Not in his name

“No Arab is superior to a non-Arab, no coloured person to a white person, nor a white person to a coloured person, except by piety.”

Muhammad (PBUH) the Prophet of Islam

What do you say about a country in which 20 percent of the population feels threatened?

The plight of the Palestinians of Gaza is heart wrenching. The Israeli attacks began more than ten days ago, since when the Israelis have subjected the people of Gaza to hundreds of air attacks. Buildings have been razed to the ground and almost three hundred men, women and children killed.

It is good to see the support Pakistanis have shown the people of Gaza, despite this country’s own track record which might have made its people hold back in shame, in keeping with the Urdu saying: hum kis moun say uhhain bura kahain (what right does our own behaviour give us to condemn them?) Or let’s put it this way, it’s great that we are protesting, but other than the handful of people who over time have brought attention to the matter, where is the justice and similar protests for our own people, our own sufferers of discrimination?

The criticism of Israel’s actions is absolutely justified and very necessary. Any person, group of country with half a conscience must condemn their despicable move against the Palestinians.  Yet, given the treatment of minorities in this country, Pakistan’s criticism of Israel is pretty ironic, don’t you think?

According to a report published in 2018 by the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, ‘Pakistan is one of the countries most affected by violent religious extremism, despite lying outside the major conflict zones.’

A major newspaper reports that ‘as many as 247 civilians were killed in sectarian terrorist attacks in Pakistan in 2017’ alone.

The groups that most often suffer at the hands of extremists in Pakistan are the Hazaras, the Shias, the Ahmadis, and the Christians. Although women should be included in this list, this column is not about gender bias.

Shias constitute about 20% percent of this country’s population. Shias, if you remember are the people who hold the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh)’s daughter, grandson and their family in particular reverence.

As many as 4,000 Shias have been killed in sectarian riots since 1987 in Pakistan, over a period of just 30 years.

Just outside Karachi is a graveyard with hundreds of graves. Many of the Shias whose lives ended violently are laid to rest here. Five of these graves belong to members of the same family. Al-Jazeera reports that one belongs to a four-year-old child who was killed in one of the many sectarian riots. His mother is buried next to him. The mother apparently died when she saw her dead son’s body.

The graveyard is surrounded by metal fences and high walls. Even in death…

Most Hazara people live in Afghanistan. The Hazaras also form a significant minority in Pakistan. They live mostly in Quetta. The Hazara community made a contribution to Pakistan via Qazi Muhammad Essa who was a close friend of Muhammad Ali Jinnah. He came from Baluchistan and he helped Jinnah set up the Muslim League in that part of the subcontinent. Yet, because most Hazara happen to be Shia, After the Taliban came into being, this community was greatly persecuted by that group, and later also persecuted by the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and other militant groups. Despite all this, and throughout Pakistan’s existence the Hazara community has made significant contributions to Pakistan. Genl Musa Khan, commander in chief of the Pakistan Army for ten years could trace ancestry to this community as could several other persons in public life today.

The Hazara community has long been persecuted in Pakistan, but since 2001 more than 550 Hazaras have been killed in Pakistan and many more injured. Among these were those men and boys shot in Mastung near Pakistan’s border with Iran as they were traveling in a bus in 2011; their bus was stopped and specifically these men were asked to come out (the driver who was not Hazara and the women were left in the bus), the men were told to lie by the roadside and were shot dead.

The Pakistan Constitution may have been amended in 1974 so that people of the Ahmadiyya community could be declared non-Muslim, but Pakistan is also signatory to the International Covenant to Civil and Political Rights, and to clamp down on its people’s religious beliefs and practices is a violation of its obligations under this Covenant. It is time that the government and the ‘mainstream’ people of Pakistan understood their obligations, and lived according to them, regardless of what India or Israel do.

Since the amendment mentioned above, hundreds of members of the Ahmadiyya community were killed in Pakistan, and in 2010, 86 of them were killed while at worship in Lahore. Many mosques belonging to the community, on land legally owned by it, have been taken over or demolished with no legal sanction. They are discriminated against in education as well as in other fields. In 2008 in the Punjab Medical College, 23 Ahmadiyya students were suspended, three years later and elsewhere, ten more were expelled and five years later, yet elsewhere, two more. Last year alone, five Ahmadi’s were killed in Pakistan only because of their beliefs.

In 2011, mullahs declared Ahmadis ‘deserving of death’ and published leaflets with names and addresses of prominent community members and their businesses.

Access to Ahmadiyya websites has been blocked in Pakistan.

Christians constitute a large minority group in Pakistan and there have been times when they have been targeted like the other minorities, particularly with accusations of blasphemy as a result of which riots break out and people die. One of the best known of those was Asia Bibi who was accused of blasphemy and sentenced to death, although her sentence was later overturned. The then Governor of Punjab Salman Taseer who criticised the blasphemy law was murdered by his own security guard Mumtaz Qadri. Although Qadri was later executed on the charge of murder (he murdered the Governor, didn’t he? Other murderers in such cases are never apprehended and the acts continue), his burial place is now a shrine for his many admirers.

So to return to the criticism of Israel’s actions, that criticism is absolutely justified and very necessary. Any person, group of country with half a conscience must condemn their despicable move against the Palestinians.  Yet, given the treatment of minorities in this country, Pakistan’s criticism of Israel is pretty ironic, don’t you think?

There is a saying, an anonymous one, that says that when we point a finger at someone else, our other three fingers are pointing the other way at ourselves. And when we look at ourself, just what do we see?