poet talking about God.
Zaahid sharaab peene de masjid mein baith kar Ya woh jagah bata de jahan par Khuda na ho (Zafar)
Yeah, I have read the Quran “cover to cover”, the usual way (with a jaahil Mullah in arabic) as well as in translation. It doesn’t qualify me to give issue fatwas, or endorse death sentences.
Tabeer:
“So when someone says they have read the Quran from cover to cover, unless they were/ are believers or doing some sort of personal or scholarly research and can then say that they came up with sort of a meaningful insight onto the phenomenon of Quran/ Islam and Muslims”
“If you did not become transformed (and you have no accounting for it) your reading the book from “cover to cover” was nothing more than a distant scanning through without benefit of secondary sources to assist you.”
–> Does the transformation include meaningful insights on how islam sucks like say, Ibn Warraq ?
Or is it only restricted to transformations that offer unqualified praise on what is written in quran ?
didn’t you know that the quoran and sharia are the ultimate truth in the universe? if you read it and dont agree with it, your an idiot. i mean….abiding by the laws of !slam is what makes the middle east a world beating region….
YOU are the one basing your whole offence on heresay.
Heh. Not to pick nits, but do you mean “heresy” or “hearsay”? I find it sort of amusing that both words fit in this particular context.
Rezia: Maybe it’s a good idea to oversimplify these comlex issues to your cute little buzzwords…it probably is less taxing for your dimunitive IQs than to contemplate complex things.
You seem to like Ad hominems a lot, I suggest you try other logical fallacies. Straw Man, Non sequitur, Definist etc. They are all equally ineffective.
Rezia: Really, Vinter? Does that mean my right to free speech entitles me to tell you to go play with your family jewels? I’m guessing your nose doesn’t begin there…,i.
Yes, you are right, you can say anything you wish to and yes my nose doesn’t, indeed, begin there.
And don’t call me hypersensitive. Then don’t act hypersensitive.
I said before. But whatever though…I think the queen totally has a face like a toad. The entire royal family is just unforgivably ugly, I think.” Quentin Crisp was of the opinion that Diana was disliked by the RF because she was the first good-looking person to enter Windsor Palace. But then he was such a killer queen himself, he’d brook no competition, and he did detest England. Historically, BRF looks tend to be very good or very bad, the bad lasting longer than the good. The Queen and Consort looked good for about two years. Anyway, according to insiders in the know, Diana soon found out that the British Royal Family are actually reptilian shape-shifters. This, along with careful inbreeding, could explain the odd appearances among them.
Looks very much like a vain attempt to discredit anyone who doesn’t agree with or like the Quran. “If you don’t like it(or are transformed, whatever that means…) then you never really understood it.”
An article in today’s New York Times about many Muslim women voluntarily wearing the niqab in public. The last paragraph is telling:
“I’m in Pizza Hut with my son,†said Ms. Khaton, nodding at her 4-year-old and speaking in a soft East London accent that bore no hint of her Bangladeshi heritage. “I was born here, I’ve never been to Bangladesh. I certainly don’t feel Bangladeshi. So when they say, ‘Go back home,’ where should I go?â€
Interestingly, why do women choose the niqab over the hijab as an expression of their Muslim identity? Is there an element of provocation/confrontation involved, as one comment in the article might indicate? Or is this what mosques push for?
And close on its heels, a counterpoint article also in today’s Times.
Random responses:
and those who insult islam through free speech must understand that they will probably get shot, blown up, or their asses kicked
Once upon a time, people said they would “live free or die”, and meant it.
Once upon a time, people thought that free speech was something so important it was worth getting shot at, blown up, or their asses kicked over.
and it is a good argument for why western nations should severely limit immigrations from muslim countries. at least if you believe that the ability to critique religion is an essential part of individual liberty. …[or in another comment:] “We don’t have anything against Muslims,” said Oskar Freysinger, member of parliament for the Swiss People’s Party. “But we don’t want minarets… The minute you have minarets in Europe it means Islam will have taken over.”
I never cease to be baffled by this kind of logic. We want to promote individual liberty and religious freedom, we say, and we’re going to do it by picking this one particular group and ensuring they don’t get individual liberty and religious freedom– either by preventing them from displaying their religion in public or by preventing them from entering the country altogether. We’re for individual and religious liberty, we say, except for those people, granting them religious liberty would keep me from exercising mine.
