When I was 17 years old and doing my A Levels, I had the good fortune of having a teacher who helped shape my personality. Fiery and passionate, this remarkable young woman, Uzma Shakir, was fresh out of university. She was teaching World History, but she spent hours talking to a handful of girls (it’s odd that there were no boys in that class) about Pakistan’s Hudood Ordinance and blasphemy law. So much of how I think is determined by those conversations, and for that I will always be grateful to her.
Over the years, there have been many occasions that have reminded me of her. Gojra is one of those. While I know that it is not an isolated incident and is one in a series, as illustrated in an editorial in the Daily Times, I find the complexity of the story terrifying. It speaks of the mindset of most Pakistanis, the legislation that enforces it, the complicity of the police and politicians certainly on the local government level and the unchecked extremism beyond the Taliban.
My first blog with Dawn was in response to a survey that said Pakistanis are changing their perspective on Taliban and Al Qaeda. I questioned if that were really the case as the persecution of minorities, specifically religious minorities, continues as we saw in Kasur a couple of months ago. Many comments indicated that the two were unrelated. Really? How exactly is the persecution of a religious community unrelated to the existence and growth of religious extremism and how we view the latter?
We are talking about an increase in Islamic extremism to which any dissent is not tolerated. Blogger Sana Saleem requested me on Twitter to ask my guest on Breakfast at Dawn, Khalid Zaheer, if he and other liberal Islamic scholars would come together to condemn Gojra as they did against Taliban atrocities. His answer was disappointing but understandable. He said, ‘No. This is the sad part of the story.’ Men of religion who have protested this extreme interpretation of Islam that is consuming Pakistan have been repeatedly targeted. Initially, they contended with threats and later, were killed for their views. The Taliban killed Maulana Hassan Jan, a religious scholar from Peshawar, who issued a fatwa against suicide attacks, calling them ‘un-Islamic.’ In June, Maulana Sarfraz Naeemi, the director of a madrassa who had also spoken out against the militant extremists, was killed in a suicide bombing.
It is being said that the local administration was ‘negligent’ in that it ignored a directive from the provincial government to control the situation. The ‘negligence’ was the reason behind the outbreak of violence. There is also conjecture that members of the banned organisation, Sipah-e-Sahaba, came in from Jhang to burn Christian homes. There are reports that the ‘negligent’ police and local administration ‘simply did nothing.’ There is a big difference between being ‘negligent,’ which is to neglect your duties, and complicit, where you choose to be involved in an illegal act. In a case where more than 50 houses and a church were destroyed, and seven people were burnt alive, when the police and local administration simply do not act is that negligence or complicity? (Mind you, this was a Christian-only locality called Christian Town – is that not indicative of religious discrimination?)
Meanwhile, Pakistanis (and many educated ones) are quick to look for a conspiracy theory. Some have commented to me on how ‘fishy’ the timing of the incident is. Whenever something good happens to us, something bad comes along to counter it. This would be in reference to the Supreme Court decision. It’s very easy to blame others for our troubles. The fact is that organisations such as the Sipah-e-Sahaba and the Lashkar-e-Taiba may be defunct in name, but they still wield enough power to instigate such incidents.
And as I mentioned, there are laws in this country that uphold religious discrimination. It is not for nothing that the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan has been calling to repeal the blasphemy law since its inception.
As Dr Eqbal Ahmed, a man of whom Pakistanis can be proud, described as ‘that rare thing, an intellectual intimidated by neither power nor authority’ and likened to his friend and peer, Noam Chomsky, wrote:
The lesson is clear; the blasphemy law not only violates fundamental principles of justice, it distorts law into an instrument of sectarian witch-hunts and also of collective and individual reprisal. Its victims have ranged from an innocent Hafiz who was burned to death by a frenzied mob, to Pakistan’s most renowned social engineer Dr Akhtar Hameed Khan who suffered years of harassment, death threats and litigation for unsubstantiated allegations of blasphemy. One can only concur with HRCP’s view that the ‘potential of blasphemy laws in promoting fanaticism and helping public mischief has once again been proved – at an enormous cost to thousands of people and to the national image as a whole.’ The law ought to be repealed, and it is timely to do so now.
He wrote that passage in 1997. Look at where we are now.
