The white of the flag

The outrage at the burning of two men by a Christian mob in Lahore in the aftermath of the church bombings in the city is both ignorant and parochial. While nothing can justify the murder of innocent people, the actions of the minority community must be seen and understood through the social construction of persecuted and isolated minority groups in the country, and not just as mob violence. For decades, the Christian and other minority communities have been socially excluded by the state and its people. There have been bombings on imambargahs, churches, gurdwaras and temples. The failure to provide for minorities to safely be able to go to their places of worship as promised by Mr Jinnah shortly after the creation of Pakistan is a failure of the state and the state must be held accountable.

The seeds of sectarian and inter-religious disharmony were sowed long before the current series of attacks against minorities and were instigated by the state itself. The state, in the Constitution, gives rights to minorities which should exist de facto and not just de jure. It seemingly does so as a favour to minority groups by the ruling majority. How then do we hold the state accountable for atrocities that it has helped perpetrate by instigating the tyranny of the majority?

What we must understand is that minority groups have long been told that they are ‘lesser’ Pakistanis. That the green in the Pakistani flag is bigger than the white is no coincidence but that is how it was meant to be. We have established the claim that Pakistan belongs more to a male, Sunni, Punjabi than anyone else. It is in this divide that we have not only isolated minority groups but pushed them to the periphery in policy-formulation and public discourse. Violence is a natural outlet of frustration in a country like Pakistan, and why would the minorities not be frustrated? They have been treated like second-class citizens from day one. The state has never been held accountable or answerable for its treatment of fringe groups and minorities. The state narrative of propagating interpretations of what it means to belong to a country has never been challenged. It is perhaps, time for introspection and challenging ourselves to redefine what it is to be a Pakistani. Do we, then, define our nationality on the basis of ethnicity, religion and language or is that against the inherent reason the state was partitioned from India in the first place?

The state apparatus and our ideological beliefs must be shaken, reconsidered and revamped. The state today gives more priority to putting a teenage criminal on death row rather than to arresting extremists and radicals who spew extremist ideologies in public spaces. Offices of banned outfits continue to publish and circulate hate speech and literature that incite sectarian violence all over Punjab. The state apparatus has done little to protect the basic right to life. The state has failed in its primary duties, the cogs have come off and we are witnessing its fragmentation first hand.

The same factions, once used in furthering the policy of ‘strategic depth’, are now using their impunity and resources to fight for their own cause. A monster has been let loose and the state has broken the social contract and lost its legitimacy over people it cannot protect. It has lost its authority over people it refuses to call its own. It has failed the people it promised to provide security to. The deeply instilled notions of viewing nationalism through theocratic ideas need to be rethought. The state’s notion of discrimination between religious groups on the basis of services, public goods and security must be challenged. The narratives of vested interests and external influences need to be discarded. It is time for deep introspection and revision of preconceived notions, which result in social exclusion, persecution and the repercussions of communal isolation. The white of the flag must be recognised to be as important as the green before it is covered in scarlet stains, for the toughness of stains doesn’t distinguish between the colours of the cloth.

Published in The Express Tribune, March  18^th,  2015.

Like Opinion & Editorial on Facebook, follow @ETOpEd on Twitter to receive all updates on all our daily pieces.