But the problem with all this is that once you’ve established it’s okay to pick favorites, you quickly find you have very little control over which favorites get picked. The reasoning I see Razib using here to advocate limiting the exercise of Islam in western nations is the same reasoning that elsewhere I see southern baptists using to advocate limiting the exercise of atheism/homosexuality/whatever…
I think Richard Dawkins said that teaching creationism was child abuse.
As far as I know this is a bit of an exaggeration of what specifically Dawkins said.
Circus, What you’re saying then amounts to a naked allegation against the facts of history.
Rahul,
I have never said Christians are ‘we’ll never bother you if you don’t want to be bothered.’ You have to stretch yourself mightlily to say “Get away from me, I don’t want to hear it.” But the Islamics under Sharia and the Atheists in Communist Russia were not so willing to walk away after a mild expression of disinterest. So, Christians in the three-way cultural war are the most tolerant.
Also, how are we to let you have your freedom from being bothered for ten seconds without a much greater injury to free speech. “I’m sorry, Mr. Christian, you can’t offer a tract to someone on the street because they might not like it.” That is a major injury to free speech to ameliorate a very minor problem.
Bush meaning it as a word? Probably yes. Americans use ‘crusade’ to denote a righteous and bold endeavor to deal decisively with a problem. It has secondary religious aspects, but those are decidely secondary. Blame language drift. I fully expect two centuries from now for the Pittsburgh Pirates to be playing the Lunagrad Jihadi for the Football Championship of the Solar System.
Actually, I think Dawkins, or one of his similar level, has been called the ‘Pope of Darwinism’. There is a community of atheists, and a community of believers. When prominent leaders in a community go one way, you’re entitled to make some conclusions about that community.
You can’t use Fred Phelps because pretty much everyone in the Christian community would have to summon their Christian charity to NOT spit on him. If a ‘leader’ is renounced or reviled generally in a community then that makes the community’s standards clear. Althought, just as with Stalin, it does say something unpleasant about the community he’s from. So you can have Phelps, lunatic hatemonger, and I’ll take Stalin, probably the greatest mass murderer of all time with his competition being Mao, another atheist.
I’ve looked at the arguements for the existence of God. It seems pretty conclusive to me. Or as Dawkins again said about Creationism ‘no matter how counterintuitive’ his Darwinism is ‘we have to keep the divine foot out of the door’. So, I’ll take logic, intuition, and evidence over hand-wavium. I think I may be3 heading toward the personal point where I don’t find arguing about atheism that interesting…the arguement is fairly clearly over. Its not yet to the point of ‘yes the Earth really is round’, tis true.
I’d say the problem with Huxley’s program is that it PROBABLY bears too much of a resemblance to Rezia’s program. A lot of people confuse their personal liberation with dominance over other people (as you did in the free speech/anti-proselytization bit).
Mural,
I read a bit of China, and quit after four chapters. I’m thinking there was some pedophilia, or something really disgusting involved, and on top of that the writing was painful, and the characters were hard to understand.
However, yes, Asimov, as I’ve characterized him ‘a clear drink of water’. He speaks very plainly, and I suspect he’s not nearly as great as he’s been made out to be.
I’d like to write down a list of my ten favorite authors, but that would be impossible. I like so many, and for so many different reasons. However, sadly, I didn’t find Dune that interesting which I know makes me a minority in the SF community. Lets say, I just finished Orson Scott Card’s ‘Empire’. I’m reading ‘Eridahn’ which is a 1970’s slim novel about time travel to the dinos. I’ve opened up again ‘Looking Glass’ by John Ringo. My library might want their copy of ‘West Under the Eagle’?? by Andre Norton back if I can find it. I recently finished ‘Rainbow’s End’ by Vinge (and found it less interesting than most of his novels). And I just turned in ‘The Protector’s War’ by SM Stirling (he doesn’t seem mysogynistic and hateful like he used too although he’s obviously playing to his market by positing a world where Paganism takes over. Niven and Pournelle and Stirling in Dream Park were a lot more realistic when they said that after a disaster, the well-prepared and well-stocked Mormons did very well indeed in spreading their faith.)
Even? Exchange? Hmmm…how about, guy with the Truth gives it to person needing the Truth. No even, no exchange, just the missionary fulfilling the duty laid on him by God. Now, there is a class element going on, true, in the attraction, but…keep in mind that Christianity if it is the Truth is also a more effective way to live (except for the parts where the local Powers that Be hate you for exposing them as scumbuckets, and take revenge on you, and even that is good for the community.)
