The scum also rises

Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) candidates, in UC-34 of Baldia district, used the image of Mumtaz Qadri in order to gain support

The dirty face of politics in Pakistan just got considerably dirtier. Karachi has never been renowned for the cleanliness of its political culture, but it has dropped to a new low with the use of the image of a convicted murderer, Mumtaz Qadri, in posters drumming support for Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) candidates in UC-34 of Baldia district. A JI spokesman when asked said that there was nothing wrong with using Qadri’s picture as he was one of those who “have given their lives for the love of religion”. As it happens, Qadri is alive and well in Adiala jail, his death sentence having been recently upheld by the Supreme Court, a detail unlikely to trouble the satraps of the JI. Also of note is the fact that the JI is paired on the offending poster with the PTI and by association the PTI is seen as endorsing the use of the image of Qadri. If this is not the case, then the PTI needs to be saying so across every media platform post-haste. Loudly.

It will be remembered that Qadri murdered the Punjab governor for the fact that he considered a change to the blasphemy laws to be necessary. Change only, not repeal. And there was no suggestion that Salmaan Taseer had himself uttered a blasphemy. Since that time, Qadri has been promoted to iconic status by some sections of society — including lawyers — and it is obvious that he is of sufficient status in the eyes of some to be seen as a political asset. This is starkly illustrative of the way in which an extremist mindset has taken hold in the national paradigm. Politics in this instance has managed to take itself somewhere below even the gutter, down into a primordial slime, the very sewers themselves. The symbology of a convicted murderer, convicted of a hate crime and the very personification of intolerance, does a disservice to Pakistani people everywhere. Those who used the image have their eyes wide shut as they add to the pile of ordure they rot atop of. Wash your faces there in UC-34.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 28^th,  2015.

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