Daily Times

Do you want to know what the religious minorities of Pakistan think of the imported version of Islam practiced and propagated by the country’s Sunni majority? Visit Youhanabad. Here, after the suicide bombings in two churches that killed 15 and injured 79 worshippers last week, the angry mob caught two people, who they claimed looked suspicious, and set them on fire, alive, in front of law officers. The innocent victims, who had nothing to with the attack, must have cried hard and proclaimed their innocence aloud but the crowd, as if it were acting under a spell, heard none of their pleas and continued to bludgeon them with wooden rods till there was nothing left except a pile of ash and a pair of burnt limbs lying discordantly from each other on the road. Making things worse, while their bodies were being charred and battered, many protestors kept themselves detached from the brutality of the situation, making videos on their cellphones, recording the horrific event not only on their mobile devices but also in their memories so as to retrieve and replay it if needed.
Surprised, right? You must be thinking why the Christians hate us so much. What have we done to them? Most of us are peace-loving citizens who loathe terrorism as much as they do and have no association with the radicals whatsoever. You may be right on an individual basis but, in general, you cannot defend your position. Remember, a few years ago, when the Taliban attacked non-Muslims – the Sikhs, Hindus and Christians – you were dying to negotiate a peace deal with them? Once an agreement has been reached, you imagined, the jihadi mindset would evaporate from society like water without leaving a mark and the country would return to normal. Some of you even announced that the terrorists were your “misguided Muslim brothers”, who had to be offered a chance before they were dealt with with force. Well, the truth is: you could not have been more wrong, more ignorant about it. It is a fact that once the genie of extremism is out of the bottle, it is just impossible to put it back in. You knew that but disregarding the fear and the anxiety of the minorities, you just let them get butchered by the wolves.
For some, the question is why we should care for the minorities when the majority population is itself at risk. In a nutshell, I think the well being of any society depends on the rights that its majority guarantees to its minorities. If you do not trust me, just ask your uncle or cousin who lives abroad what they think about the issue. How would they feel if a mosque is attacked on a regular basis by a right wing terrorist organisation while the citizens of that country consider the perpetrators as their misguided brothers or holy warriors? For how long would your uncle want to live in that country?
Almost a year before the Army Public School massacre in Peshawar, remember that over 100 Christians were killed in another bomb blast in a church. Do you remember how the ruling political parties at the Centre and in the province reacted to it? Yes, they wanted to set up a committee to further discuss the peace accord, proposed cash handouts to the jihadists and assured their safety if they laid down their weapons. Great, is it not? Now compare that to the reaction after the school attack. “Kill them all,” you said. “Enough is enough” was heard everywhere too. Why did you not react the same way after the first non-Muslim child was killed? Tell me if you yourself were a Hindu, a Christian or a Sikh; what would you have thought about your place in society? A vestigial organ, a pawn in the larger scheme of events or a lamb to be sacrificed?
I know the right wing would challenge my position, disclosing that the majority of the people who died in the last few years were Muslims. This is correct yet this comment is misleading, condescending and outrageous to the bone. Why? Because it implies that non-Muslims are not specifically targeted, that their fatalities are exaggerated because of foreign influence, that the state is providing them enough security within its resources and that extremism is not that big an issue. We only have to steer back the direction of jihad to the west. And once we have done that, everything will be just fine.
The comment is misleading and outrageous also because it does not address the real issue. The real issue is if the minorities are assaulted on the basis of their faith or not. Have their children been wrongfully accused of blasphemy and sent to jail or not? Were their young couples burnt to death or not? Were their homes destroyed, their wealth looted and their families threatened? I am not talking about a blast in a public place where everyone, regardless of one’s faith, can be killed. I am talking about the difference between that and the attacks on churches and temples. In the latter case, can we identify a pattern? For me, the pattern is so clear that even a two-year-old can identify it but, no, self-righteous Pakistanis, blinded by their faith, cannot recognise it at all.
I agree that in no way can the reaction of the mob be justified. I am not doing that either. The people responsible for the act should be located, arrested, prosecuted and punished according to the law of land, no doubt. However, our reaction cannot overshadow the fact that the minorities in Pakistan are getting desperate and are feeling insecure in their places of worship, at work and even in their homes. In this situation, should we not be asking ourselves if we are ready to do whatever it takes to win back their confidence?

The writer is a US-based freelance columnist. He tweets at @KaamranHashmi and can be reached at skamranhashmi@gmail.com