One fairly obvious example is that Christianity fosters cooperation (a lot of religions do), and I’ve seen a fair bit (Charlie Stross, another SF writer is a recent example) of atheists saying that caring for other people is silliness(to be fair, I’ve also seen a lot of atheists who don’t agree). Well, people are free to take that attitude, but group cooperation really works a lot better for most people, and most of the time.
So, I come to a guy, and say. “Get saved.” He agrees. Now he sleeps peacefully at night, and doesn’t need to drink so much to cope with his fear of death. I also say, “Now that you’re saved, there’s some advice God has on how He wants you to live.” I hand him a Bible. He reads, and finds out that God wants him to accept insult and turn the other cheek. He stops hitting his wife just because she calls him a loser. She stares in complete shock. She becomes a Christian. He learns to love her with all his life at stake. She learns to respect him. They start smiling at each other through the candlelight. Pretty soon, there’s a baby in the local church nursery…in a few years, he’s moved on up to a small house, and out of the trailer he lived in. But more importantly, he, his wife, and his child which follows the parents’ example and gets saved as well, are on their way to Heaven. The economic and social benefits of this are secondary.
This is not an exchange, not primarily. Its a gift which starts from the Giftgiver.
Okay, I think I’ve responded to everyone who responded to moi. Have a nice day. I may or may not come back to respond, but I found much of interest and quite a lot of intelligence here even as it disagreed with moi.
Perhaps, Jizya is just historical. I’m not qualified to say. And Free speech=Free Speech. Count me in as one of those who like this in case that was not obvious already.
Tell that to Muslims & Jews in the post-Moorish southern Spain, native Central Americans and the so many sects that were destroyed by the mainstream Christians especially during 11-13th centuries, to the Jews in so many pogroms in Europe. These people were all killed because they didn’t convert to Christianity (or a specific version of it).
Actually if you replace Christians with any other major religion in the above sentence it will be true except ofcourse some vocal sections of Muslims in the recent history.
Tom Friedman, the undisputed master of the mangled metaphor, strikes again. Apparently, Muslims were told they are Windows Vista or something, but they keep crashing and burning. Thankfully, Hindus are still MS-DOS, so we just hang out waiting for a command prompt. Christians? XP. Or something like that. Sorry I’m unable to summarize Friedman for you, my brain must be flat from being overrun by that Lexus crashing into the Olive Tree. Right?
July 4, 2007 Op-Ed Columnist At a Theater Near You … By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
London
I knew something was up when I couldn’t get a cab. Then there were sirens and helicopters whirring overhead. I stopped a passerby to ask what was going on. He said something about a car bomb outside a disco six blocks from my hotel. A few hours later, I finally found a taxi. The driver warned me that it was nearly impossible to get across town. Another bomb had been uncovered in a car park. Next day, more news: a suicide bomber had driven his Jeep into an airport and jumped out, his body on fire, screaming “Allah! Allah!â€
Where was I? Baghdad? Kabul? Tel Aviv? No, I was in England. But it could have been anywhere. The Middle East: Now playing at a theater near you.
But this movie gets more confusing every time you watch it. When you watched it on 9/11 it was about America’s presence in the heart of Arabia. And when you watched it on 7/7 it was about unemployed and alienated Muslim youth in Britain. In Jordan not long ago it was about a wedding at a Western hotel. In Morocco recently it was about an Internet cafe. And two days ago in Yemen it was about seven Spanish tourists who were killed when a suicide bomber drove into them at a local tourist site. Wasn’t Spain the country that quit Iraq to get its people out of the line of fire?
Because these incidents are scattered, we’re growing numb to just how crazy they are. In the past few years, hundreds of Muslims have committed suicide amid innocent civilians — without making any concrete political demands and without generating any vigorous, sustained condemnation in the Muslim world.
Two trends are at work here: humiliation and atomization. Islam’s self-identity is that it is the most perfect and complete expression of God’s monotheistic message, and the Koran is God’s last and most perfect word. To put it another way, young Muslims are raised on the view that Islam is God 3.0. Christianity is God 2.0. Judaism is God 1.0. And Hinduism and all others are God 0.0.
