There is a strange undertone in editorials and commentary condemning Dr Zulfiqar Mirza’s racist remarks made on July 13 against the Urdu-speaking community of Karachi.
Pick up any recent comment on Mirza’s outburst and you will notice he is being criticised not for the views or prejudices he aired per se, but for being ultimately responsible for setting the city of Karachi ablaze on that day. More than a dozen innocent lives were lost and much property was destroyed — the city was in the grip of fear again.
It is important to establish here that what I find troublesome is not that Dr Mirza is being targeted for being offensive towards the Mohajir community, but that he is also being lumped with the responsibility of triggering violence with his provocative remarks; that no one is explicitly laying any blame for the death and destruction caused at the Muttahida Qaumi Movement’s (MQM’s) doors.
MQM chief Altaf Hussain, on the other hand, has been praised for reining in his party workers and activists after an entire day of arson and killing in Karachi — for teaching only a short lesson to the city. He is not being criticised for not immediately calling for calm and preventing party workers and activists from heaving carnage on innocents. Interior Minister Rehman Malik “definitely appreciate[d] the role of Altaf Hussain for the restoration of peace in Karachi”.
Does such commentary not implicitly endorse the violent physical reaction by the MQM at the verbal, albeit racist and abhorrent, attack on the Urdu-speaking community?
The vein of journalistic comment on this episode reveals a startling collective state of mind. Whether it is only the men and women in the media who are victims of this state of mind, or whether this is reflective of Pakistani society as a whole would be an intriguing discovery to make. But the state of mind I allude to is the acceptance of physical violence in response to verbal attack or abuse.
Had this not been the case, editorials and comment would have condemned Mirza for what he said alone, without also blaming him for provoking the burning of Karachi. This laying of blame squarely and one-sidedly at his feet appears to indirectly condone the violent reaction of those whose ‘feelings’ have been hurt.
One editorial stated that Dr Mirza will have to be reined in if peace in Karachi is a goal; that a senior minister ought to keep in mind how remarks made in haste can hurt the sentiments of a major section of the population; that it is ordinary residents of Karachi who suffer as a result of such speech. Nowhere did this piece condemn the perpetrators of violence, unless the weakly worded single sentence at the tail-end mentioning ‘alleged’ aggression of the MQM to real or perceived affront can be called condemnation.
A news report in a different newspaper referred to Mirza’s “diatribe stoking the flames” and his ‘rant’ sparking an instant outburst of violent ‘protests’. The same story repeatedly refers to those indulging in aerial and targeted firing, arson and closure of the city by force as ‘protestors’.
Indeed the MQM chief Altaf Hussain has reportedly “commended and thanked journalists and the media for broadcasting reports based on facts”. This, after the guns fell silent after a single call from him for ending ‘peaceful’ protests by his party workers.
Twitter, too, was ablaze with angry reactions to Mirza’s abominable press conference. But not with angry reaction to the response by the MQM — that was taken for granted.
Such attitudes are a subtle acceptance that hurt feelings and emotions rightly result in physical violence. I make this suggestion because the ire of the media has been one-sided. There is no quibble with the words used to condemn what Dr Mirza said. But to not condemn even more strongly, and separately, what the MQM activists did to the lives and livelihoods of innocent people across Sindh in response, is far more dangerous.
In a very nuanced way, it is akin to accepting the murder of late Governor Punjab Salmaan Taseer for hurting the feelings of those who passionately love Prophet Mohammed (PBUH). The point is not that Governor Taseer did not actually blaspheme, or that Dr Mirza actually offended the feelings of a section of society. The point is that physical violence should be unacceptable as a response to real or perceived hurt emotions.
But the vein of national commentary and discourse on the Dr Mirza episode fails to recognise this and reveals the subconscious acceptance, deep within the psyche of society, of emotional hurt justifying physical action.
Take, for example, the most common explanation offered in Governor Taseer’s defence: that he did not actually blaspheme and that therefore his killer, Mumtaz Qadri, should not have been offended in the first place. This is a sorry apology by those who lack the courage to say outright that any kind of insult, whatsoever, does not justify physical violence or punishment.
Even if Governor Taseer had blasphemed (for argument’s sake only), and hurt people’s religious feelings, there was no justification for his killing. Even if Dr Mirza had hurt ethnic feelings, there could be no justification for killing innocents.
And this recognition is largely missing from national commentary and discourse on the Mirza episode. It is a frightening sign of how this society submits to violence.
The writer is a journalist and can be reached at [email protected]