Dawn: DO you judge a society by how it treats its mighty or its vulnerable? What do you call a state that serves the powerful and not the weak? What distinguishes a civilised society from a jungle if survival of the fittest is the rule in both? What is the purpose of having morals, ethics and law if these codes neither protect the frail nor bind the aggressors? If our state unravels it will be due to obvious answers to these rhetorical questions and not due to our fiscal deficit.
Have our ‘so-called’ progressives become self-loathers? Don’t bad things happen in large countries everywhere? Can a small intolerant and violent minority in the society define the sane majority as well? When disciplined passengers at a foreign airport transform into an unruly mob the moment they descend on Pakistan, isn’t the ‘system’ to blame and not the individuals?
Who is to argue that a state or society is doomed forever? Pakistanis are an industrious lot excelling as expats in developed countries. Can’t Pakistan do well too if it adopts a functional ‘system’? Of course it can. But where will such a ‘system’ come from? Are the agents of change within our state or society today wiser from past mistakes and focused on building institutions as opposed to degrading them further?
Something very sinister is happening in Pakistan. As a society we are losing our moral compass; our ability to distinguish right from wrong in daily life (in a non-maulvi sense). And in this polarised state, self-righteousness, bigotry and vigilantism has come to define not just societal reactions but those of state institutions as well. Consequently, state institutions are undermining not just their own credibility but also state legitimacy.
Dr Mehdi Qamar, a US-based cardiologist visiting Pakistan for a week, was shot 10 times and killed in Rabwah last week. Dr Qamar was Ahmadi. If you are an Ahmadi in Pakistan you are fair game. The majority of us have made peace with the fact that because of your faith, the hard-liners amongst us might kill you. Now that we are running out of Ahmadis, we have moved on to Shias. Dr Faisal Manzoor, a fellow Abdalian, was shot dead outside his clinic in Hasanabdal last month. Everyone says he was a great guy. Tough luck that he was Shia.
Last week, during an exchange with an educated, well-travelled and prosperous relative, the conversation turned to Pakistan’s state as it always does. In the context of growing militancy he volunteered that killing Shias might be a tad extreme, but they are mischief-makers with divided loyalties and do ‘deserve’ some of it. This 70-year old, non-violent, generally likeable man, it turned out, was comfortable, if not happy, with the persecution of Shias in Pakistan.
Categories: Ahmadis And Pakistan, Ahmadiyyat: True Islam, Asia