Physical Servitude and Spiritual Poverty

(This post was inspired by the comments at OtherMatters.)

One of the most difficult aspects to deal with in Pureland is the pervasive poverty and rigid class structure.

This stratification is a reality in Freeland also, but many Freelanders at the upper or middle socioeconomic levels are able to sidestep or ignore class hierarchies by escaping into suburban bubbles or gated communities.

In Pureland, the pursuit of sequestration is leading to a Dubai-like trend of building or buying “uninhabited” (i.e., populated with poor fisherfolk) and, often, environmentally fragile islands off the coast to develop them into private enclaves for the wealthy.

There are well-founded security concerns (frequent car jackings and home robberies for instance) in Karachi, for example, that could encourage people to want to move into separate or more highly guarded areas for their family’s safety.

But the people most likely to be able to afford moving to the islands or gated communities are the super-rich who already live in virtual fortresses and travel with armed guards.

Left behind are the middle class, who often flee abroad and thus perpetuate the country’s brain drain, or the poor who may resort to thuggery and violence as law and order diminish.

By ceasing to interact with people of different backgrounds we can fail to become aware of, much less to fulfill, our own economic, spiritual and moral responsibilities toward our community.

Back home in San Francisco, the homeless are an integral part of the city. Almost everywhere, you will encounter someone requesting change, muttering to the empty air, or simply asking for an acknowledgement of their existence as a fellow human being.

Basil often says that, hard as it is to see them, he would rather live in a city with the constant reminders that they provide of how little we have to complain of, how much we have to be grateful for, and, more importantly, how easily we could be in their place.

The Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings upon him) said that even a smile is charity. Our neighbors and community members, whatever their social standing, represent our daily chances to develop greater empathy and humanity, whether through a smile, conversation, or a shared meal, but the more we shelter or separate ourselves the less frequently we come across those opportunities.

I see poverty in a different form here. There are people living in katchi abadis (slums) in walled off corners of posh Islamabad, the village of Saidpur right next door where illiteracy and sewage infect the unpaved streets, and palatial homes with khidmatgaar (helpers) as young as nine years old sent not to school but to the kitchen or garden to work instead.

It’s the accepted way of things in many developing nations, with the middle- and upper-class hiring someone less well-off to help out around the house. I understand that it provides employment for many people, but too many employers fail to fulfill basic moral responsibilities to their helpers, including treating them with dignity and respect and employing them with the intention of leaving them better off than when one found them.

In a country like Pureland where society is still transitioning from colonialism and feudalism and where most people do not have access to job security, pensions, or health insurance, the role between employers and helpers has economic and spiritual ramifications.

We live next door to a woman who regularly beats her khidmatgaar and have another acquaintance who takes her 13-year old maid to taraweeh prayers during Ramadan, not to allow her to experience the baraka (spiritual blessings) of the sacred month of fasting, but to hold her prayer rug and water bottle until she herself is ready to pray.

That young girl has never been taught her prayers, but she has been trained to stand at attention to relieve her mistress’ possible thirst.

To me this story so poignantly illustrates our great poverty of spirit irrespective of the material riches in our bank accounts. With our class consciousness, arrogance and condescension sometimes I wonder how many of us today would deign to eat dinner at the same table as the Prophets Jesus or Muhammad (peace and blessing upon them) in their clean but worn, patchwork clothing and humble simplicity?

My parents employed a helper couple for the past 21 years. They are unusual in that they also funded the four children’s education (both Islamic and secular), covered the entire family’s medical costs throughout, provided a home for them to retire to, and will be helping out with the expenses of their eldest daughter’s wedding in two years as well.

My parents look at this as their moral obligation. Although they paid a salary to Iqbal and his wife Rashda they feel that their responsibilities extend far beyond that and will continue as long as they live.

In one sense, my parents acknowledge that Iqbal and his wife’s service has bound them in a type of servitude in turn – it is a reciprocal relationship in some ways. My parents’ intention in accepting this bond is to care for Iqbal and his wife and to raise Iqbal’s children out of servitude into a more independent profession and standing.

Just this one example of acting with intentionality opens up a world of possibilities for what the “master-servant” relationship can be when it is imbued with not only economic sensibilities but with spiritual intentionality also.

However, most helpers here (and in Freeland) are not treated well. Neither their spiritual, mental nor physical needs are properly taken care of, thus creating a continual cycle of often degrading servitude from which there is no escape for generations to come. In many cases, fellow humans have become just another disposable commodity in increasingly consumeristic societies.

Reflecting on 1400-year old Islamic rulings on slavery, many were meant to eventually end servitude rather than to perpetuate it as ideally slaves were to be freed and, if not, at least educated, clothed, and fed in the same manner as one’s own family members, thus slowly erasing social distinctions between classes.

I believe that should be one of the goals when dealing with helpers too.

Given Freeland’s horrifying history of slavery in much more recent times, we bring a lot of Western prejudices and hesitancies to the idea of servitude. But our Western history is not necessarily the history of other places or times, nor is it the only form that servitude can take. Servitude can be either dignified or undignified and it is often up to the employer to set that standard.

The real question is not whether we should have khidmatgaar or not but, rather, if we do have them, can we create a relationship based on respect, appreciation and dignified service in this transaction where both parties need something but in which the power structure is unequal?

I think that the answer is yes, but it takes consistent, thoughtful action and taqwa (God consciousness) and is, at the end of the day, still imperfect.

These relationships are complex, delicately balancing on the knife edge between exploitation and fair trade. Even with the best of intentions the fact remains that I ate at the same table as Iqbal’s family perhaps twice (and it was immensely uncomfortable both times), that they had a separate set of plates from the ones we used though they ate the same food, that they lived in the quarters not 30 physical feet from us but cultural light years away, and that they are not, after 21 years of service, what I would consider family, though I am very grateful for their presence, particularly in helping to care for my ailing grandparents before they died.

However, on the positive side, Iqbal and Rashda have now become landowners themselves, have the ability to rent out part of their home for additional income, and have four children who are continuing their academic studies. Their mother may be illiterate and their father might have only studied till the third grade, but the children are determined to become literate homemakers, as well as doctors or teachers.

Wealth is a blessing but it is also a heavy responsibility for which we are ultimately answerable to God, who will ask us how we returned it to its rightful owners: those who are less well-off than us in our communities.

All too often we run to answer our own narrow spiritual or material desires and forget that we hover near spiritual bankruptcy until we care as deeply for our neighbors’ needs as we do for our own.

I believe that is one of the toughest spiritual tests, and one that is becoming harder as societies segregate based on socioeconomic factors and as wealth is perceived as a right rather than a privilege.

Someday perhaps the study of economics will stretch further into the hard-to-measure waters beyond basic transactions to show that by fulfilling our moral obligations to each other we can create a wealth not just of the pocket, but of the spirit too.

In the meantime, we can make that our reality by choosing to honor and respect every person in our lives regardless of their socioeconomic status and to leave them better off for having encountered us, whether by a smile, kind word or deed.

Ultimately, we are all bound in servitude to one Master, and I hope we can treat each other as gently as we hope to be treated by Him.