Moral collapse
most iniquitous fact pertaining to section 295-C of blasphemy laws is that it is an incitement to murder.
We now find ourselves ‘led’ by a bunch of pathetic and frightened men of what passes for government in this republic, which has rendered itself totally unfit to bear the appellation ‘Islamic’. The leading lights of the monstrous cabinet, constructed through blackmail and expediency, are refusing to publicly own up to what they know, that the most iniquitous fact pertaining to section 295-C of the blasphemy laws is that it is an incitement to murder. They dare not.
Their recent utterances betray their own fears that they may be targets of the no longer silent majority which has just opened itself up and shown us that it is quite the opposite of what for long it was touted to be. The silent majority has found, and we have heard, its voice and it is ugly and it is lethal. We have seen photographs in the press of the faces of the brainwashed majority — from old men to young boys — faces suffused with hatred, mouthing malignance. We have seen them on our electronic media, that great incitant which has fed and feeds the no longer silent majority and which is responsible for disseminating not only intolerance and bigotry but murderous loathing.
Young Bilawal B Zardari spoke up this past week from the relative safety of London Town. But there is a glaring disconnect between his utterances and those of the members of the party over which he has been installed to chair. He said many a right thing, he vowed not to succumb to fear, to protect the minorities, and he laid into the fearsome majority, who had lauded the murder of Salmaan Taseer merely because he supported an amendment (not the repeal) of the blasphemy laws. But he stopped short of telling his audience that he was in favour of dealing with the laws as they stand so that they could not be used as they are being used.
As for the disconnect, we have the co-chairman of the party maintaining a discreet silence post-Taseer on the matter of the laws, we have the ever-surrendering prime minister declaring “I am a Syed” and therefore touching the blasphemy laws is a no go. The interior minister is ready to commit murder should he come upon an alleged blasphemer and has disassociated his and Bilawal’s party from the private bill sent in by the PPP’s Sherry Rehman. The Monticello Man caved in again and added that Taseer’s murder was a "conspiracy", and the foreign minister merely termed it “sad”. A whole string of other honourable ministers have prostrated themselves and loudly enunciated the party’s intention not to even consider touching the laws that for years have led to murder. An excellent editorial in The Guardian on January 8 has termed the government’s reaction as “spineless capitulation”.
What has been forgotten by the shrinking minority, who still utter on the lethal section 295-C of the Pakistan Penal Code, is that, apart from his lonely official stance against this horribly misused law, Taseer was the only member of officialdom who dared to firmly speak up against the May 2010 suicide attack against the Ahmadis’ places of worship (we are not allowed to call them mosques) and who actually went to condole with the community. As his daughter, Shehrbano, has written in The New York Times of January 8: “After 86 members of the Ahmadi sect, considered blasphemous by fundamentalists, were murdered in attacks on two of their mosques in Lahore last May, to the great displeasure of the religious right my father visited the survivors in the hospital.” Well, the religious right finally got their man on another score. But there is a lesson to be learnt by all. From The Guardian editorial entitled “Pakistan: The moral collapse of a nation”: “Those who are too frightened to confront sectarian bigotry today will find themselves being consumed by it tomorrow.”
Published in The Express Tribune, January 15th, 2011.
Their recent utterances betray their own fears that they may be targets of the no longer silent majority which has just opened itself up and shown us that it is quite the opposite of what for long it was touted to be. The silent majority has found, and we have heard, its voice and it is ugly and it is lethal. We have seen photographs in the press of the faces of the brainwashed majority — from old men to young boys — faces suffused with hatred, mouthing malignance. We have seen them on our electronic media, that great incitant which has fed and feeds the no longer silent majority and which is responsible for disseminating not only intolerance and bigotry but murderous loathing.
Young Bilawal B Zardari spoke up this past week from the relative safety of London Town. But there is a glaring disconnect between his utterances and those of the members of the party over which he has been installed to chair. He said many a right thing, he vowed not to succumb to fear, to protect the minorities, and he laid into the fearsome majority, who had lauded the murder of Salmaan Taseer merely because he supported an amendment (not the repeal) of the blasphemy laws. But he stopped short of telling his audience that he was in favour of dealing with the laws as they stand so that they could not be used as they are being used.
As for the disconnect, we have the co-chairman of the party maintaining a discreet silence post-Taseer on the matter of the laws, we have the ever-surrendering prime minister declaring “I am a Syed” and therefore touching the blasphemy laws is a no go. The interior minister is ready to commit murder should he come upon an alleged blasphemer and has disassociated his and Bilawal’s party from the private bill sent in by the PPP’s Sherry Rehman. The Monticello Man caved in again and added that Taseer’s murder was a "conspiracy", and the foreign minister merely termed it “sad”. A whole string of other honourable ministers have prostrated themselves and loudly enunciated the party’s intention not to even consider touching the laws that for years have led to murder. An excellent editorial in The Guardian on January 8 has termed the government’s reaction as “spineless capitulation”.
What has been forgotten by the shrinking minority, who still utter on the lethal section 295-C of the Pakistan Penal Code, is that, apart from his lonely official stance against this horribly misused law, Taseer was the only member of officialdom who dared to firmly speak up against the May 2010 suicide attack against the Ahmadis’ places of worship (we are not allowed to call them mosques) and who actually went to condole with the community. As his daughter, Shehrbano, has written in The New York Times of January 8: “After 86 members of the Ahmadi sect, considered blasphemous by fundamentalists, were murdered in attacks on two of their mosques in Lahore last May, to the great displeasure of the religious right my father visited the survivors in the hospital.” Well, the religious right finally got their man on another score. But there is a lesson to be learnt by all. From The Guardian editorial entitled “Pakistan: The moral collapse of a nation”: “Those who are too frightened to confront sectarian bigotry today will find themselves being consumed by it tomorrow.”
Published in The Express Tribune, January 15th, 2011.