Naveen Naqvi is a senior anchor at DawnNews and presents the morning news programme, Breakfast at Dawn, on weekday mornings at 8:05 a.m . She is currently working on a novel, Guilt, and tweets at Naveen Naqvi is a senior anchor at DawnNews and presents the morning news programme, Breakfast at Dawn, on weekday mornings at 8:05 a.m . She is currently working on a novel, Guilt, and tweets at twitter.com/naveenaqvi.
The views expressed by this blogger and in the following reader comments do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of the Dawn Media Group.
I salute all those who have raised their voice against this abominable and injust incident of Gojra. I take strong exception of one of the comments made above by a gentleman who has accused Dawn for giving out of the way coverage to this incident and has quoted some injustices being meted out to muslims in west. Let me clear one thing that undoubtedly there are many individuals in the west who discriminate against followers of other religion, probably more specifically against Muslims but discrimination becomes more abhorable when it is practiced by the society at large and the state itself. I have been living in a western country but I have never come across any law which prohibits me from progressing in social and political sphere just because of my religious affiliations. Except in rare cases where information is required for some statistical purpose, no employer asks you about your religious affiliations. There are many mosques, churches, synagogues and temples around. I have never witnessed any incident where a mob attacked a mosque and the police stood by as a silent spectator.
The religious discrimination in Pakistan becomes more aggravated because in many instances it is being practiced by the state itself. There are many laws in our statute which openly discriminates against the minorities. Despite more than 90% muslim population in Pakistan, I may not imagine if there was any single employment form that I filled in Pakistan had not asked me about my religious affiliations. Even then many insatiated employers insisted to know which sect i belonged to.
So I am of strong opinion that Gojra incident is not any one isolated incident of religious discrimination against a particular minority but it is reflective of general state of affairs in our country where acts of violence against minorities are carried out in organized fashion and law enforcement agencies act not more than a silent spectator.
Last but not the least, even if we assume that such religious intolerance is also practiced by western countries, violence against minorities in Pakistan cannot be justified because we claim to be the followers of Holy Prophet Muhammad(Peace be upon him) who preached and practiced peace and love for the whole humanity through out his life.
I wish one day Pakistan will become a state where its citizens will not be judged by their religious or ethnic affiliations but on the basis of their character.
Thank you Miss Naveen Naqvi for adding your part in highlighting these pressing issues of intolerance and weak administration which were the reult of hell on earth in Gojra. I would like to read the words of Jesus Christ from the Holy Gospel, “The Sabbaoth was made for man, not man for the Sabbaoth” (Gospel of Saint Mark 2: 27). Religion is for human being or human being is for religion?
The only solution to this problem is that the persons involved in these acts should be forced to convert to some other religion and denied government facilities like water, electricity, ration, voting rights etc.
Negligent behavior of local administration , provincial & federal government is a threat to whole society.
Shall they be accountable for thier negligence.
I agree with your thoughts. My concern is how to educate the people to think about “Allah” before killing some one for the name of “Allah”. We are killing people for the sake of one who is full of mercy and love.This is a time when we shold protect Pakistan from these people who want to make it difficult for minorities. No Christian can dare to speak against Islam or “Quran”. Why would they do it when they know that we all live togather not for years but for genarations. I appeal every Pakistani to think before doing any action for “Allah”
Thanks
Babar
Where do i start on this….
First of all thanks for looking at this tragedy from a different angle, i personally do not believe that the mob acted the way they did because of the blasphemy law but the law definitely provides them protection after the act had been committed.
Both blasphemy and Hadood laws are there to protect criminals that take cover of religion for their acts, Gen. Zia took cover of religion of his own illegal act of martial law so we could not expect anything better from that “Mard-e-Mujahid”.
Now coming to the current state of our nation, for the last about 20 or so years, violence, terrorism, and extremism has become part of our DNA. Islam has been around for over 1400+ years, but in the last 20 years or so there has been a staggered shift from sufism to more puritan wahabism specially in Pakistan and the violent factor added during the afghan – soviet war with US and Saudi funding.
I was visiting Pakistan when the flogging incident in Swat happened and was appalled to see that people were scared to openly oppose it mostly because they thought that it may look inhuman but it must be islamic since the taliban are doing it, and i’m not talking about illiterate people, most of these people were high profile educated people including doctors and educators and several educated women that have been influenced by what i call female wing of Al-Qaida (Al-Huda).
