I recently returned from Pakistan - a land of hope at a moment of promise. I learned much from friends who face momentous decisions in the perspective of astonishing changes.
I met men and women with sore wounds of flesh and spirit, suffered under different regimes: terrible wrongs attributable to the British Raj, to the costly events of Partition and indeed to every government since, right up to Zia's.
One cannot compare these hurts or argue them away. Each finds his or her suffering very real. I became aware of deep rifts running through the ranks of a great and gifted people: and what struck me was that each feels the same way about the people they hold responsible for their suffering.
Some have set out to bridge these divisions, and have renounced any form of retaliation. This is an initial step of immense importance. But between that first effort arid the mountaineering ability needed to surmount the Himalayan peaks of hate and bitterness towering over our world, there is a great deal to learn and practise. We have to learn to read the hearts of the men and women around us with compassion and clarity; to make use of what a poet called 'the intelligence of the heart'.
I heard much controversy. Many who have able minds have sore hearts. I also found an undercurrent of simple healing: women comforted for the loss of children, strengthened in the tasks of widowhood, supported through oppression; people who have turned insults received into a means of change in the insulter. Most of this had nothing to do with politics - but much to do with a potent passage in the Qur'an which enjoins responding to evil with good. It is a textbook study of turning enemies into friends:
'Good and evil are not alike. Repel an evil deed with one that is better: then lo! he between whom and thee there was enmity shall become like your best friend.'
A vital transition is made. The distinction is drawn between the enemy and the enmity. Enmity, with all that goes with it of pride, hatred and dislike, is recognized as something present on all sides - to some degree, in my heart as well as in the hearts of those who see themselves as my opponents. To acknowledge their cause for hurt, as well as my own, is a step forward.
The transition is from the over-facile categories of friends and enemies, the futile pinning of blame, to dealing with what is really wrong: the poison of greed, resentment, fear, self-interest, wherever it is found. This enables a leader to deal with these evils and their fruits as drastically in friends as in foe, with equal realism and courtesy. There are always power-seekers ready to exploit the causes of division. Statesmanship seeks to cure them.
Differences there will be, but those who respect each other can disagree without being disagreeable. Each case, each person will be different, and call for imaginative insight and action. And those who start along this road will help others. Their voice among the nations may lead mankind along the uncharted roads of peace. For nations, like individuals, need to respect as well as to challenge each other, to expect and give their best, to encourage rather than to goad each other along the straight path.
Charis Waddy is author of 'The Muslim Mind' and 'Women in Muslim History'.
