Daily Times

The only thing worse than unexpected tragedies is when they are expected. Anticipated and probable catastrophes do not allow for the luxury of pleading jolt and disbelief. Shahbaz Bhatti’s martyrdom, while infinitely tragic, had no element of sudden shock. Lamenting the pervasive barbaric intolerance in our society cannot obscure the fact that Shahbaz Bhatti was swimming upstream and was bound to be eliminated sooner rather than later, and more significantly all of us knew of the situation. Shahbaz Bhatti towered conspicuously over the monolithic crowd of cowards for all to see. Yet, we act shocked.

The homicidal religious fundamentalists are the easiest to blame; in most cases they save us the trouble and accept responsibility themselves. The immediate reaction of many liberals, moderate and the secular in Pakistan to Shahbaz Bhatti’s martyrdom was of “shame”. Similar response of being “ashamed” was witnessed when Ahmedi worship places were attacked and wanton murder committed. The ostensible reason for the ‘shame’ is our failure to protect ‘them’ from the barbarians. The reaction, while in good faith, unconsciously reinforces at some level the bigotry which provides impetus to the lunacy plaguing us. The intuitive reaction to an attack on the Data Darbar Shrine or the FIA building is of horror, dismay and revulsion, but rarely shame. Being ‘ashamed’ presumes an audience to witness our shortcomings and impropriety. It signifies mortification at our inability to protect our ‘minorities’. However, it creates and perpetuates the artificial divides that distance us from the actors involved and hence makes it easier for us to be melancholic, passionate and poetic about these tragedies. The immediate response of senior politicians to Shahbaz Bhatti’s martyrdom was almost exclusively concerned with the consequences the assassination would have for the image of the country. The instrumentality and the inertness of this diabolical response are nauseating; the brutal act is trivialised as we delve into concerns of our image and shame. We should be ashamed of the deeds of our fellow beings as humans, but as citizens of Pakistan we are all guilty. ‘We’ have failed to protect ‘us’ from ‘ourselves’. Do not feel ‘ashamed’, instead feel ‘guilty’. Today, we need guilt exponentially more than we need shame.

In 1765, a 16-year-old boy by the name of La Barre was arrested in Paris on the charge of having mutilated crucifixes. His head was cut off, and his body flung into the flames, while the crowd applauded. A copy of Voltaire’s Philosophic Dictionary, which had been found with the boy, was burnt with the body. Voltaire up to that point was ashamed of the society that he lived in, and satirised the insanity around him. The incident transformed Voltaire from his amusing courteous scepticism to a thoroughly serious and ferocious critic of ecclesiastical tyranny. Voltaire’s shame had turned into his guilt. All his subsequent letters were signed Écrasez l’infâme (crush the infamy). Writing about that time, Voltaire says, “During this time not a smile escaped me without reproaching myself for it as for a crime.”

We should feel guilty for every time we have listened silently to the local imam spewing sectarian hatred. We should feel guilty for allowing hate-mongers on our national television to pollute our airwaves with their venom. We should feel guilty for not filing court cases against those who incite murder in our midst. We should feel guilty for not speaking against the adulation of the likes of Ghazi Ilam Din for the commission of extra-judicial murders. We should feel guilty for each time we justify our muteness as a strategic move for the long ideological battle. We should feel guilty about our failure to say in public what we passionately advocate in private. We should feel guilty for the murders of Salmaan Taseer and Shahbaz Bhatti. I feel guilty today for not having the courage to say more, and more viciously. Above all, today we should feel guilty about not being worthy of the assassin’s bullet.

Will the recognition of our guilt put an end to the mindless bloodshed? Will feeling guilty infuse in us a spirit to stir the soul of our nation’s conscience? Will guilt provide us with the moral and intellectual fire to destroy tyranny? The short answer is probably not. However, it is at least honest; it is the decent thing.

Shahbaz Bhatti was 42-years-old, unmarried and remarkably young for his grand political and moral achievements, cut short in the prime of his political career. I feel compelled to write to his father with these lines from the last scene of Macbeth. And doubtless I would have, had he not passed away from a heart attack after hearing the news about Salmaan Taseer’s martyrdom:

“Your son, my lord, has paid a soldier’s debt;

He only lived but till he was a man;

The which no sooner had his prowess confirm’d,

In the unshrinking station where he fought,

But like a man he died.”

The writer is a lawyer based in Lahore and can be reached at saroop_ijaz@hotmail.com