I am disgusted to see people on different forums saying that a muslim cannot be a part of a brutal act, a Muslim cannot kill another human and so on, are we living on different planets? What would make us realize that its US killing our own people its US that make the animal kingdom look more civilized, we should be ashamed to call ourselves humans. We can blame it all we want on jews, india and the United States but in reality its us setting our own house on fire.
I totally agree with Naveen about the local administration and the police as being part of the crime, would they have done the same if it were a cristian mob attacking muslim houses?
Its our current state of mind, its the worm occupying our brains that we need to get rid of.
I love my country but sometime it gets really hard to feel proud about being a Pakistani and i really hope that changes one day…
DAWN appears to be going out of its way to provide extra coverage to the tragic Gojra events. Conversely in the US, UK and the WEST in general many such events against Muslims take place daily. For example, masjid graffiti, masjid burnings, masjid vandalism and muslim harassment, discrimination and yes even killing of imams (one recent case in California) etc. BUT the Western media (both local or national) TOTALLY ignores these stories. Maybe DAWN should start similar coverage of these anti-Muslim episodes in the WEST. You can start with CAIR website that covers some of these anti-Muslim events in the US/Canada on a daily basis.
So my suggestion to DAWN is to cover extremism on both sides instead of just becoming the PAID mouth piece of the western agenda otherwise you have no credibility on the subject.
Spanish Inquisition, anyone?
How can this be related to the blasphemy laws,that was a voilent act, it shows the voilence in our society, was the mob who attacked the christian coloney following a law,and similar incidents of voilence have been witnessed in near past as well, when angry people burnt train in Jhang, when people caught a robber in karachi & they burned him, these all incidents are because of frustration & voilence in our society,
the blasphemy laws are just laws, which stat that in case of any ‘case’ the accused has to be produced in courts & only a clean judicial process will announce the fate of accused whether he is guilty or not.
Note : I posted a similar post yesterday & it was also pusblised, dont know why it disappeared today. Is it deleted ?
I think this is negligence of local administration as they did not take it serious when the mob has started since Thursday.
Law enforcement institutes needs to be strengthened and trained well enough to face such situations. This is the responsibility of state to protect its citizens nevertheless to their religion. i believe this is another blow to destroy the image of Islam and Pakistan.
I don’t know where to begin. First, I feel encouraged that many Pakistani Muslims have treated the Gojra tragedy as a national issue. A divided society will fall eventually. It is a lesson from the history. Abraham Lincoln knew it.
Diversity in the social fabric is said to be as wholesome as it is in business.
Perhaps more facilities like camps, where each group should set a challenge to show how it would be best for Pakistan? Hopefully, it might bring to light that we all need each other, and have to live in the modern world.
It needs time, and as I see it there are so many problems that await Pakistan’s attention. But this issue too cannot wait either.
I do not think that the local people of Gojra were even aware of the Blasphemy law. It is in the nature of the mob in our country to go out and look for blood in the name of religion and/or country. And of course i do condemn the law by all means!
Strange…this incident didn’t get blamed on US or India…
Hi Naveen,
Agree word by word to what you have said. But just look around and see how many of us are really thinking like this. And even those who are thinking; are they courageous enough to stand for their thoughts – if they have to ???
History of Religious discrimination is a dark subject over which the society of this country should be ashamed of. A country which was built by a great Muslim on the foundations of the very basic principals of Islam; is the brand name for every kind of corruption and manhandling of minorities. Though misrepresenting Islam is being practiced most comprehensively in this country. But yes, the issue of manhandling of minorities is something that rings the bells in the farthest corners of the globe as well. But you know, who cares. When we already have enough in our spilling-off plate then what if some just flows away. Declaring the Ahmadiyya Community “Non Muslim” in 1974 had been considered as a great milestone in the history of this country but that was not all. Persecuting them, Burning their houses, intimidating their generations, pushing them away from professional colleges, throwing them away from Research Projects of National Significance, Demolishing and Painting black on Kalima Tayyaba in their prayer places (they cant call it mosque as they wish to). And not to mention killing scores of those Ahmadies who were actually the healers to the sufferings of others (ref. to the recent train of killings of doctors belonging to this poor community).
This is not going to change. Today this society teaches it’s generations over dinner table that Christians are bad, Hindus are dishonest, Ahmadies are disloyal to this country and the list goes on. Schools, discussions, street talks everywhere the minds are being contaminated. What crop we should be expecting then ?
