“When the country,
into which I had just set my foot,
was set on fire about my ears,
it was time to stir.
It was time for every man [/woman] to stir” — Thomas Paine.
Imperialist, anti-imperialist, pro-drone, anti-drone, right-wing, left-wing, liberal, mullah, fascist, liberal fascist (!), progressive, no, no: secular. It is a difficult world we live in: violent, painfully hyper-connected, judgmental. With so much polarisation in the world, it is hardly surprising that Pakistan is also home to varied and ever opposing views. Except that in our case we seem to have made intolerance, violence and apathy into an art form, where the grotesque seems to be the norm.
Belonging to a country that is being touted as the safest place on earth for terrorists does not do much for your self-esteem. It also does not help when the few people who defend human rights and fight against repression and injustice are persecuted not just by a specific group but society as a whole. The intolerance we embrace and cultivate is resolved through violence that is directed at the vulnerable, the weak and those who dare to question the norm. For more than 35 years Pakistan has celebrated its hypocrisy by targeting the ostracised Ahmediyya community for their beliefs. Worse still, we feel no shame in our hypocrisy; rather we wear it as a badge of ‘honour’. The process of normalisation of violence and intolerance in the name of religion and/or morality has now finally come to a point where the country is sinking under the weight of its own bigoted intolerance.
And it is this very intolerance that took the life of Salmaan Taseer, the flamboyant governor of Punjab killed by a man assigned to protect him. In January this year, we lost a man who courageously stood by Aasia Bibi, a vulnerable woman, and did not back off when faced with extreme hatred by those who hold Pakistan hostage to senseless madness perpetrated in the name of religion. Make no mistake, Salmaan Taseer was murdered in cold blood by a crazed lunatic who believed he was defending his religion from a man who ‘deserved’ to die because he chose to live his life without apology. Mumtaz Qadri, the creepy smiling murderer, was later hailed not just by the religious right but seemingly normal, educated people who, if not loudly condoning the killing, somehow rationalised it to be the direct result of Taseer’s personal life or his “reckless” disregard for society’s norms (which now include bowing down to the blasphemy laws). How does one man’s personal life lead to him being killed for defending the rights of one poor Christian woman arrested under the most useless, archaic, inhumane laws ever? You really do not have to be super-human to understand that murder is wrong, religion cannot be forced, and opinions (even if you do not like them) are to be tolerated. It does not get simpler than this: there is enough space within the state to accommodate diverse opinions — excluding those that fall within the purview of hate speech. Those who directly attribute Salmaan Taseer’s assassination to a society that is rabidly embracing extremism are not wrong by any means but there is also the need to focus on the latent tolerance for bigotry within us. Be it the blasphemy laws in Pakistan, torture techniques used in the war on terror or the horrifying persecution of the Ahmediyya community (and to a large degree all religious minorities) in Pakistan, when will we stand up for our friends, our neighbours, the man/woman on the street?
The fact that it is considered ‘brave’ to write in support of the Ahmedis, the fact that we are grateful when someone speaks up against tyranny, terrorism and persecution speaks volumes about who we have become. With decades of military-led propaganda, religious radicalism and an ever-growing regressive attitude, we are a society that does not recognise human rights abuses, in particular those directed toward women, the poor, and those we call religious minorities.
A country in which the coldblooded killer of a man is applauded rather than censured because the man killed is believed to have been irreligious or immoral, where a rape survivor is forced to hide in shame, where religion becomes everyone’s business, cannot survive for long. It is foolish to think that it is just the madrassas that are promoting a jihadi mentality; there are clearly much deeper issues at play here. It is time to stir, to demand a secular rebirth and use the law for good, not evil. Those young people on Facebook hailing Qadri as a hero are not poor, madrassa-educated folk. Not all belong to a military background either, and a whole a lot of them are known to all of us. The elite that sits in comfort while the country burns around it, the religious propagandist who promises 72 virgins to suicide bombers, and the military man who has wreaked havoc in the country are our friends, families and neighbours. We will continue to meet them because who here has the guts to stand up against hypocrisy?
Do you?
The writer is an editor/social media junkie and unapologetic feminist based in New York. She can be found wandering aimlessly through the streets of NYC, or here: [email protected]