Fighting Religious Intolerance in Pakistan

[RiazHaq]

Yesterday's terrorist assault and the resulting tragic loss of life of scores of Pakistani citizens of Ahmedi sect in Lahore warrant the strongest condemnation by all. Pakistan's government and all the right thinking people must now act to stop the repeat of such tragedies by all means necessary, including the use of the national media to educate people, eliciting strong condemnation statements by those who claim to be Islamic religious scholars, enforcing blanket ban on hate speech, and using appropriate force.

I am reproducing here an excerpt from a post I wrote in 2008 to exhort action to stop agents of intolerance everywhere:

Sadly, the news of intolerance, abuse and hate crimes, continue to pour out of various parts of South Asia and the Muslim world. Unfortunately, the threats are issued and crimes committed in the name of religion or tradition or ethnicity. What gets reported is probably only the tip of the iceberg, but here's a particularly shocking instance of what has caught my attention recently:

Pakistani TV Host Calls for Ahmadis' Murder:

According to Asia Human Rights Commission, the host of the religious talk show 'Alim Online', Dr. Amir Liaquat Hussain--also former federal minister for religious affairs--declared the murder of Ahmadis, members of a minority sect excommunicated by fundamentalist Islam, to be obligatory (Wajib ul Qatal) according to Islamic teachings, because its followers don't believe in the last prophet, Mohammad. Dr. Hussain repeated his instruction several times, urging Muslim listeners to "kill without fear".

While on air the host also pressed two other Islamic "scholars" (from two different sects) on the program to support the statement. This resulted in a unanimous agreement among the "scholars", on air during the popular television show, to urge lynching of Ahamdis. This was not the first time Mr. Hussain has done this. On September 9, Mr. Hussain answered a query with the comment that blasphemers are liable to be put to death.

According to media reports, at 1:15pm on September 8, 18 hours after the broadcast, six people entered the Fazle Umer Clinic, a two-story hospital at Mirpur Khas city and two of them went to the second floor and asked 45 year-old Dr. Abdul Manan Siddiqui to come downstairs to attend to a patient in crisis. Dr. Manan left his office and descended into an ambush. He was shot 11 times and died on the spot. His private guard was also shot and is in a serious condition. A woman was also injured by firing. The killers remained at the hospital until the doctor was declared dead, then they walked out of the building's front entrance. Police registered the killers as unknown.

Call For Action:

How can we, as individuals, fight this scourge of rising intolerance, abuse and hate crimes? In addition to supporting organizations that fight for human rights such as Human Rights Watch, Human Rights Commission, etc, each of us should raise our voice against it through whatever platform is available to us. We can blog about it, write to newspaper editors, join the call-in shows and sign petitions to officials. Whatever it takes, it is important that we speak up for the basic rights of our fellow human beings everywhere in the world.

Haq's Musings: Pakistan Must Defeat Agents of Intolerance

 

[Aeon]

Anyone that promotes or commits sectarian violence should be declared an enemy of the state and face utter annihilation or persecution. The government needs to ensure against the divisive effects of the mullahs and their own personal pet version of Islam which they use to further their vain agendas, aims, benefits, influence. Many of these scum need to be brought under tight grip and control in order to prevent them from spreading their malicious effects in society. Pakistanis should be Pakistani first, then anything else. The government needs to guide the population towards unification, culling the effects of ethnicity and sectarianism, in order to destroy internal divides that predatory groups take advantage of to attack the sovereignty of the government itself.

 

[Parashuram1]

Excellent initiative by the members here. I'd say the first thing would be to eliminate these "scholars" from your social strata. What makes these people scholars? Their knowledge of your holy book isn't it? Since you have one main book to read and recite from in your faith mainly, I think that most of you can be called scholars if you all worship by yourself without these scholars who earn their breads from their mouths instead of hands.

Whether sectarian or not, once the power of politics is tasted by any of these people, they will go to any lengths to use the very thing that has given them the respect in any society---religion and more so in your case where Pakistan is an extremely conservative country by tradition when it comes to religion. In fact, you don't need any of these so-called torch bearers of religion who actually are today causing the deaths of thousands of your own citizens to satisfy their bloodlust. The militant organizations use the help of such people to influence people to join their organizations.


Second step would be to ban religious organizations from having channels focused on religion. Yes--this might sound an extreme measure along the lines of Communists but there is a different reason behind it. If these channels are aired naturally people will watch them. While the educated class in your bigger cities would ignore the needless portion of what the so-called scholars say, the smaller town people might believe in them and therefore cause them to turn radical. Unless this media act is done, there will be a perpetual supply of young men who'd do this for a hungry stomach and a honey-coated Hereafter that no one has seen or those who have seen are in no condition to give a testimony of it.

The only result that is emerging is thousands of innocents dying painful deaths that can be easily avoided a bit of social reforms. While religion might be perfect, humans are not and therefore are liable to misinterpret it and use it for their convenience. Follow religion at a personal level, advocate the country's civil law greater than religious law, eliminate religious courts and establish only civil courts, and I assure you that terrorism will automatically go away.

 

[T-Faz]

Excellent and well written Mr Riaz Haq, we need all the people to stand up up and speak against any injustice while continually adapting techniques to get others out of this crazed mentality.

I congratulate you sir.

