How deep-rooted is religious intolerance in Pakistan?

[Solomon2]

Match Point
How deep-rooted is religious intolerance in Pakistan?
By Ushah Kazi Published: September 8, 2014

Ahmed Shehzad is not condoning violence against religious minorities, he is not sympathising with terrorist organisations; he is just a young cricketer enjoying a booming career.

Statistics have labelled Pakistan one of the world’s premier terrorism affected nations. However the one silver lining in the cloud of an extremist attack is a unified chant of ‘yeh hum naheen’ (this is not who we are). But when a beloved young athlete displays religious bias, can we really comfort ourselves with the same philosophy?

Footage showing Pakistani opener, Ahmed Shehzad, making religious comments to Sri Lanka’s player, Tillakaratne Dilshan, has caused a media frenzy and propelled an official Pakistan Cricket Board’s (PCB) probe into the matter. In the video Shehzad is heard saying,

“If you are a non-Muslim and you turn Muslim, no matter whatever you do in your life, straight to heaven.”

After Dilshan’s reply (which is almost inaudible) Shehzad goes on to say,

“Then be ready for the fire.”

The video was a godsend for any international media outlet looking to fuel the inferno labelling Pakistan as a nation of religious bigots. But when a young Pakistani makes a statement of such blatant prejudice, it necessitates soul searching at home.

Ahmed Shehzad is not condoning violence against religious minorities, he is not sympathising with terrorist organisations; he is just a young cricketer enjoying a booming career. But, it is his identity that is a greater cause for concern, because it unravels a prejudice which runs deep into Pakistani society. It exposes intolerance towards religious diversity.

I first encountered this as a thirsty, and broke, 11-year-old. On a regular school day in Hyderabad, a friend of mine offered me a sip of her drink, noticing that I didn’t have money to buy one, and I eagerly accepted. We continued chatting until a teacher pulled me aside.

“You’re one of the sensible ones,” she said to me, mimicking the tender concern of a mother, “so I know you’ll understand. See, you were sharing your friend’s drink just now, and I’m not sure if you know that she is a Hindu. But you should be careful. It isn’t wrong to sit with them. But it is wrong to sip from the same bottle.”
​

Now, if she had scolded us for our hygiene practices, or lack thereof, perhaps her comment would have been justifiable. But even as a scatterbrain little girl, I knew there was something wrong with her moral compass. Today I understand just how much such beliefs hurt modern-day Pakistan.

Religious prejudice slashes into the heart of Pakistan because it ignores nuances of its makeup. Can you imagine Pakistani intellectualism without Ardeshir Cowasjee?

Or Pakistani fashion without Deepak Perwani?

Can you imagine the north without the Kalash Valley?

Or Thar without the Hindus?

Can you imagine Lahore without its cathedrals?

Or Karachi without the Parsi community?

The answer to this incredibly rhetorical question is a simple ‘no’. Pakistan cannot be Pakistan if it is painted in a single shade of green.

Of course there has been an attempt to link the discrimination faced by people of differing faiths to Pakistan’s history. Focus has been drawn to its very foundation as a nation and state. And whether the present religious favouritism and discrimination can be traced to the roots of the young country has been debated time and again. But when the man accredited as the father of the nation, Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah, announced in his first presidential address to the constituent assembly that all Pakistanis were free, can it not then be argued that blaming history is a means to avoid solving the problem?

“You are free; you are free to go to your temples, you are free to go to your mosques or to any other place of worship in this State of Pakistan. You may belong to any religion or caste or creed – that has nothing to do with the business of the State.”
​

Ahmed Shehzad is not a product of a prejudiced history; he is an amalgamation of a confused present. Where people in authoritative positions are trying to inject arguments where they have no place of existing. He is the product of an ‘us and them’ scenario absent until more recent times; which works to benefit some at the expense of others. It has to do with politics, not religion.

It shouldn’t represent all of Pakistan, but it does.

At 15, I visited the Abdullah Shah Ghazi Mazar (which attracts Muslims predominantly) and the neighbouring Hindu temple with my school. The caretaker told us that the niaz (charity meal), prepared at the temple is shared equally amongst the worshippers at the temple and the Muslims at the Mazar. This is the kind of brotherhood that exists on the streets of Pakistan. And part of me will always believe that it is what most Pakistanis believe in and practice.

But when statements, that completely disregard such sentiments, are made on public platforms, they are used to paint a picture of the entire population. And all we can really do is watch as a beautifully diverse community is reduced to a single, stupidly uttered sentence.

Ushah Kazi
An avid reader, literature buff and co-founder at www.dissentconclave.com

​

“If you are a non-Muslim and you turn Muslim, no matter whatever you do in your life, straight to heaven.”

That's it, isn't it? It all boils down to this: a Muslim need not have a conscience, whatever he can get away with is good. The rest are either minor matters or outright deceptions.

