Watching a documentary on Africa and its various countries two days ago on BBC I discovered a religion that has been there before Christianity and Islam … and still exists. There were hundreds of worshippers dancing and praying, while many Christians and Muslims stood on the roads to see them going past and no one decided to harm anyone.
… and I thought:
Years ago (when I was trying to study in Lahore) some friends and I saw a wall that said in large letters: “قادیانی کافر ہیں” (Qadianis are Kafirs).
Under it someone had written in small letters: “اور شیعہ کچھ کم نہیں” (and Shias are not much less either).
While some of us giggled college-boy giggles, we all soon thought that this was hardly something to be written on the city walls. Three friends from that crowd went there at night — with an ‘expensive’ spray can (considering we were broke all the time) — and wiped it off in ‘really-bad-black’: The three friends were a Sunni, a Shia, an Ahmadi! (Thanks Drs. Kamal, Naqvi, Zayb — if you ever read this.)
With the Shia killings becoming more and more common, unbelievably common, many people have now started to address the matter. In print one does see someone write a small letter … and a few good and strong people write even their views in articles. It is true that almost all do say that this is not Islam, it is just a band of hooligans that have taken the religion away from us. Let me add, though, that this applies mainly to the English press.
Urdu has a much larger audience and they do not write as many things against this, sadly. They stick to the news that it has happened and it’s terrible. Most add close-up pictures of grieving families and relatives crying. Again, there are exceptions. But just exceptions, though!
Most TV shows continue to focus on how far up the paénchaas must be from the ankle for the prayers to be really heard, and how our lives are going to be according to the 15-second responses by wonderful Islamic ‘astrologers and num-err-ologists’ and show some pictures but try and not dwell too far upon these……………………………
We can come to the Ahmadis, now. They deserve a really special treatment for they have been legally made religionless and, quite often, homeless. Look at our earthquake period and see how some of them were not given medicines or food because of their religion.
Categories: Asia, Discrimination, Hate Crime, Intolerance, Religious persecution