Dr Auj had a dream to liberate the Pakistani society from the clutches of communalism.
MELBOURNE: The cold blooded murder of Dr Shakil Auj pains every fair heart. The professor was killed in broad daylight in a busy town of perennially troubled city of Karachi. Looking from the angle of the ongoing spree of targeted killings, the incident is yet another of its kind, but the silencing of a moderate voice in an increasingly intolerant society is an extremely huge loss.
The gene of intolerance was created and released during the Afghan Jihad and is a result of an imported interpretation of faith so that the war could be fought in Afghanistan against communist infidels of Afghanistan and Russia. The policy had dual purpose — the other purpose was to foster a homogenous society. The state’s policy was very much in line with the ideology of Pakistan, according to which the only common denominator in the country was faith and if there could ever be a united Pakistani nation, it was only possible by controlling the population’s thought process. The Pakistani society as result of this policy of purification has become so intolerant and fragmented that any voice of dissent is deemed to be made silent. The exclusive mindset of brainwashed extremist elements of the Paksitani society is imposing its ideology through the barrel of the gun. It is the utmost duty of the state apparatus to provide an environment to all citizens in which they can think and act as per their beliefs.
Dr Auj had a dream to liberate the Pakistani society from the clutches of communalism. He was providing a counter-narrative to stand the challenge from the rabid right but perished in the line of duty. Recently, many of our moderate religious thinkers have been silenced. Does it mean that the Pakistani state has chosen the path of ‘purification’ to turn the country into a real land of pure? Society is bleeding and tensions growing, would that lead us into anarchy where people take law into their own hands?
Let us hope that Dr Shakil Auj’s murder wakes few numb heads.
Malik Atif Mahmood Majoka
Published in The Express Tribune, September 30th, 2014.
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