March 29, 2008
Encouraging Adoption Pakistan and the Muslim World
By Saleem H. Ali
As the presidential race heats up in the United States, there is a little-known fact about one of the presidential contenders that Pakistanis should consider with greater care. Senator John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee for President has seven children, which is a common family size in rural Pakistan. However, Mr. McCain’s youngest child Bridget stands out as phenotypically quite different from the rest of his progeny as she was adopted from an orphanage in Bangladesh and brought to the United States in 1991. Bridget had a heart defect and her parents had abandoned her at one of the orphanages led by the late Sister of Charity and Nobel laureate, Mother Theresa’s network. The McCains adopted the child and paid for all her medical treatment and she is now a pivotal part of their family.
During the primary in South Carolina, this noble deed sadly became a point of contention among some of the voters who continued to have a residual racial prejudice. In a recent interview, McCain described the situation as follows: “A lot of phone calls were made by people who said we should be very ashamed about her, about the color of her skin. Thousands and thousands of calls from people to voters saying ‘You know the McCains have a black baby.” I believe that there is a special place in hell for people like those.” Even when there is no prejudice, the coverage of adoption in the press is often ambivalent and uncomfortable. Regrettably, the adoptions of poor children by celebrities such as Angelina Jolie and Madonna have also been trivialized with cynical commentary by the tabloid media.
Sadly many Pakistani families who wish to adopt a child still contend with prejudice as well when they strive to adopt poor children from the slums of the country. Many try to find a Pathan child who would be “fair and lovely” rather than a child of Dravidian lineage, and hence darker skin, who may be just as deserving. Others try to hide the fact that the child is adopted in various ways at social events and the frequent whisper is heard at weddings about the mysterious origins of the adoptee. Many families are afraid to adopt because there is a feeling that the child may have birth defects or some other inadequacy. In such cases the goal is to strive for a perfect offspring rather than to meet a societal need. There is unfortunately an unsettling stigma associated with adoption that must be erased by all of us.
For a country that has such a staggering birth rate, adoption must be considered a more viable option for elite urban families as birth control education catches up with the rural population. The matter is clearly complicated by a misperception of religious doctrines on the matter. There is a continuing perception that an adopted child is secondary in Islamic law. While there are injunctions in shariah that give preference to blood offspring over adopted children, this does not mean that Islam discourages adoption. The differentiation here needs to be made between legal tenets of adoption in shairah, and the spirit of guardianship and parenthood or kifalah that Islam encourages. If you take the term adoption mean the caring of a child in need within a family setting, there are numerous instances of adoption in Islamic history including the Prophet Muhammad’s own life when he as “adopted” by his Uncle upon the demise of his parents. However, many scholars have confounded this matter with the legal aspects of inheritance of adopted children, in which case the Quran makes a clear distinction between genetic progeny or heirs and adopted children. Even in this case, the Quran allows up to one-third of inheritance to be gifted by discretion to anyone, including adopted children. The matter has been confounded by Orientalist commentary regarding the Prohpet’s adopted son Zaid bin Haritha (an emancipated slave whom the Prophet brought up as his son and who was later married to the Prophet’s cousin Zainab bint-e-Jahsh). The accusation is often made that the Prophet wanted to marry Zainab and hence to allow for such a union, the adoptive status of Zaid was questioned in the Quran (Surah 33, verses 37-38) so as to allow for the marriage to occur after Zainab’s voluntary divorce from Zaid.
However, this line of reasoning is not supported by the full historical record on the matter since the Prophet was married monogamously to Khadija for 23 years and after her death when he did take on multiple wives, his first choice was an elderly widow named Sauda binte-e-Z’ama rather than an attractive cousin whom he had known since birth. Call me an apologist, but the reasons for the Prophet’s marriages were far more varied and complex than the average Islamic textbook in the West may reveal. Indeed, Zainab was the Prophet’s sixth wife and the hadith record shows that the marriage was largely arranged to allow for a respectable exit strategy for Zaid and Zainab who were quite unhappy in their marriage. The Prophet continued to maintain a very strong bond with Zaid throughout his life. Indeed, he was deeply protective of Zaid’s family and the Prophet chose Zaid’s son Osama as the leader of the legion to Rome as one of his last acts of governance before his death.
Thus the history of Islam provides us with adequate encouragement for adoption as a worthy deed and one which families should consider more actively across the Muslim world but particularly in Pakistan. While Senator McCain might not be the most appealing U.S. presidential candidate for many Pakistanis on other accounts, his nobility as an adoptive parent must be admired and emulated.
