There is nothing so absurd as just one day of love, Valentine’s Day

by Rashmee

Posted on February 15, 2018



I’m not a culture warrior but Valentine’s Day does seem rather an odd reason to either feel threatened or liberated.

Every year, there are extreme observations of the so-called day of love – a profusion of roses, candlelit dinners, or as a pitched battle against a western siege of ideas.

Valentine’s Day has become a civilizational battle for conservatives and as an essential epiphany by liberals ranged against them.

Pakistan calls it un-Islamic. As The Economist drily notes, many “ultra-religious groups have long spluttered at the risk posed by chocolate love-hearts and teddy bears.”

The Economist basically meant Muslim conservatives, but Hindu fundamentalists also take a hard line on Valentine’s Day. In fact, non-western ideologically-driven groups around the world often respond to Valentine’s Day as a Western idea that must rightly prompt hostility and pushback.

Should we take the resistance as a lingering response to the drive towards anti-colonisation – not just of politics, but of thought processes? Or should we take it as an act of hate?


Rashmee has lived and worked in several countries in the past decade, including Afghanistan, India, Haiti, Tunisia, the UAE, US and UK

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