Islam was the religion which defined the basics of humanity almost fifteen hundred years ago. The same basics of equality, tolerance, justice are the ones on which Western society established its foundations and are ruling not only the territories but also hearts. But again who cares. We are more concerned with the killing of our “personal” opponents for our individual gains, and yes the law will be at our rescue of course.
Hopes we cant quit to have…
Strengthen we have to each other…
to safeguard the True Islam, to protect our country and to pass on a better society to our generations.
All the Best to all those who are on this side ….
Get RID of the that Beastly Blasphemy ‘law’ Pakistan.
This barbaric ‘unlaw’ is a blot on the forehead of a modern 21st century Pakistan.
Time for Zardari, Gilani, Nawaz Sharif, Shahbaz Sharif and CJ Chaudhry to stand up and KILL this odious non-law.
This ‘law’ is a crime against humanity. Abolish it.
It is heartening to see that voices of reason have not been totally extinguished in Pakistan. The image of this region and Pakistan in particular is so hijacked by the fatwas and intolerant rantings of the bigots, some time voices of Naveen and the editorial on Gojra is like breath of fresh air. Keep it up Dawn!
Massacres like the one at Gojra will keep happening till religion stays a matter of the State.
Why is religious extremism allowed to brew? why is anyones religion a matter of the other? religious beliefs are meant to be personal and no one should be allowed to damage, hurt or destroy based on their belief.
Pakistan was created as a haven for minorities, muslims being among them in the sub-continent. All religions are meant to be practiced freely and without fear in this country. But like everything else, intolerance, cruelty are rife and allowed to grow like poisonous mushrooms. Where are the troops, why does the law not protect the weak? This is a corrupt country where the leaders are only interested in the ever deepening pockets and how and where to satiate their greed from.
How long before Pakistan becomes Rwanda??
Maybe we should all stop focussing so hard on how to become good muslims and try to just be good people!
Religious fanaticism should be crushed and our Governments should be made accountable.
Thank you to you and to Miss Uzma Shakir. She sounds like my Law teacher from my A level years. She helped me look beyond my circumstances- she helped me see that in spite of the threat of the Blasphemy law there was hope for me as a Pakistani Christians. Thank you for looking beyond the negligence.
To this day I cringe when the press in Pakistan calls us ‘Minorities’. That is granted but do we talk about Pakistan’s Muslims as the majority? I look toward a day when we will not be sub titled within our nation, we will not be another category, underlined and written in pretty ink like the subject entries in a class 3 copy book.
I do not want a ten out of ten on being a neat category in Pakistan or a zero on ten for being a problematic category or a hardship case. I am not a discussion topic. I am a Pakistani Christian. It was not some of ‘Pakistan’s small Christians minority’ who were violated. IT WAS PAKISTANI CHRISTIANS who were attacked. First our identity as Pakistanis was put aside by those who brought this aggression against us, then the press further disconnects us from Pakistan’s reality and denies us full citizenship but calling us ‘the minority’. THE WHOLE WORLD KNOWS THAT WE ARE A MINORITY – what they do not know is that Pakistan has Christians. Even today in the 21st Century I see shock on the faces of British born Pakistanis and US based Pakistanis as much as on the faces of Westerners when they come across a Pakistani Christians. I look to the day I will sense ownership in Pakistan for those who have a different faith.
As a child I looked to a future when my country could boast a press and a media that demonstrated the intelligence of my people. Today I seek a future when this very press will demonstrate their clarity and their ability and go beyond their band wagon mentality. This is not Orissa, this is not Iran, this is not Swat, this is not a topic for discussion, this was a tragedy that happened to Pakistan’s people, people who were violated for their religious identity, for the contained hatred against the Christians of Pakistan by those who also see us as a minority group, but one that Pakistan must be cleansed of, one that unfairly and unintelligently reminds them of the West and all that they abhor.
I look to a future when we will not be Isai Chooras or seen as synonymous with the WEST, but Pakistani Christians able to practise our faith and live our lives as directed by the Gospel (which is by the way Middle Eastern). I look to a future when our people will be employed and will have a valid alibi to that favourite accusation of violating Islam. Pakistan’s minority does have better things to do.
I doubt if this is anything other than basic hate, now organized by organizations such as SSP to further their agenda of militarization and dismemberment of our society.
We need to do a rethink on the laws of this country and repel those which are unjust, i wish our judiciary would focus more on changing these archaic and discriminatory laws rather than what is happening right now.
There is no conspiracy theory to justify oppression be it religious or gender based, great post btw!