Dr Saleem H Ali is associate dean for graduate education at the University of Vermont’s Rubenstein School of Environment and on the adjunct faculty of Brown University’s Watson Institute for International Studies. Email: saleem@alum.mit.edu
Posted by Saleem Ali at 10:06 AM
Encouraging Adoption in Pakistan and the Muslim World
By Saleem H. Ali
As the presidential race heats up in the United States, there is a little-known fact about one of the presidential contenders that Pakistanis should consider with greater care. Senator John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee for President has seven children, which is a common family size in rural Pakistan. However, Mr. McCain’s youngest child Bridget stands out as phenotypically quite different from the rest of his progeny as she was adopted from an orphanage in Bangladesh and brought to the United States in 1991. Bridget had a heart defect and her parents had abandoned her at one of the orphanages led by the late Sister of Charity and Nobel laureate, Mother Theresa’s network. The McCains adopted the child and paid for all her medical treatment and she is now a pivotal part of their family.
During the primary in South Carolina, this noble deed sadly became a point of contention among some of the voters who continued to have a residual racial prejudice. In a recent interview, McCain described the situation as follows: “A lot of phone calls were made by people who said we should be very ashamed about her, about the color of her skin. Thousands and thousands of calls from people to voters saying ‘You know the McCains have a black baby.” I believe that there is a special place in hell for people like those.” Even when there is no prejudice, the coverage of adoption in the press is often ambivalent and uncomfortable. Regrettably, the adoptions of poor children by celebrities such as Angelina Jolie and Madonna have also been trivialized with cynical commentary by the tabloid media.
Sadly many Pakistani families who wish to adopt a child still contend with prejudice as well when they strive to adopt poor children from the slums of the country. Many try to find a Pathan child who would be “fair and lovely” rather than a child of Dravidian lineage, and hence darker skin, who may be just as deserving. Others try to hide the fact that the child is adopted in various ways at social events and the frequent whisper is heard at weddings about the mysterious origins of the adoptee. Many families are afraid to adopt because there is a feeling that the child may have birth defects or some other inadequacy. In such cases the goal is to strive for a perfect offspring rather than to meet a societal need. There is unfortunately an unsettling stigma associated with adoption that must be erased by all of us.
For a country that has such a staggering birth rate, adoption must be considered a more viable option for elite urban families as birth control education catches up with the rural population. The matter is clearly complicated by a misperception of religious doctrines on the matter. There is a continuing perception that an adopted child is secondary in Islamic law. While there are injunctions in shariah that give preference to blood offspring over adopted children, this does not mean that Islam discourages adoption. The differentiation here needs to be made between legal tenets of adoption in shairah, and the spirit of guardianship and parenthood or kifalah that Islam encourages. If you take the term adoption mean the caring of a child in need within a family setting, there are numerous instances of adoption in Islamic history including the Prophet Muhammad’s own life when he as “adopted” by his Uncle upon the demise of his parents. However, many scholars have confounded this matter with the legal aspects of inheritance of adopted children, in which case the Quran makes a clear distinction between genetic progeny or heirs and adopted children. Even in this case, the Quran allows up to one-third of inheritance to be gifted by discretion to anyone, including adopted children. The matter has been confounded by Orientalist commentary regarding the Prohpet’s adopted son Zaid bin Haritha (an emancipated slave whom the Prophet brought up as his son and who was later married to the Prophet’s cousin Zainab bint-e-Jahsh). The accusation is often made that the Prophet wanted to marry Zainab and hence to allow for such a union, the adoptive status of Zaid was questioned in the Quran (Surah 33, verses 37-38) so as to allow for the marriage to occur after Zainab’s voluntary divorce from Zaid.
However, this line of reasoning is not supported by the full historical record on the matter since the Prophet was married monogamously to Khadija for 23 years and after her death when he did take on multiple wives, his first choice was an elderly widow named Sauda binte-e-Z’ama rather than an attractive cousin whom he had known since birth. Call me an apologist, but the reasons for the Prophet’s marriages were far more varied and complex than the average Islamic textbook in the West may reveal. Indeed, Zainab was the Prophet’s sixth wife and the hadith record shows that the marriage was largely arranged to allow for a respectable exit strategy for Zaid and Zainab who were quite unhappy in their marriage. The Prophet continued to maintain a very strong bond with Zaid throughout his life. Indeed, he was deeply protective of Zaid’s family and the Prophet chose Zaid’s son Osama as the leader of the legion to Rome as one of his last acts of governance before his death.
Thus the history of Islam provides us with adequate encouragement for adoption as a worthy deed and one which families should consider more actively across the Muslim world but particularly in Pakistan. While Senator McCain might not be the most appealing U.S. presidential candidate for many Pakistanis on other accounts, his nobility as an adoptive parent must be admired and emulated.
Dr Saleem H Ali is associate dean for graduate education at the University of Vermont’s Rubenstein School of Environment and on the adjunct faculty of Brown University’s Watson Institute for International Studies. Email: saleem@alum.mit.edu
Posted by Saleem Ali at 10:06 AM
March 01, 2008
Pakistan's political heir
The mourning period of Benazir Bhutto’s tragic assassination has passed this week with a surprisingly calm election and Pakistanis will no doubt begin to approach her son and political heir Bilawal Bhutto Zardari in various ways to express their hopes and fears for the country. As one such citizen, I write this article at the eve of the publication of his mother’s notable book and also after a pivotal election victory for her party. You may ask why I write to give advice to a nineteen year old who couldn’t even run in the election? The answer is simple: reform is far easier to advocate to those who are new to the process than to those who are entrenched in entitlements of the old system. Perhaps that is why so many Americans are gravitating towards an inexperienced but youthfully optimistic senator named Barack Obama.
