Religious intolerance of Pakistan is a global threat

Religious intolerance of Pakistan is a global threat

On May 28, with memories of the despicable attempt of a Pakistani-American Muslim to kill scores of New Yorkers still fresh in our minds, Pakistani Muslim terrorists brutally killed 86 innocent people while they offered Friday prayers. The twin mosque attack was in Lahore, Pakistan. The two events took place on two opposite corners of the globe but shared a striking similarity.

By: Imran Hayee, Duluth News Tribune        July 08, 2010

On May 28, with memories of the despicable attempt of a Pakistani-American Muslim to kill scores of New Yorkers still fresh in our minds, Pakistani Muslim terrorists brutally killed 86 innocent people while they offered Friday prayers. The twin mosque attack was in Lahore, Pakistan.

The two events took place on two opposite corners of the globe but shared a striking similarity. In both events, the victims were non-Muslims, according to Pakistani law, and the terrorists belonged to the same Pakistani extremist organization, the Tehrik Taliban Pakistan.

Over the past few years, it has seemed that almost every terrorist act anywhere on the globe somehow has involved Pakistan. Why? Finding a clear answer may be a complex exercise, but the unyielding and state-sanctioned religious intolerance in Pakistan is the major contributing factor for this phenomenon.

Soon after its founding, Pakistan succumbed to the demands of religious extremists who started a concerted campaign to establish a puritanical fundamentalist state. The successive governments allowed this religious bigotry to flourish and distract the people from real issues of governance. Intolerance gradually crept into the fabric of Pakistani society. In 1974, the Pakistani government committed an unprecedented act of religious intolerance when it constitutionally defined who is a Muslim. In 1984, Ordinance XX and the subsequent anti-blasphemy laws institutionalized the persecution of minorities and religious dissidents with severe punishment and even death for those non-Muslims “impersonating” Muslims.

The unfounded but patronized religious intolerance of the Pakistani government has encouraged extremist clerics to define their own obscurantist version of Islam. Their version allows no tolerance for divergent views; killing any non-Muslim or heretic is their favorite slogan. Christians, Jews, Hindus and Buddhists are their obvious targets, but any Muslims who do not see the world through their eyes are not spared. Many extremist clerics spread this philosophy of hate and intolerance through their madrassas, or religious schools, by brainwashing innocent children and frustrated youth. The graduates of these madrassas are trained to do nothing but kill all who fall outside the realm of their narrow spectrum of life.

This kind of religious intolerance is bound to outgrow the geographical boundaries of Pakistan and few such waves already have occurred with the outpour exponentially increasing. Whether it be the World Trade Center bombing in New York, the shoe bomber’s foiled attempt to blow a U.S.-bound plane, the 7/7 subway attacks in London, the massive hotel and synagogue killings in Mumbai or the recent botched Times Square bombing attempt, each incident has its roots submerged in the philosophy of hatred and the religious intolerance of Pakistan.

If not reverted, this monster can perpetrate unparalleled damage to humanity and civilized culture throughout the world.

To protect against future acts of terrorism, America and the world must act now to pressure the government of Pakistan to uproot the seed of religious intolerance by repealing the anti-blasphemy laws and the current constitutional definition of Islam. Moreover, all madrassas which impart religious intolerance and hatred must be abolished. These madrassas could be nationalized by replacing hate-oriented elements of the intolerant religious education with traditional secular curriculum. This also will help provide jobs to many unemployed, educated, Pakistani youths who otherwise become vulnerable to the ploy of extremist clerics.

The suggested approach is not easy but necessary. Today, if this or a similarly effective approach is not deployed, then tomorrow, each radical madrassa in Pakistan will emerge as a fertile recruiting place for the militant extremists and terrorists, like al-Qaeda. I hope the world and America deal with this Pakistani religious intolerance before it is too late.

Imran Hayee of Duluth is an associate professor and the director of graduate studies in the electrical and computer engineering department at the University of Minnesota Duluth. He is UMD’s only Pakistani-American Muslim faculty member. He flew to Pakistan the day of the May 28 twin mosque terrorist attacks because his brother-in-law was among the 86 victims. He wrote this for the News Tribune upon his recent return.