Values are what you fight for and this is what Shehzad fought for. His countrymen may condemn him for his boldness on the sporting field but who opposes his sentiments?

 

[mujhaidind]

All I can say is Ahmed Shezad did nothing wrong.

 

[VCheng]

Ahmed Shehzad is not a product of a prejudiced history; he is an amalgamation of a confused present. Where people in authoritative positions are trying to inject arguments where they have no place of existing. He is the product of an ‘us and them’ scenario absent until more recent times; which works to benefit some at the expense of others. It has to do with politics, not religion.
It shouldn’t represent all of Pakistan, but it does.

"It shouldn’t represent all of Pakistan, but it does"? This is precisely the narrative that needs to be changed.

 

[Zarvan]

All I can say is Ahmed Shezad did nothing wrong.

I am not against basic message but style off Ahmed Shezad is not correct Islam tells to first talk common points show love and affection and slowly try to change a person heart but mods need to close this thread it will become troll @Horus @Chak Bammu @Oscar @Emmie @WebMaster

 

[Gunsnroses]

Nothing new, we have had these apologetic articles before generalizing all Muslims, and yes this thread should be closed or else it will become a swimming pool of some trolling organisms.

 

[Solomon2]

..but mods need to close this thread it will become troll

...this thread should be closed or else it will become a swimming pool of some trolling organisms.

Closing the thread will just validate the point that this is something Muslims don't want publicized, yes?

 

[RescueRanger]

I see even after a year long hiatus, nothing has changed. Solomon2 is still posting this "interesting" posts.

 

[Gunsnroses]

Closing the thread will just validate the point that this is something Muslims don't want publicized, yes?

My point is this might be true to some extent only but such things are prelevant in the past to induce propagandas. To stop future bickering I think its better to close. Sure you can ask Mods not to close. Don't you believe in freedom of speech?

 

[Gunsnroses]

Hatred towards other religions, binds the Islamic republic together.........need I say more?

First troll.

 

[INDIC]

“You are free; you are free to go to your temples, you are free to go to your mosques or to any other place of worship in this State of Pakistan. You may belong to any religion or caste or creed – that has nothing to do with the business of the State.”

How this comment is compatible with Two Nation Theory, I am looking for an answer since a long time.

 

[jbond197]

You’re one of the sensible ones,” she said to me, mimicking the tender concern of a mother, “so I know you’ll understand. See, you were sharing your friend’s drink just now, and I’m not sure if you know that she is a Hindu. But you should be careful. It isn’t wrong to sit with them. But it is wrong to sip from the same bottle.”

That's what they teach in schools and that kind of brain washing is the reason why most of the young kids see Hindus or other minorities, the way they see them.. They treat their minorities as some kind of objects not worthy to be alive and think since they are living in Pakistan they own them..

Most of Pakistani member of PDF defended the act of Shehzad saying what ever he did was the right thing to do and when someone countered that they ended up declaring the person as some Hindu fanatic, without even knowing the person arguing is Hindu or not. This kind of hatred filled mentality is very much evident among Pakistanis ( even the educated ones) and is really very shocking.

 

[DesiGuy]

Muslims are taught from their birth that their religion is superior and others religions inferior. Its basic practice even among rich muslims countries.

That's how intolerance begins...heck you would even see supposedly "educated" muslim practicing that openly.

 

[Yogijaat]

Muslims are taught from their birth that their religion is superior and others religions inferior. Its basic practice even among rich muslims countries.

That's how intolerance begins...heck you would even see supposedly "educated" muslim practicing that openly.

and now there excuse will be all religions follows the same principle.

 

[Jaanbaz]

We are all to blame for Palestinian teen's murder by 'Jewish extremists'
Many Israelis are deluding themselves by declaring Jewish values is a safeguard against murder and terrorism; this murder should come as no surprise.

In the three-and-a half days that passed between the murder of Mohammed Abu Khdeir and the Shin Bet's official acknowledgement that the six suspects arrested were likely “Jewish extremists,” the conversations, chance encounters and social media discourse within the Israeli public reflected denial.

The conversations evolved from “I can’t believe Jews did it, it must be some kind of honor killing in the family,” to “please tell me it wasn’t Jews that did it” and finally “those murderers were not acting like Jews, we are not like that.”

Denial, upon denial, upon denial.

How far do we have to go back? To the yet unsolved killings of Nadeem Nuwara and Mohammed Abu Daher in Bitounia, hit directly by live fire during a Nakba Day demonstration two months ago - to give just one recent example of a case in which Palestinian teenagers were targeted?

Or to the “price tag” arsonists who firebombed a home in Sinjil last November, nearly burning a family alive? How about Asher Weisgan, who lined up four Palestinian workers in August 2005 and just shot them, in the hope that the murders would set off a cycle of violence that would prevent the disengagement from Gaza?

