This produces an unpleasant snort from Ashton. “But surely you don’t imagine that nice legalities are going to stop these people from doing whatever they want. Mujahideen murder civilians all the time.”
“People who call themselves mujahideen commit all kinds of atrocities, true, but they need some corrupt mullah to give them leave to behave like that. The kind of criticism that the liberal press in Western countries generates has no effect on them, they think it’s hypocrisy. It follows that the only attack that might have some effect is from the right, so to speak, from real religion and not from what they consider Godless liberalism. These jihad mullahs are never challenged openly from within Islam, which is what I’ve done here and what I’ll continue to do. These people can’t stand to think of themselves as bandits, they can’t stand to think that if they die they won’t go to Paradise, and they won’t if they’re not in a real jihad.”
Schildkraut turns to Father Shea. “What do you think of that, Mark?”
“You’re asking me?”
“You’re our expert on comparative religion.”
The priest scratched at his newly bristling beard. “Yes, and as a Catholic I suppose you think I’m expert in both fanaticism and the furthest reaches of the right wing,” which produces a scholarly chuckle among the group. “Well, I don’t know that it’s a religious issue at all. I believe it was a countryman of yours, Schildkraut, who said, ‘Terrorism is the rage of the literati in its final stages.’ Al-Qaeda and its offshoots are a disease of modernism, however much they dress themselves in traditional clothing. It’s a kind of toxic nostalgia, which is something the Catholic Church only took about five hundred years to deal with, and we’re still not past it yet. They see the modern world of technology and mass media and libertinism and consumerism, and they both desire and despise it. I mean, that’s why we all came here, to talk about the diseased mental states that generate terrorism and violence in this part of the world. So I think it’s something of a stretch to believe that what you call real religion can have an effect. In fact, whatever they say, they’re not at all religious. Thou shall not commit murder is a pretty basic rule for the genuinely religious.”
Manjit Nara laughs and says, “Ah, at last we are having our conference.”
“Yes, and I believe, all things considered,” says Amin, “that we would have been better off holding it at the hotel in Lahore. But I think Sonia has another arrow to her bow. I find it interesting about the dream work you are doing with our hosts. Have you ever done this for traditional Muslims?”
“No, but my practice in America includes a number of American Indians and Chicanos, and those are both highly traditional cultures. I’m assuming the same techniques apply.”
“Perhaps,” Amin says, frowning. “It’s a risky enterprise. They already accuse you of witchcraft. What’s your purpose?”
“To promote harmony and help those astray to return to the true path,” says Sonia blandly.
Ashton says, “You mean you’re manipulating them to serve your purposes, which, since I assume we all have the common purpose of staying alive here, I must heartily approve.”
“No, I’m absolutely sincere. But I’m convinced the outcome will be the same.”
“Oh, spare us! You sincerely believe that these maniacs, and I use the term literally, will respond to your messing about with their oedipal complexes?”
“Not at all. Psychotherapy is culture-bound. In Western society the psyche is considered to be individual, and the therapist works toward individuation. Even Jung, who understood that this was an illusion, worked this way in his practice. The basic stance of the Western therapist is to resolve interior conflicts within the different segments of the individual psyche. We observe, for example, a dominant father figure who limits the freedom of the client. If you’re Freudian you try to bring the oedipal tension to consciousness; if you’re a Jungian, you try to integrate the paternal introject, and other brands of therapies try to do the same thing under different names, but the goal is always the same: the freedom of the individual to fulfill his or her potential without neurotic limitations. This is not the case with traditional Muslims.”
“It’s not?” says Ashton. “You’re suggesting they like being mad?”
“No, I’m saying it’s a Western delusion that all psychological problems are reducible to restrictions on individual freedom. In other cultures, including the one we’re talking about, the highest value is not freedom at all. It’s harmony within the family and the tribe and the sense that the person is doing the right thing with respect to tradition.”
“Are you serious? What if the family or the tribe or whatever is oppressive? Surely you wouldn’t justify the way our hosts treat women.”
“That’s quite besides the point, Harold. My job is not to justify a culture or to encourage rebellion from it, but to enable a client to live as successfully as possible within it, without neurotic symptoms. In the West, that means reducing interior conflict. In the Muslim world, it means reducing exterior conflicts.”
“If I may interpolate here, Harold,” says Nara, “Sonia is quite correct. Among my own patients, both Hindu and Muslim, any attempt to strengthen the supposed ego at the expense of traditional structures of authority inevitably results in the failure of the therapy. The patients either leave or they sink into a paralyzing depression. In fact, the symptoms we commonly see in practice are the result of conflict between the patient’s cultural expectations and his current situation. He has, for example, feelings of worthlessness because he tries to be a good Muslim and yet God does not favor him with success. Or a daughter feels she is being unjustly treated by her father or her mother-in-law. In such cases there is no point in trying to strengthen the autonomous ego because there is no autonomous ego, except of course in those who have been culturally Westernized, and they have a completely different set of issues. No, what we must do is to treat the situation, not the psyche as such.”
“So you just tell them to knuckle under?”
“No,” says Nara, “we try to restore harmony. We work with the family. We use quotations from the traditional scriptures. We don’t probe the intimate details of family life because these patients think it’s shameful to discuss such things. Instead, we use the unusually rich metaphoric life we find among such people and make suggestions that will result in real change and the alleviation of symptoms.”
Ashton is not convinced; he shakes his head like a bull. “But the end result is that the woman remains a second-class citizen and the man slogs away in a corrupt and impoverished society. I can’t believe you’re really defending this sort of thing. Good Lord, you’re all educated people! Surely you can’t want the perpetuation of Muslim or Indian society as it now stands. It’s the worst kind of patronization. It’s like saying only white people have the right to democratic governance, honest administration, civil rights, a prosperous society, the lot.”
Sonia, Nara, and Amin exchange looks. After a pause, Amin says, “This is the problem with cultural imperialism-”
“I beg your pardon! I am the furthest thing from a cultural imperialist.”
“Please, let me finish! The problem, as I say, with cultural imperialism is that it can be completely unconscious, which I believe is the case here. For example, you used the phrase knuckle under. By that you mean it is wrong or unseemly for people to submit their will-their whim, even-to a traditional authority. Yet all of Muslim society is based on submission to the will of God, and everything follows from that. You look at us and you see oppression; we see stability and harmony. You see corruption; we see ties of family, friendship, and mutual support. You see feudalism, we see mutual responsibility. You see the oppression of women, we see the defense of modesty. But then you say, but look at you! See how poor and weak you are and how rich and strong we are, because of our culture, which prizes freedom above every other human value-no, that destroys every other human value to secure absolute freedom. In response to that, sir, I ask you to look at two things. First, yes, we are poor, but until sixty years ago, you Europeans owned all of us, we worked for you and not for ourselves. So of course we are poor-it took Europe eight centuries to recover from the yoke of Rome and its collapse. I say to you, sir, have a little patience! And the second thing is, for all but the last two and a half centuries, the traditional society you condemn was quite successful. A thousand years ago London was a wooden village occupied by starving barbarians and Baghdad was the greatest and richest city in the world. So perhaps it will be that way again; who can tell what God has planned?”