The bigotry within ‘Us’

It is unreasonable to demand or expect to ask for loved ones to be protected from violent attacks anymore. Yet, is it time for us to give up any hope of anyone’s memory being honoured decently, sympathy and empathy shown? The Christians of Youhanabad, Lahore certainly were denied that small courtesy. Those whose loved ones died in the church attacks in Youhanabad were not granted a proper mourning, and instead were expected to be apologetic about the actions of some of their ‘community’ members.

Moral equivalence is tricky business at best, often degenerating to simple nastiness and hypocrisy. Churches were attacked in Youhanabad, Lahore, by an organised group that believes that anyone not sharing its faith (or even the particular brand of the faith) should be killed, women and children included, their places of worship blown to smithereens. A mob lynched two young innocent men for no good reason; horrific murder plain and simple. Murder is a murder and a lynching is a lynching. Indeed. Yet, there are different brands of violence at play. One is part of systemic murderous pogrom against non-Muslims and the wrong kind of Muslims and the other is random mob violence. The only commonality between the two is an unravelling state and impotent government with monopoly over violence completely lost.

The attacks in Youhanabad and the lynching were horrific enough, without the collective state and society’s latent bigotry in response. Along the lines of, ‘Both (the attacks on churches and the lynching) are terrorism’, ‘Christian community should show restraint and apologise for the murder of innocent Muslims’ etc. In one stroke, the historic and ongoing persecution of the Christians in Pakistan was not only equated with one act of violence, the ‘Christian community’ became the persecutor, the murderer. Never mind the inescapable and trite refrain ‘terrorism and terrorists have no religion’ that permeates the airwaves 24/7; it seems ‘terrorists have no religion in Pakistan unless they do have a religion other than the majority religion and in that event the entire community has to apologise, be demonised and persecuted even further’. Rupert Murdoch will be thrilled to find that his brand of ignorant racism is alive and well in Pakistan, just in reverse though. It is a consistent struggle to emphasise that the gross generalisation about the ‘Islamic mindset’ and ‘the threat of Islam’, etc. after every global attack is racist ignorance and nothing more. Yet, we fail the same test at home. Only because one is not on the receiving end of bigotry does not make it any less justifiable or palatable. Only because those lynched were from a different religion this time around does not make it anymore or less ghastly.



The most telling comments came from Ch Nisar Ali Khan, “Mosques have been attacked in the past yet Muslims (we) did not lynch anyone.” Where does one begin with ignorance of this sort? That would make some semblance of sense in a twisted logical framework if the TTP were declared Christian supremacists. It also gave away what the PML-N thinly attempts to veil in the Reloaded version. Mian Nawaz Sharif is the prime minister of the Muslims of Punjab (or is it Pakistan?) and the ‘We’ in the PML-N government is not some vague, Western ‘we the people’, it is ‘we the Muslims’.

What about the two innocent people lynched by the violent mob? Does any of this justify their barbaric murder? No, it does not. Nothing justifies a lynching of anyone, ever; it bruises the soul to even contemplate the lynching of innocents. Their memories should be honoured by holding the perpetrators accountable, and equally significantly at least proclaiming to achieve a country and society where no one is lynched (a minimum threshold of livability perhaps). Ch Nisar Ali Khan roared in parliament, saying that, the State and democracy have been disgraced by the lynching. Hard to take exception here, there is disgrace all around by lynching. Yet, it was obvious that this lynching was particularly horrific since the lynched were Muslims and the lynchers were not. One might have missed Ch Nisar’s rage at the Kot Radha Kishan lynching and burning, Mian Shahbaz Sharif’s fiery response to Shanti Nagar, Gojra, Joseph Colony and even Youhanabad. Does this make the lynching in Youhanabad any less horrific or condemnation-worthy? No, yet it does illustrate that the violence is not ahistoric; the lynching occurred in the context of a State which oscillates between being a bystander to being a perpetrator.

The aftermath of the carnage in Youhanabad also reflected the lens with which the Pakistani state and society view the ‘minorities’. The non-Muslims are viewed in ‘blocks’ as a ‘collective’. It was not the Christian community which lynched anyone; it was members of an angry mob who perpetrated that crime. The members of the ‘Christian community’ in Youhanabad are also Lahoris, Punjabis, workmen and women, professionals, traders and shock, horror, citizens of the Pakistani State. Yet, the State seeks to address them as a monolith, as ‘them’ robbing them of all individuality.

The Christians of Youhanabad protesting, even vandalising is doubly egregious and elicits ‘how dare they’ headshaking since they are not only non-Muslims, they are poor. The State of Pakistan is not fond of either non-Muslims or poor, and the natural convergence of two is just an outrage. The gallant interior minister had little subtlety on the point when he said, “Damaging public property is the worst kind of terrorism.” Really, Ch Sb? Of course, it is obvious that damaging property is horrible, criminal and might even be terrorism. Yet, is it the worst form of terrorism being practiced? Worse than the murders in schools, hospitals, mosques and churches? The timing of this statement has the signature PML-N marriage of religious arrogance with capitalism; there was more emphasis on vandalism and the reaction by the Christian community than the attack on the churches.

The licence that the ‘educated’ in Pakistan assume to be racist with not-so-subtle tones of ‘after all that we have done for them’, ‘they dare burn tires on the roads and make me late for the wedding and after I had already protested on Facebook’, ‘perhaps they do not deserve the sympathy’, ‘perhaps the stereotypes are accurate’ and other assorted distilled bigotry.

When heaven forbid the next Charlie Hebdo-like attack happens and the response by some quarters will be racist and ridden with gross generalisations, we the people will do well to imagine how the shoe fits on the other side, how easy and tempting it is to demonise entire communities and rob them of individualities and diversity. The challenge of civilisation should be to resist the temptation of indulging in angry bigotry because it suits oneself; an elementary challenge a lot of us in Pakistan failed post-Youhanabad.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 22^nd, 2015.

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