 

[WAQAS119]

Pakistani TV Host Calls for Ahmadis' Murder:

According to Asia Human Rights Commission, the host of the religious talk show 'Alim Online', Dr. Amir Liaquat Hussain--also former federal minister for religious affairs--declared the murder of Ahmadis, members of a minority sect excommunicated by fundamentalist Islam, to be obligatory (Wajib ul Qatal) according to Islamic teachings, because its followers don't believe in the last prophet, Mohammad. Dr. Hussain repeated his instruction several times, urging Muslim listeners to "kill without fear".

This is the main reason why our whole community is in confusion. I mean who to believe??? Few religious scholars keep telling one story and few completely different...

 

[Ahmad]

This is the main reason why our whole community is in confusion. I mean who to believe??? Few religious scholars keep telling one story and few completely different...

Yes, you are right bro. But let me tell you something, sometimes you have to listen to your common sense and ignore the f**king so called scholors. my common sense says: if i want to have prosperity, euality,justice, good life, peace, strong economy, better and working system etc for my country, then i respect all the differnetr religins and sects in my country and hug them like my brothers and built the country toghether. dont listen to these people who are destroying our countries.

 

[WAQAS119]

Yes, you are right bro. But let me tell you something, sometimes you have to listen to your common sense and ignore the f**king so called scholors. my common sense says: if i want to have prosperity, euality,justice, good life, peace, strong economy, better and working system etc for my country, then i respect all the differnetr religins and sects in my country and hug them like my brothers and built the country toghether. dont listen to these people who are destroying our countries.

I totally agree with you but in this scenario religious scholars become completely irrelevant and this can create another fuss....

I mean if everyone start following his own rules (which involves his own liking and disliking) than everyone will start molding ISLAM as he likes, yet another anarchy......

 

[Ahmad]

I totally agree with you but in this scenario religious scholars become completely irrelevant and this can create another fuss....

I mean if everyone start following his own rules (which involves his own liking and disliking) than everyone will start molding ISLAM as he likes, yet another anarchy......

I do get your point, we need to have/create more responsible scholars to give the public right directions instead of following some stupid ideology. i remember a teacher of ours at school who called everyone kafir if they believed in man landing on the moon!! i cant bloody understand where did he get that from. i personally believe that the cold war and heavy involvment of america in that war to defeat the soviets have played a great role in religious fanatism in the region specially Afghanistan and Pakistan, we in Afghanistan never ever had such religious fanatism , everything was quite normal and sane and i belive the same thing was in pakistan too. we shouldnt forget that paksitan also promoted some sort of religious fanatism and seeing it as assets, but sadly that was a big mistake. i believe that the 2 countries need to be honest and open with each other to tackle this problem which is threatening our existence, this unholly phenomenon becomes even more dangerouse if it is mixed with some of the forms of natioanlism and ethno nationalism.

 

[T-Faz]

I do get your point, we need to have/create more responsible scholars to give the public right directions instead of following some stupid ideology. i remember a teacher of ours at school who called everyone kafir if they believed in man landing on the moon!! i cant bloody understand where did he get that from. i personally believe that the cold war and heavy involvment of america in that war to defeat the soviets have played a great role in religious fanatism in the region specially Afghanistan and Pakistan, we in Afghanistan never ever had such religious fanatism , everything was quite normal and sane and i belive the same thing was in pakistan too. we shouldnt forget that paksitan also promoted some sort of religious fanatism and seeing it as assets, but sadly that was a big mistake. i believe that the 2 countries need to be honest and open with each other to tackle this problem which is threatening our existence, this unholly phenomenon becomes even more dangerouse if it is mixed with some of the forms of natioanlism and ethno nationalism.

Actually did you know that the the real fanaticism was induced when USA decided to bring in the Arabs in the mid 80's because the mujahideen started to fight with each other.

These arabs totally wrecked the thinking of the people and even some of the CIA officials complained that the Arabs were far too religious to be involved in such a thing.

There problems are still being faced by us today, before this the extremists were easily dealt with but they grew in numbers over the years.

We can reverse this though. We just have to work together destroy this wahabi/salafi ideology.

 

[forcetrip]

I totally agree with you but in this scenario religious scholars become completely irrelevant and this can create another fuss....

I mean if everyone start following his own rules (which involves his own liking and disliking) than everyone will start molding ISLAM as he likes, yet another anarchy......

Thats what is happening right now .. right this minute...

 

[Ahmad]

Actually did you know that the the real fanaticism was induced when USA decided to bring in the Arabs in the mid 80's because the mujahideen started to fight with each other.

These arabs totally wrecked the thinking of the people and even some of the CIA officials complained that the Arabs were far too religious to be involved in such a thing.

There problems are still being faced to day by us, before this the extremists were easily dealt with but they grew in numbers over the years.

We can reverse this though. We just have to work together destroy this wahabi/salafi ideology.

Yes, totally agree with you. Trust me we didnt have anything stupid like this in afghansitan. now in the eastern kunar province we can see large number of wahabis, the shias got masacared by the taliban in large numbers, religion has become a disaster to us because of these kinds of ***** and stupid people. wish we could create a secular gov, but sadly we cant.

 

[T-Faz]

Yes, totally agree with you. Trust me we didnt have anything stupid like this in afghansitan. now in the eastern kunar province we can see large number of wahabis, the shias got masacared by the taliban in large numbers, religion has become a disaster to us because of these kinds of ***** and stupid people. wish we could create a secular gov, but sadly we cant.

I am aware of what Afghanistan was like, my father and his brothers had travel to Kabul many times in the 70s and earlier. They said it was beautiful and really enjoyed their time there.

But a bad time engulfed the region and Inshallah one day it will be reversed. I want to visit Afghanistan and especially Kabul someday, hopefully when this WOT is over I can see the place.