We could go back further to Yitzhak Rabin’s assassination over his attempt to achieve peace with the Palestinians, to Baruch Goldstein’s massacre of 29 Muslims at prayer in Hebron, or even back to the early 1980s when the “Jewish underground” carried out its murder spree and planned a bloodbath by planting explosives in five Palestinian buses. These are just a few examples of so many instances over the past three and a half decades.

Anyone see a pattern here?

Now that the smears against the Abu Khdeir family — that they were somehow behind their son’s murder — have been proven baseless, the standard damage-control line is that somehow, the alleged murderers have betrayed “Jewish values” by kidnapping, murdering and burning a 16-year-old.

That’s the approach the politicians are taking. As an afterthought, they add that no matter how awful this murder is, our society condemns such things, arrests the murderers and keeps them locked away. But the Palestinians, they say, glorify the killing of children and hand out sweets after suicide bombings, educating their own children to become bombers. Don’t lecture us — our murderers are rotten apples, while their entire tree is poisoned.

So what? Even if this shallow comparison didn’t disregard all the many cases of anti-Arab terror over the years and the fact that Israel has been ruling over an occupied population for the past 47 years, what kind of a competition are we trying to win here? One in which the two societies create depraved murderers but one feels better about itself because it believes its depravity is not as bad as the other’s?

The defense mechanisms are already at work — this isn’t the way a Jew is supposed to act so it’s either just a few aberrations or, even better, it’s the result of the cruel reality of Palestinian terror, hatred and incitement our enemies have thrown at us; small wonder that some Jews have begun to act like Palestinians. An eye for an eye. What comfort, we have someone else to blame.

So that’s all right then, we can allow racism to continue to flourish around soccer games, including at the capital’s flagship team Beitar Jerusalem, with its La Familia supporters club who take pride in the fact that Beitar has never had an Arab player. Yes, of course La Familia doesn’t represent the majority of Beitar fans, but why have they not yet been ejected from Teddy Stadium?

Israelis can continue to agree on a school system that doesn’t include Arabic as a compulsory subject, teaches nothing of our neighbors’ culture and barely mentions human rights in civic studies. Let’s ignore the fact that Israeli Arab towns enjoy less budget funding, planning rights and infrastructure.

And above all, let’s believe the myth that we can continue to rule over 2.5 million Palestinians in the West Bank without the occupation entering our souls and blinding our judgment.

Even those of us who sincerely believe we are not racist in any way have been conditioned by a situation in which Jews are masters over another nation. Ending the occupation may not bring peace with our neighbors and it won’t remove racism from our society. Xenophobia exists everywhere and is an unavoidable human condition, but we can build up our intolerance of it. Ending our control over the Palestinians’ lives will allow Israelis to start cleaning out this rot that has been corrupting us for so long.

It’s not necessarily the settlers who are at fault. There is no reason to believe that the majority of Israelis living in the West Bank are capable of cold-blooded murder or even approved of it in any way. The “price tag” hate criminals are also a minority in the settlements - many of them are not even settlers. Most if not all of the six suspects live within the Green Line; Rabin’s assassin Yigal Amir was a resident of Herzliya, the comfortable middle-class town which until recently had a mayor who was a member of the left-leaning Meretz party.

The moral blindness has afflicted Israelis in general. We are all partners in this, accomplices in complacency, if not in deed.

We would like to believe that none of us, and no one we know, could even imagine participating in such vicious acts; but we have gotten used to living in an environment where casual racism is a norm. And when casual racism is normal, the distance between normal life and hate crimes of the worst kind rapidly shrinks.

This newspaper and the small but valiant community in Israel that continues to insist on having a discussion about human rights, in not closing our eyes to the injustices carried out in our name, in believing in an Israel and in a Zionism that can flourish untainted by racism and hate crimes, rather than continuously having to delude itself, are daily accused of being self-hating defeatists for telling the ugly truth. Now those who criticize us are waking up to reality for a few brief moments — but already are putting themselves back to sleep with the soporific talk of Jewish values and how much more ruthless the other side is.

Wake up and stay awake: There is no guarantee it won’t happen again. It will, and then you will be forced to go through the stages of denial and delusion once more.

Either come to terms with the fact that Jewish values, whatever they mean, are no safeguard against cruelty and depravity, and that we are living a lie of exalted morality, or get used to these rude awakenings.

We are all to blame for Palestinian teen's murder by 'Jewish extremists' - Diplomacy and Defense Israel News | Haaretz

 

[Falcon29]

Muslims are taught from their birth that their religion is superior and others religions inferior. Its basic practice even among rich muslims countries.

That's how intolerance begins...heck you would even see supposedly "educated" muslim practicing that openly.

Superior?

What odd usage of terms. I think you meant 'true'. Every religion teaches its followers that it is the true path. No cookie for you.