I request the media in general and our political leadership in particular to stop using the word ‘minorities’
LAHORE: Another gruesome, hideous horrible and terrible incident shocked and confounded the whole nation, with bombings targeting churches in Lahore. The country’s prime minister called these attacks on the state probably forgetting that such attacks on the state are now a matter of routine and have been taking place for the last decade or so. The media and our clownish political leadership continue to utter the word ‘minorities’ as if it was the killing not of human beings but of some other being. As if the dead and injured were not Pakistanis but a far-off people called the ‘minorities’. We have forgotten the famous words of Muhammad Ali Jinnah in 1947, when he stated that citizens of Pakistan were free to go to their temples, mosques and any other place of worship. He never used the word ‘minorities’.
Our leadership is busy inaugurating motorways and throwing away billions of rupees on Metro Bus projects all over Punjab. Do we really need such mega projects when even the worshippers in our country are not safe? The amount being wasted on mega projects could be used to enhance the safety and security of the citizens and the state of Pakistan.
Through this letter, I request the media in general and our political leadership in particular to stop using the word ‘minorities’. All those living in the state of Pakistan are Pakistanis and Pakistanis only. Don’t forget the pre-1971 history of the country, when our brothers in East Pakistan were in a majority and while no leader from the western wing referred to them as ‘minorities’, they were treated as such. Please don’t wrap up the issue by uttering hackneyed statements of condemnations, which act like a salt on the wounds of those who lose their loved ones. Instead of issuing such statements, it is the utmost duty of the leadership to visit the scene of the crime and share the sorrow of those who have borne losses.
Aamir Aqil
Published in The Express Tribune, March 17th, 2015.
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