One of the factors driving Muslim males, particularly educated ones, into these acts of extreme, expressive violence is that while they were taught that they have the most perfect and complete operating system, every day they’re confronted with the reality that people living by God 2.0., God 1.0 and God 0.0 are generally living much more prosperously, powerfully and democratically than those living under Islam. This creates a real dissonance and humiliation. How could this be? Who did this to us? The Crusaders! The Jews! The West! It can never be something that they failed to learn, adapt to or build. This humiliation produces a lashing out.
In the old days, you needed a terror infrastructure with bases in Beirut or Afghanistan to lash out in a big way. Not anymore. Now all you need is the virtual Afghanistan — the Internet and a few cellphones — to recruit, indoctrinate, plan and execute. Hence, the atomization — little terror groups sprouting everywhere. Everyone now has a starter kit.
Gen. Michael Hayden, the C.I.A. director, recently noted in a speech that during the cold war “the enemy was easy to find, but hard to finish,†because the Soviet Union was so big and powerful. “Intelligence was important†back then, he added, “but it was overshadowed by the need for sheer firepower.â€
In today’s war against terrorist groups, said General Hayden, “it’s just the opposite. Our enemy is easy to finish, but hard to find. Today, we are looking for individuals or small groups planning suicide bombings, running violent Jihadist Web sites, sending foreign fighters into Iraq.â€
I’d go one step further. The Soviet Union was easy to find and hard to kill, but once it died, it was dead forever. It had no regenerative power because it had no popular base. The terrorists of Iraq or London are hard to find, easy to kill, but very difficult to eliminate. New recruits just keep sprouting.
Of course, not all Muslims are terrorists. But it’s been widely noted that virtually all suicide terrorists today are Muslims. Angry Norwegians aren’t doing this — nor are starving Africans or unemployed Mexicans. Muslims have got to understand that a death cult has taken root in the bosom of their religion, feeding off it like a cancerous tumor.
This cancer is erasing basic norms of civilization. In Iraq, we’ve seen suicide bombers blow up funerals and schools. In England, seven out of the eight people detained in the latest plot are Muslim doctors or medical students. Doctors plotting mass murder? Could that be? If Muslim leaders don’t remove this cancer — and only they can — it will spread, tainting innocent Muslims and poisoning their relations with each other and the world.
Actually, I think Dawkins, or one of his similar level, has been called the ‘Pope of Darwinism’. There is a community of atheists, and a community of believers. When prominent leaders in a community go one way, you’re entitled to make some conclusions about that community.
No. Atheism is not a form of belief, it is nonbelief. Just like bald is not a hair color.
ਰੱਬ ਦੇ ਨਾਂ ਤੇ ਮਾਰਨ ਜਨਾਨੀ ਰੱਬ ਦੇ ਨਾਂ ਤੇ ਮਾਰਨ ਜਨਾਨੀ
ਜਿਸ ਕà©à¨– ਦੀ ਗਰਮੈਸ਼ ਮਾਣੀ
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ਮਮਤਾ ਨੇ ਦਿੱਤਾ ਪਿਆਰ
ਧਰਮ ਨੇ ਕੀ ਦਿੱਤਾ ਇ ?
ਕੱਢ ਲਈ ਤਲਵਾਰ
ਇਹ ਬੰਦਿਆ ਕੀ ਕੀਤਾ ਈ ?
ਅਨਿੰਓ ਰੱਬ ਤੋਂ ਗਠਹੋ ਨੱਸ
ਕਾਹਤੋਂ ਰੱਬ ਤੋਂ ਗਠਹੋ ਨੱਸ ?
ਤੀਵੀਆਂ ਮਾਰੀ ਜਾਓ ਹੱਸ ਹੱਸ
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ਤà©à¨¹à¨¾à¨¨à©‚à©° ਕੀਹਨੇ ਬਣਾਇਆ ਕਾਜ਼ੀ ?
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ਧਰਮ ਨੇ ਆਖਿਆ ਮਾਰੋ ਮਾਂ ?
ਮਜ਼ਹਬ ਨੇ ਆਖਿਆ ਮਾਰੋ ਧੀ ?
ਪੰਥ ਨੇ ਆਖਿਆ ਮਾਰੋ à¨à©ˆà¨£ ?
ਦੀਨ ਨੇ ਆਖਿਆ ਮਾਰੋ ਜੀਅ ?