{"id":5,"date":"2014-02-16T23:28:56","date_gmt":"2014-02-16T23:28:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/mbprasad\/?p=5"},"modified":"2014-02-22T20:22:43","modified_gmt":"2014-02-22T20:22:43","slug":"the-garden-a-poem-about-the-price-of-intolerance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/mbprasad\/2014\/02\/16\/the-garden-a-poem-about-the-price-of-intolerance\/","title":{"rendered":"The Garden — a poem about the price of intolerance"},"content":{"rendered":"

I was moved to do my first creative assignment in response to Professor Asani\u2019s reading Infidel. <\/em>Professor Asani brings up the difficult question of how can we characterize a religion? More often than not, it is easier to say what is not right with the way someone practices religion, rather than what is right. Take his example of the Munir Commission\u2019s failure to standardize one definition of a Muslim and their reliance on exclusionary theory.<\/p>\n

People seem eager to determine who is a lesser believer because doing so assets their superiority. It is like we are trying to assert our faith by belittling others, which is against the point of religion.\u00a0I have always been bothered that people feel the need to determine who is an infidel and who is a true believer. What does it even mean to be an infidel? If someone has good intentions, why should we degrade their faith and their happiness in believing? Growing up in Oklahoma, I heard my fair share of assertions that one form of Christianity was lesser than another because of x, y, or z. This intolerance multiplied infinitely for anything outside of Christianity. By virtue of this thinking, everyone was an infidel in one way or another.<\/p>\n

To express my thoughts about the over eagerness to point a finger at \u201cinfidels,\u201d I wrote a poem called The Garden<\/em>. This poem is about the tragic demise of a garden because of its need to condemn and judge. I use the metaphor of a garden thriving with life to represent the world and its people. A single flower narrates the poem. It realizes that all flowers are from the same seeds, and therefore related, but still views the others as lesser beings. To our narrator, every other flower is simply a fake representation of a flower. This leads it to declare that they are infidels and weeds. The weed comparison is given to reflect the flower\u2019s desire for them to be yanked out of the garden and destroyed. Sadly, our narrator is not only alone in its opinion\u2014every other flower feels the same way. In the end, their ugly thoughts reflect outward, and they are all seen as weeds and pulled out, leaving the garden barren and desolate. Instead of celebrating their diversity and realizing that was what made the garden beautiful, the flowers were so caught up in their own superiority as the \u201cperfect flower.\u201d<\/p>\n

I used the metaphor of flowers to bring this comparison to a natural level and show the destruction that judgment can cause. If the flowers had celebrated their differences and banded together, then they would not have been considered weeds and would have survived.\u00a0This has very real implications for the world that we live in as smaller radical groups declare the infidelity of others on no grounds. This judgment and hatred ultimately has consequences far beyond repair.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00a0The Garden<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u062d\u062f\u064a\u0642\u0629<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I looked around in the garden of confusion<\/p>\n

I saw a million flowers, each as different as could be<\/p>\n

Each flower seemed insubstantial, merely an illusion<\/p>\n

None of them were as beautiful as me<\/p>\n

In my eyes, every other flower was a weed<\/p>\n

A treacherous infidel that needed to be destroyed<\/p>\n

Honestly, I knew we were all of the same seed<\/p>\n

This fundamental truth, I could not avoid<\/p>\n

Yet, my hatred clouded my judgment and multiplied<\/p>\n

As did my need to condemn<\/p>\n

The same held true for each flower, and it felt justified<\/p>\n

Our differences we could not amend<\/p>\n

And the garden once beautiful and splendid<\/p>\n

Fell to ruin and despair<\/p>\n

Our mistrust and judgment caused consequences, very unintended<\/p>\n

These consequences were far beyond our ability to repair<\/p>\n

Each flower was thought of as a weed and pulled out<\/p>\n

Finally nothing remained; not a single sprout<\/p>\n

Their beauty lost in their condemnation of the others<\/p>\n

Their negligence to forget that we are all sisters and brothers<\/p>\n

When we emphasize our difference and deny our similarity<\/p>\n

We pay a heavy price<\/p>\n

We forget to stand together in solidarity<\/p>\n

We do not follow God\u2019s advice<\/p>\n

Instead remember, we are all made from the same fabric<\/p>\n

Do not forget this wise one; the cost is tragic<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was moved to do my first creative assignment in response to Professor Asani\u2019s reading Infidel. Professor Asani brings up the difficult question of how can we characterize a religion? More often than not, it is easier to say what is not right with the way someone practices religion, rather than what is right. Take […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6279,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/mbprasad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/mbprasad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/mbprasad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/mbprasad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6279"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/mbprasad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/mbprasad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/mbprasad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5\/revisions\/11"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/mbprasad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/mbprasad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/mbprasad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}