Seeing young Bilawal Bhutto Zardari spearheading the two-weeks long Sindh Festival is refreshing but is this effort enough to revive a Sindhi culture that historically has promoted peace, harmony and diversity among the residents of Sindh, irrespective of differences in faith? In his promotional video speech, Bilawal Bhutto said that the culture was in danger and expeditious acts were needed to protect it. “The Sindh Festival will make us aware of our existence. The heritage was under threat and the festival is an effort to protect it,” he said. However, it is not just Sindhi culture that is in danger; Pashtun, Baloch and Punjabi cultures are in danger too after Zia’s tyrannical 11-year-rule.
There is little doubt that after the demise of General Zia, Pakistan remains clearly divided between two distinct blocks, one associating itself with Bhutto, the other linked with Zia. The block representing Zia is gradually taking hold of Pakistan while the space for Bhutto’s mindset is shrinking. The recent threat from the Taliban to the peaceful Kalash community in Chitral to convert to Islam or prepare for elimination, or their stopping students in Peshawar University from celebrating Valentine’s Day instead of haya (modesty) day, are manifestations of that disturbing reality. The incessant attacks on Shias, Hindus and Ahmedis in Pakistan indicate that people belonging to Zia’s block hold the strings of our lives in their hands and that the militancy and religious extremism nurtured by Zia are making it impossible for people of other faiths or free thinkers (like me) to live in Pakistan. It seems that the sunlight is receding and the shadows are increasing in this God forsaken country.
The words ‘liberal’ and ‘secular’ have become gaalis (insults) in Pakistan. A good example of the dominance of Zia’s followers is the weakness of Bhutto’s own party on the small matter of unblocking access to the popular video sharing website YouTube, where it could not take on the radical elements belonging to Zia’s block. Who could foresee in the time of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto that one day his own liberal party, after forming the government, would feel so weak and powerless against the forces of darkness that it would dither in its decision to unblock the website? The PPP also failed to stand up for Salmaan Taseer when he was singled out by the media and religious forces for defending a woman accused of blasphemy. The constant media coverage awarded to Maulana Abdul Aziz, the man responsible for the killing of dozens of innocent people in the Red Mosque incident, is another reminder that Zia’s forces are dominating the mainstream discourse.
Bhutto was a symbol of modernity; Zia represented darkness and made Pakistan an entity of hatred where only Muslims of a certain school of thought could live, and where the more illogical one is, the more acceptance and appreciation they receive. He turned Pakistan into a laboratory of Islam, the kind that religious forces dreamed of: a laboratory that is under the control of militant groups and their sympathisers, who silence any voice remotely connected with modernity and liberalism. What crime did hundreds of Hazara Shias commit that they were killed by the scores in Quetta? What crime did Salmaan Taseer, Shahbaz Bhatti and others commit that they were killed? Meanwhile, Salmaan Taseer’s killer was garlanded with flowers, not by people in the tribal belt, but by people in Rawalpindi, in the heart of Pakistan.
The armed groups — the Sipahs and Lashkars — are so numerous that at times it feels like we have outsourced security matters to them.
When I see campaigns and banners demanding Jinnah’s Pakistan, I ask myself: is today’s Pakistan not, in fact, Jinnah’s Pakistan, despite the confusion and disorientation of the founding leadership? The leadership lacked a clear vision of what kind of Pakistan it wanted: a theocratic state or a liberal democratic state, of the kind Jinnah advocated in his speech just before the birth of Pakistan. Unfortunately, his decision to declare Urdu the national language gave the oppressors a tool that set the ground for alienation and separation. The language was later used by the Punjabi dominated ruling elite — led by Pakistan’s military — against the smaller ethnicities like the Pashtuns and Baloch. What could be more ironic than the fact that the millions who were uprooted from their villages, cities, their hearths and homes, their friends and dreams, the people who actually steered the Pakistan movement, are, to this day, called Mohajir and more derogatively Biharis?
Because of the poor vision and shortsightedness of our founding fathers, in our first constitutional document, the Objectives Resolution set the foundations of a state that would later embrace a particular group of oppressors like Zia who left no stone unturned in their quest to shrink the space for people belonging to other sects and religions, and free thinkers.
Bhutto can never be more relevant than today. When I say Bhutto I do not refer to the person of Bhutto or his party but the philosophy of modernity, liberalism and secular beliefs that existed in pre-Zia Pakistan. With the arrival of Zia, shadows descended on Pakistan. If change is the only constant in nature, then the time for change has come. What the shrinking majority of Pakistan wants is the Pakistan of Bhutto, clear in its direction and outlook, a modern, democratic and secular Pakistan that is, unfortunately, losing its ground to the onslaught of Zia’s followers and sympathisers.
The writer is a freelance journalist and can be reached at [email protected]