Aijaz Zaka Syed
Friday, February 22, 2013
Source: Dubai eye The News Pakistan http://www.thenews.com.pk/Todays-News-9-161448-No-country-for-minorities
The writer is a commentator on Middle East and South Asian affairs.
These aren’t the best of times for minorities in South Asia. From the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, to the idyllic Buddhist paradise of Sri Lanka, to the secular democratic Republic of India, religious and ethnic minorities are increasingly being shown their place.
Another Shia massacre in Pakistan last week, one of the biggest in its history, is followed by another round of pointless political platitudes and condemnations. The circus will continue until there is another slaughter. It makes little difference to those young, terrified children who are too young to know the gravity of their loss. I don’t know if it’s just me but there’s something very disturbing about grieving children.
The image of Afzal Guru’s forlorn son with his mother and grandmother grieving for the man who was, for all intents and purposes, lost for them 11 years ago remains seared into my consciousness. Named Ghalib after the great poet, the child was two years old when his father was taken away on the charge of aiding and abetting the attack on the Indian parliament.
Guru had spent 11 years, one month and 17 days on death row, as activist Harsh Mander points out – less than three years short of a life term. This in effect means he served the life sentence before being offered as a sacrificial lamb to assuage what the Supreme Court calls the “collective conscience of the society”. Just as the Romans did thousands of years ago to appease a bloodthirsty mob.
Mander and numerous other commentators have described Guru’s killing as a “scar on Indian democracy”. A friend of mine says the last time he felt so angry, alienated and betrayed was when the Babri Masjid was razed in 1992. One can only imagine the trauma and scars with which Guru’s young son, denied with his mother a final farewell, will grow up.
This may be why Sri Lanka chose to dispatch Velupillai Prabhakaran’s son on the final journey right after him. The photograph of the 12-year old son of the Tamil Tigers’ leader, released by the UK’s Channel 4, is eerily familiar. When the images of the slain boy had surfaced a couple of years ago, they had generated a worldwide storm of protests.
Besides the pain of a young, innocent boy done to death in such bestial fashion, what had moved me was his round, child-like face and limpid eyes that reminded me of my own son. The latest images of the boy are even more disturbing. He looks terribly lonely and distressed as he sits there, like a child lost in a supermarket, as he chews on a biscuit or something.
In the second photograph, he’s anxiously looking up – clearly worried about his fate and probably hoping to see someone he recognises. In the third image, the young boy lies dead on the ground with five bullet wounds on his bare torso.
As Callum Macrae, the man behind the documentary, No Fire Zone: The Killing Fields of Sri Lanka, writes, “The new photographs tell a chilling story. This child hasn’t been lost: he has been captured and is being held in a sandbag bunker, apparently guarded by a Sri Lankan army soldier. In less than two hours he will be taken, executed in cold blood and photographed again.”
The documentary, to be shown at the UN Human Rights Council meet in Geneva next month, has turned the spotlight back on the Tamil genocide. Back then when I did a rather strong piece flaying the Lankan government for the Jaffna offensive which not just wiped out hundreds of Tamil Tigers, including Prabhakaran, but tens of thousands of defenceless civilians, some of my Lankan Muslim friends had protested.
They insisted that the army action was justified, considering the endless reign of terror that the island, including Muslims, had suffered at the hands of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
But whatever Prabhakaran’s crimes, the Tamils had nothing to do with them and deserved better. Besides, a ruthless regime that gets away with murder once can be forgiven to think it could get away with it again – and again. “Watch it. It will be only a matter of time before they come for Muslims, just as the Nazis did one vulnerable group after another,” I told them.
Events of the past few years have unfortunately proved me right. Terrorised by a vengeful regime, the Tamils are living in conditions condemned as the most deplorable by human rights groups and the United Nations.
And now that the Tiger is off Sri Lanka’s back, attention has shifted to the Muslims. With the blessings of the state, militant Sinhalese groups are increasingly targeting the community. Unlike the Tamils, Muslims have been settled in the island for centuries and have done well economically and been a healthy part of the mainstream.
Understandably, the rise in Sinhala extremism has been a source of grave concern and not just for Muslims. Many blame it on the political leadership and its encouragement of the militant Sinhala nationalism. Lawmakers like Mangala Samaraweera and Muslim groups hold President Mahinda Rajapaksa responsible for the rise in the attacks on minority targets.
Writing in Colombo Telegraph, Tisaranee Gunasekara says that a combined opposition, which unites Lankans across ethno-religious divide, is the ultimate nightmare of Rajapaksa and his siblings and their total power and control over the state. As the economic and political mess at home deepens, argues Gunasekara, the Rajapaksas are looking for a new, suitable enemy – a new bogey to rally the Sinhala majority. And who better to do the job than a demonised racial/religious Other? After the decimation of the Tamils, Muslims rather nicely fit the bill.
But what kind of threat are Pakistan’s Shias facing? The community has been under relentless fire, literally, over the past few years. Thousands have died in calculated attacks on mosques and gatherings across Pakistan.
Things have been so bad that recently mourners in Quetta refused to bury their dead, demanding action by the authorities. They relented only after the federal government intervened by sacking the Balochistan government and imposing federal rule.
The carnage last week, killing around 90 people, however, proves that little has changed in Balochistan or elsewhere in Pakistan. It’s a shame really considering the eminent role the Shia have played in the Subcontinent’s and Pakistan’s history, politics, culture, literature and media. Indeed, the community had been in the forefront of the Pakistan movement.
Today, this community feels so alienated and insecure that some are even calling for a mass Shia exodus, as columnist Murtaza Haider wrote in his recent column. Unfortunately, when a society begins to unravel, its most vulnerable sections are affected the most.
It’s little comfort that in Pakistan’s case, which is fighting for survival, it is not just the Shias or other minorities who are feeling the heat of the assorted militant groups and fanatics, no one including those from the majority seem to be safe. This, however, doesn’t absolve Pakistan’s politicians, administrators and security forces of their responsibility. If the society and the elite do not come together and act now to save Jinnah’s country, soon it may be too late.
Religious parties, in particular, have a crucial role to play to rein in religious extremists. How long will they stand and stare while these fanatics kill in the name of the faith that they champion?
Let’s face it. Pakistan, India and Sri Lanka are all guilty of letting down their minorities. Winning back the confidence of the minorities, and ensuring them security is not just in their interest but also critical for the future of the country. You can tell the health of a democracy and society by the way they treat their minorities and the marginalised.
Email: aijaz.syed@hotmail.com