We have to decide whether political discourse needs to be couched in religious or secular narratives.
DUBAI: This is with reference to Ayesha Siddiqa’s article of January 3 titled “A closer look at Tahirul Qadri’s thesis”.
Why do people make an assumption that the democratic process is going to be derailed? Under any functional democracy, there will always be groups with demands to correct the system and that does not mean that they wish to undermine or disrupt the process. As for the Barelvi factor, it is true that they do not have the finances because they don’t get any foreign support. Having said that, it is possible that they, the peace-loving, tolerant Barelvi, have finally woken up? After all, they, too, were under attack from the Taliban who were destroying shrines. At the end of the day, we have to decide whether political discourse needs to be couched in religious or secular narratives.
Arif Qadri
Published in The Express Tribune, January 7th, 2013.
