Daily Times

On a rational note, most societies enact laws to curb oppression and bring equity, justice and order. There is no debate or dispute about the anti-blasphemy law itself. If it is the derivation of a colonial law, then hats off to our former masters for enforcing it. At least in this scribe’s humble opinion, religion is one of those matters that are personal and extremely sensitive to every follower, regardless of their belief system. Hence, in order to keep a society free of religious conflict, reverence and respect of all religions must be encouraged, enforced and implemented. This creates a mature and harmonious society.

When Salmaan Taseer was martyred by his own bodyguard and social media saw the exchange of congratulatory messages between some of the cyber faithful, I knew we were headed towards a new low. Being an ardent observer, what I saw in Taseer was a person questioning the misuse of a law by certain people within the system. Our country was ridiculed around the world when lawyers and a significant segment of society demonstrated their allegiance and sympathy with his killer, calling him a ghazi (warrior). Qadri, the killer, is cooling his heels behind bars and the chances of him going to the gallows are as slim as a huge inheritance coming my way from somewhere.

The former minister for minority affairs, Shahbaz Bhatti, was gunned down in broad daylight in the federal capital. Let us not discuss the fate of the helpless Christian lady Aasia Bibi, accused of blasphemy, who both of the aforementioned gentlemen were trying to assist, a ‘crime’ they paid for with their lives. That lady, to the best of my knowledge, is behind bars and is perhaps a taboo topic for discussion. Merely mentioning her evokes a string of absurdity and madness in a certain segment of our rotten society. I remember from my childhood a Punjabi movie called Ghazi Ilm Din Shaheed, based on the true story of a man who killed a Hindu man accused of blasphemy. Allama Iqbal mourned his execution by our former colonial masters of India. Our founding father, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, was his lawyer on appeal. Jinnah lost the case and the convicted killer was hanged. The silver screen saw another story very recently in which another alleged blasphemer was killed by an inmate inside a prison. The tagline of that movie was tweeted and basically stated that a blasphemer deserves to be beheaded. If there was any question about where we pick our beastly tendencies, these two films should serve as prime examples of that.

When a Christian couple, Shahzad and Shama, were thrown into a brick kiln by an angry mob very recently, the cyber world went into its usual Twitter rage. The idiot box brought out the beards to pass the usual condemnations. All this seems so scripted that one just sits and wonders what in God’s name is going through people’s heads. Needless to say, the news shook the global conscience within hours. The entire world was in a state of complete shock and disbelief that, in this day and age, people can stoop to this level of brutality. No evidence, no hearing, no investigation, no sentencing, just a brutal execution. However, in this poor scribe’s very unpopular opinion, I am afraid more is about to come. You ask why I hold such pessimistic views. Let us briefly touch upon this thorny subject.

All the lip service that you hear, watch or read, whether from religious scholars, politicos or pundits, is absolutely meaningless. The state takes notice, promises to pay compensation to the victims and moves on to the next disaster. There exists the concept that most of these wise men tend to overlook: equal citizenship. In my humble opinion, this concept is limited to our books. If you were to ask me why non-Muslims feel so alienated in the land of the pure, I would say it is because of unequal treatment. You will see a lot of educated folks lament such incidents and regurgitate Jinnah’s August 11, 1947 speech to camouflage the absurdity that plagues our sorry land in this day and age. This lullaby is repeated by many on Twitter who dream of something that has been irrelevant ever since the Quaid left his moth-eaten and truncated land in tatters.

Ironically, a country that was carved out of a much bigger country out of the fear that as a minority, Muslims were not going to get their fair share, has sidelined its own minorities. If you were to ask me, I have a major issue with the term minority. In a country, citizens are equal not only on paper but in reality as well. Growing up, I was amazed that most household janitorial help in Karachi were poor Christians. These people were not treated with any respect and were given names that cannot be written here. Had I not been to the premier Catholic school in Karachi, where I grew up with Christians, Hindus, Parsis, Bahais and others, perhaps my views would have been tainted as well. My primary and secondary schooling gave me the strong foundation of inclusiveness and equality. For that I am eternally grateful to my parents who bore immense hardship for that priceless education.

Until or unless that basic concept is reinforced in letter and spirit by the people in the capital, by the talking and bobbing heads on the idiot box, in the syllabi of schools, the print media and by religious scholars, this madness will never end. A citizen enjoys the same rights whether he is a Muslim, Hindu, Christian, Parsi, Bahai, Sikh, Jew or Buddhist. Once no one feels alienated or persecuted, only then can you start the process of applying fair laws. The law should be implemented across the board on everyone, regardless of their faith or belief system. By the same token, people who falsely accuse others of blasphemy should be tried and sentenced for making false allegations. I am afraid that most folks will disagree with my bleak assessment of our future. My rationale is very simple. A state that succumbs to whosoever has a weapon in hand can never fathom the basic concept of equality. We are champions of hypocrisy and can rarely sense that we are in the process of chopping our own roots. Have you ever seen a sturdy tree without its roots firmly placed in the ground?

The writer is a Pakistani-US
mortgage banker. He blogs at http://dasghar.blogspot.com and can be reached at dasghar@aol.com. He tweets at http://twitter.com/dasghar