Pakistan’s growing intolerance

LAHORE: Intolerance has touched new heights in Pakistan and the most recent example of this is the shooting of a man by a shopkeeper for parking in front of his shop. These words are not mere fabrication because the cost of life in the country has indeed been reduced to a parking space.

On May 24th, a motorist parked his car near a mosque to offer prayers in Islamabad but a shopkeeper objected to the car being parked in front of his shop and as the argument escalated, the shopkeeper shot the motorist dead. To say that this happened in the holy month of Ramazan is a little pointless because we all know how much our pious brethren respect the month.

While we continue to breed monsters and give way to hate speech, many are losing their lives or are living in fear. Whether it is fear stemming from systematic oppression or owing to lax gun control laws that lets anyone obtain a gun and go on a shooting rampage, the blood is on all of us for sitting comfortably in our air-conditioned houses and doing nothing than tweeting out a condemnation.

Pakistan has become synonymous to extremism in the international community and growing intolerance on its land only reinforces it.

Faiz Warsi

Published in The Express Tribune, May 27^th, 2018.

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