© 2010 Forum Communications Co.
URL: www.duluthnewstribune.com/event/article/id/173206/group/News/

Smokers’ Corner: It’s a shame

---daily Dawn, Pakistan

Columnists

Smokers’ Corner: It’s a shame
Nadeem F. PARACHA
Sunday, 16 Aug, 2009 | 12:55 AM PST

Hardly a week had passed after the shameful attacks on the lives and livelihood of the besieged Christian community of Gojra, that a well-known Islamic televangelist appeared on his show on a local TV channel and freely exhibited the audacity to explain this attack by vicious Islamic sectarian organisations as a conspiracy by the West to make Pakistanis question the contentious Blasphemy Laws.

First of all, as usual, before spouting this claptrap, such TV hosts have absolutely no substantive proofs ever to back their demagogic finger-pointing rituals.

But utmost is the fact that the tongue-wagging gentleman had himself been embroiled last year in a stunning controversy where he was directly accused by his former party, the MQM, and some bold journalists, for initiating and encouraging attacks against Punjab’s Ahmadiyya community through his show.

Thus, what moral right does this highly animated fellow has to even address the issue of the attacks in Gojra, let alone offer bizarre and thoroughly unreasonable theories, pointing fingers at the usually elusive and unsubstantiated conglomerate of conspirators?

His self-righteous and delusional take on the said issue must have come as a hurtful bolt of insensitivity to those who lost their loved ones in the insane fires of fanaticism that almost completely burned down the Christian community in Gojra.

I would also like to question the mainstream TV channel he is a part of; a channel that usually loves to harp about its love for democracy, tolerance and justice, but continues to give wide open spaces to so-called ‘experts’ and ‘Islamic scholars’ who have actually turned religion into a licence to rationalise hate and half-truths.

It was a disgrace watching the same gentleman gleaming and rubbing his hands last year as one of his ‘scholar’ guests lashed out at the Ahmadiyya community, creating a tragic commotion against the community in Lahore.

The host showed not even the slightest indication of expressing any kind of remorse, and neither did the channel even when certain leading newspapers ran stories, editorials and articles on the event.

Next up was his even more bizarre reaction to the Swat girl’s flogging episode. He first condemned the event, mainly because his channel was one of the first ones to break the horrifying news.

However soon, the host suddenly took a sharp turn and started hurling abuse at the supposed ‘agents’ of the West and India, who he claimed were behind the flogging ‘drama,’ and also mocked liberal Pakistanis for exaggerating the issue.

He called such Pakistanis ‘enlightened’ with such venom and sarcasm that it seemed he was rooting for obscurantist darkness over spiritual and secular enlightenment.

After all, the whole notion of obscurantism is tailor-made for exactly such characters who hide behind their televised celebratory status, constructed from unsubstantiated accusations, a warped understanding of religion and politics, and more so, a smug and arrogant insensitivity towards the emotionally venerable sides of human nature.

The truth is, such men, who are these days a dime a dozen on the mainstream electronic media for entirely cynical economic reasons on the part of the channels who hire them in their mad race for ratings, have been of no service at all to the religion and the country that they claim they are there to save from supposed ‘anti-Islam/Pakistan forces.’

Not even once have these elusive forces convincingly been exposed — at least never through any academically and journalistically sound proofs and sources, but instead rhetorical hate speeches or a messy jumbling up of bits and pieces taken from populist conspiracy theories found in anarchic pulp literature, unsubstantiated cyber rants, and low-budget B-movie ‘documentaries’ are used to build fiery narratives that claim to offer ‘facts’ and ‘expose’ the workings of the forces that are creating sectarian, religious and political turmoil in Pakistan.

The fact that the channel actually decided to give its host the space and freedom to comment the way he did on the Gojra incident when the scars of the event were still fresh and bleeding, shows just how obsessive we become to at once promote and propagate half-truths just to defend and obscure the hollowness of that pretence of tolerance and equality we all love to portray.

A shame indeed.

©2009 DAWN Media Group. All rights reserved

URL : www.dawn.com/.../16-nadeem-f-paracha-its-a-shame-hs-03