Statements like “Muslim cannot kill Muslim" cause a subconscious which has deeply-flawed ‘knowledge’,...
ST LOUIS, MO, US: After every bomb blast, people go around yapping “a Muslim cannot kill another Muslim and/or a Pakistani cannot kill another Muslim”. These words are uttered by people across the length and breadth of the country, from tea stalls all the way up to the interior minister, who doesn’t pass an opportunity to say something along these lines.
These statements cause a subconscious, but one which has deeply-flawed ‘knowledge’ and the reasoning is that “since the attackers cannot be Muslim or Pakistani, they must be enemies of Muslims and of Pakistan; and therefore they must be either Hindus or Jews”. This results in Pakistani Muslims (most of them) blaming others and failing to identify the dirt on their own sleeves.
Another sentence that I often hear and get angered by is when people say something like: “Why are you both fighting each other since both of you are Muslims”. The implication behind this is that it is all right to fight with non-Muslims.
Sajid I Barcha
Published in The Express Tribune, September 22nd, 2011.