By Saleem H. Ali
The mourning period of Benazir Bhutto’s tragic assassination has passed this week with a surprisingly calm election and Pakistanis will no doubt begin to approach her son and political heir Bilawal Bhutto Zardari in various ways to express their hopes and fears for the country. As one such citizen, I write this article at the eve of the publication of his mother’s notable book and also after a pivotal election victory for her party. You may ask why I write to give advice to a nineteen year old who couldn’t even run in the election? The answer is simple: reform is far easier to advocate to those who are new to the process than to those who are entrenched in entitlements of the old system. Perhaps that is why so many Americans are gravitating towards an inexperienced but youthfully optimistic senator named Barack Obama.
As an expatriate, like Bilawal, I have much less at stake in the future of Pakistan than the millions who languish in poverty and despair or the elite who continue to benefit from an arcane system of privilege. Yet I cannot help feel the need to emotionally connect with the land with which I am most frequently identified by language, ethnicity and tradition.
Since Bilawal has accepted to carry forward the mission of his mother despite the risks entailed, it is important to get this message to him at the earliest. As he is immersed in studies at Oxford and perhaps insulated temporarily from the gathering storm of discontent in Pakistan, it is a time for the PPP to consider effectively what role he might play as a positive catalyst for change. I heard his first press conference in London, and was pleasantly surprised to observe relative composure in the face of some very tough questions from the media about his tender age and the perceived lack of legitimacy as a political force. There is little doubt that he has the potential to be a fine leader in terms of intellect and that should remain his forte rather than the Bhutto name. In this regard, he should seek to find some common ground with his cousin Fatima, who has quite emphatically called for the emergence of a culture of meritocracy in the country.
No doubt there will be plenty of people who will try to erode Bilawal’s youthful idealism and make him feel as if feudal politics are all that can work in Pakistan, including perhaps some in his own family. Let’s hope he is wary of such enticements that the establishment will try to seduce him with in various ways – perhaps by servile compliments or by elderly admonition. The only way to change the system of privilege in Pakistan is for the next generation of elite like Bilawal to move us out of this inertia.
True democracy will only flourish when each candidate can be evaluated on their merits and we can have a more equitable distribution of power across society in Pakistan. The most fundamental resource that the country has is land and until we are able to have a comprehensive land redistribution program our attempts at democratization will fail and so will Bilawal’s call for “revenge through democracy.” The Peoples Party has always prided itself for principles of social equity and under the leadership of a true reformer there is perhaps a chance that it will make comprehensive land reform a priority. Bilawal should endure the opposition that he may face on this fundamental matter with the same fortitude that he has shown since the loss of his mother. Land reform is always tough but as Pakistan’s neighbor India has shown in many states, it is indeed possible and once it is achieved, democracy can take firm roots. As a martial artist trained in Karate, the young Bhutto perhaps appreciates the importance of self-denial and leveraging power through efficient use of our muscles. Similarly, land redistribution, will be the most effective way to leverage power to move the Body Politic towards collective victory against poverty and deprivation. We are beginning to see the public move away from entrenched feudal politicians in some of the results from central Punjab in this election. However, the winners are still largely connected to old families of influence.
The question of religion will always remain salient in Pakistani politics. In this regard, Bilawal has an admirable manifesto from his mother in her posthumous book: Reconcilliation, Islam, Democracy and the West. There is indeed a way to reconcile Islam and modernity but that must be accepted within some clear parameters. Islamic societies are beginning to reform in many positive ways to allow for pluralism and the process will no doubt be generational as it was with its Abrahamic predecessor faiths: Christianity or Judaism. The power of intangible spirituality and benign religious practice cannot be ignored in societies just as the power of a good story remains timeless, even if it may be fictional.
There will certainly be attrition and conflict as we move beyond a literalist interpretation of scripture but moderation of Islamic doctrines is quite possible in an increasingly globalized world. Surely, Bilawal’s upbringing in the Emirates will have provided him with enough experiential learning in this regard on how to evolve a modern society within an Islamic context. Such proclivities for spirituality must be embraced so long as they are not exclusionary in implementation – a lesson which Benazir Bhutto clearly reveals in her book.
Finally, let’s hope that Bilawal appreciates that no one is indispensible and the human urge to govern has tremendous resilience across societies. However, as a student of political science, Bilawal might well consider the words of Charles de Motesquieu, which underscore the admirable insistence his late mother had to spend time with the public, and which he must aspire to amplify through action: “to be truly great one has to stand with people, not above them.”
