This Ramazan has been a gory one indeed. From Bangladesh to Baghdad, Istanbul to Orlando, Islamic State — or those inspired by them — has killed 480 people, most of them Muslim. Of all the commandments we choose to follow, the ones against murder seem to be the most easily ignored. We kill in the name of God who expressly tells us not to for reasons that are ultimately very worldly indeed. Behind every ethnic, religious or sexual crime, there is greed, fear, shame or resentment. Pakistanis are no strangers to hate, nor to hate crimes. The tally of dead who belonged to the wrong religion, or sect, or tribe, or who followed the same God a little differently, continues to rise. Broken bodies leave behind hardened spirits, and the cycle of hate and vengeance continues.
Pakistan lost two luminaries this past month; both promoted tolerance and love, rather than division and hate. Amjad Sabri, scion of a family of qawaals, was killed for the Sufi values that defined his art. Accused of blasphemy by hate-mongers, he became a target for those who profit from chaos. A voice promoting mysticism and love silenced by peddlers of hate.
Abdul Sattar Edhi, who died on Friday, also advocated tolerance. Remaining apolitical, he understood that hate yields despair, which begets violence, and so he made it his life’s work to improve the lot of his fellow citizens. A humanist, Edhi did not distinguish between caste or creed, providing essential services to all. As the tributes pour in for Edhi, it is important to consider his legacy, and to remember his eagerness to help all those in need — not just members of his particular sect, or religion, or country. Edhi was a beacon of tolerance in a society that differentiates between its citizens as rigourously as ours does. All Pakistanis are not created “equal,” the three percent who aren’t Muslim especially so. They are subject to racist schoolyard taunts, limited opportunity, and shadowy blasphemy laws, yet hackles are raised when Muslims abroad are treated like second-class citizens. Geography somehow manages to efface the otherwise all-important distinctions between the various types of Sunni and Shia sects.
We talk darkly about Donald Trump’s anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant rhetoric, which classifies some as more American than others. Europe’s response to its influx of largely Muslim refugees also yields much parsimonious hand wringing. O the plight of a dispersed ummah, fleeing the terrors inflicted by other co-religionists. We may primly point to the roughly 2.5 million Afghan refugees (about one million of whom are undocumented) we have hosted for 35 odd years as evidence of our superiority. With uncertain legal status in the country, they are regularly harassed, threatened and exploited. Similar treatment is meted out to various Muslim sects, some of whom are barred from using Islamic terminology, and must worship in the shadows.
It is a great irony that we criticise the West for its treatment of minorities while rampantly mistreating not only our minorities, for there are few enough, but also those members of the majority that aren’t quite the right majority. PEMRA banned an actor from using his Ramazan show to discuss the plight of Ahmedis, and cancelled a TV show highlighting child abuse; but the image of Pakistan it purports to protect is tarnished by clampdowns on such freedoms. Pakistan was created by minorities, and was intended as a haven from intolerance, yet non-Muslims — however they are deemed thus — are barred from the highest offices in the land.
Too many of us suffer at the hands of those who fail to understand that we are the sum of our parts; the earth is stained with the same red no matter the caste, creed or orientation of the victim. The word “gay” began as a marginalised community’s cry to be accepted by a wider society that feared and consequently shunned it. Muslims today can relate to this desire to be understood by societies they inhabit, particularly as minorities. The shooting in Orlando sharply illustrates the motivations behind all the attacks this bloodied Ramazan. It was a crime of hate, against those who have lived with prejudice and striven to overcome it. We are all gay, or “good as you,” clamouring to be heard amid the din, wanting nothing more than to be treated with humanity. Why should Pakistanis care? Because we know what it feels like to be punished for belonging to the wrong tribe, loving the wrong person, praying to the wrong God. Because Amjad Sabri cannot heal our souls with his music, and Abdul Sattar Edhi can no longer soothe our conscience.
The writer is a freelance columnist