No country for brave men

[fatman17]

No country for brave men

The writer is a journalist based in Karachi and has worked for Newsline and The Express Tribune Magazine

This is no country for brave men. Words alone are enough to get you killed. Just testifying to the horrors perpetrated on the country is akin to signing one’s death warrant. Salmaan Taseer, unlike so many lily-livered politicians, never equivocated in denouncing those who are terrorising this country. He brushed off the threats to his life with grace and humour.

Our graveyards are witness to the politicians who spoke out against the militant menace, the men in uniform who battled them and countless unknown thousands who only made the mistake of trying to live a normal life in an abnormal country.

In the days to come, people will try to make sense of the unthinkable: that a person was killed because he spoke out against a law that is used to kill those whose speech and actions don’t meet the approval of zealots. I have no words of wisdom to offer, not right now. No thoughts that can explain how we have come to this. Like everyone else, I just spent hours staring at the television screen, alternately shocked and furious and always stunned.

There will be those vile creatures who try and rationalise Salmaan Taseer’s assassination. They will feign reasonableness and say he shouldn’t have poked his nose into the blasphemy law debate. Such people, already fastening their mikes and earpieces on TV stations, need to be repudiated loudly and frequently. Our stirrings words hailing democracy will be shown to be hollow if we don’t understand that without the freedom to speak our minds our liberty is a lie.

Then, we also have to contend with people who will try to dodge the issue. They will bring up Taseer’s social liberalism, which we practiced and preached with equal panache. Taseer’s family was dragged into the oozing slime by his political opponents during his lifetime. To allow that to happen again would be a grave disservice to the memory of a man who believed in individual freedom and who spent, and ultimately gave, his life in pursuit of that ideal. It may seem unattainable now, but to throw our hands up in despair will give Taseer’s killers comfort in knowing they can bend society to their will.

I say ‘killers’ because, even if subsequent investigations show that there was only one gunman, there is plenty of blame to go around. Arguments over the varied geo-political of different political groups are fine for academics and analysts. As citizens, we need to understand only one thing. The murderous ideology uniting too many Pakistanis is the ultimate culprit. We need to stamp out the virus that has infected them.

Let us begin that by honouring Salmaan Tasseer. He has already been awarded many titles and awards and more will follow posthumously. They will be richly deserved but won’t be enough. The party he served so faithfully, even spending a stint in prison for it during the Zia era, should pass legislation to ensure his death was not in vain. Too many people have already been killed by the hideous misuse of the blasphemy laws. Salmaan Taseer should be the last. His fight against the blasphemy laws was his last crusade. Repealing it now would be the greatest rebuke to his murderers.

Ignore those who will bring up any of Salmaan Taseer’s flaws. Now is not the time. Whatever flaws or foibles he may have had only show that he was human. Salmaan Taseer wasn’t killed because of politics. He was murdered in cold blood because of who he represented: innocent men and women who try to speak out against the evil that lurks among us.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 5th, 2011.

I have no words for what has happened! - utterly dismayed!

 

[Awesome]

Sir I am also very perplexed at the heights of Pakistani intolerance. Discussing Blasphemy laws at the morning chai in the morning today, a colleague came really close to threatening me too for just debating issue why its not okay to kill no matter what is being said.

Concepts of freedom haven't touched these people, they have been slaves of one thing or the other their entire life. These are not Muslims but slaves of an ideology they think is Islam.

This is no country for brave men, indeed - just whiny tantrum throwers. The rest of us, that matter, we have bullets with our names on them.

 

[fatman17]

Reflecting after Taseer
By Nazish Brohi

The PPP leaders will speak to the press eventually. The criminal investigators will take even more time. But the party workers have spoken and indicted. The Polyclinic resounded right now with slogans against religious extremism, workers proclaiming willingness to carry more bodies, including their own, in the battle for a tolerant Pakistan. Those who want to live in a tolerant plural society and are willing to struggle for it might need to make the same vow.

Salmaan Taseer knew. Among his last tweets on the mullah backlash against him was his quoting a verse in anticipation of his murder, dil figaaro chalo, phir hameen qatl ho aien yaaro chalo. He was openly named and castigated in rallies in his own city on December 31 for supporting the blasphemy accused. “Thousands of beads screaming for my head. What a great feeling,” he wrote.

This is not the first killing on the blasphemy law. It is not even the first time those in office to protect people kill those who they protect. In KP a few years ago, a policeman killed a blasphemy accused who he was guarding. When the police tried to protect a blasphemy accused in another case, the police station was burnt down, after which the police apologised for attempting to provide protection. And when accepted political leaders publicly proclaim rewards for whoever kills a blasphemy accused, in this case against Aasia Bibi by a Jamaat-e-Islami leader appealing to the TTP to do religion a ‘real service’, this sets the stage.

Minority leader Father John Joseph shot himself dead to protest the blasphemy law. Hundreds others have spoken against this colonial-era legislation, strengthened by the blackest military dictatorship of Ziaul Haq, and now packaged as an ordained sacred law. Rudimentary trend analysis shows that the law is increasingly invoked against Muslims, and the parameters of who qualifies as a Muslim are growing more and more stringent and restrictive. A shoemaker in Lahore was accused of embroidering slippers in a design that looked like Islamic calligraphy. In Peshawar, a man was accused of blasphemy for forcing his neighbours to reduce the volume of a CD of religious recitation. In Gojra, nine Chirstians were burnt alive, according to the HRCP fact-finding report, in a planned and premeditated act. The same charges have been brought against towering national personalities such as Akhtar Hameed Khan. Those who speak openly against the law have also been threatened, including Sherry Rehman and Asma Jehangir.

The death sentence was made mandatory during the Nawaz Sharif government of the 90s. Since then, the killings have peaked, with the highest numbers in Punjab. The identified Elite Force guard will be punished, but this won’t even begin to address the malignant wilful blindness gripping our society. Right-wing political parties have repeatedly sent across the message that issues of religion should not be left to the courts, and all believing Muslims should take up the persecution as a part of their religious duties. Vigilantism has been marketed as a ‘farz’ (duty). Common supporters do not find it ironic, forget blasphemous, that they seek to protect the name of the person whom they pray to for protection – an equality of sorts.

This vigilantism has gone unpunished and victims uncompensated. In countless cases of lynching, from Shantinagar to Pabbi, people have been incited to violence. It is important to see that these are not isolated cases of brainwashed madmen, but a trend of increasing militant mentality, given fillip by tolerant silences. Jut like BB’s murder was preluded by the point-blank shooting of MNA Zille Huma by a man who said she had no place being in politics as a woman undertaking progressive politics. Religious scholars are also persecuted. Fazlur Rehman and Javed Ghamdi were made to leave the country. Khalid Masud was removed from the CII. Maulanas who have condemned suicide bombings have been assassinated. Public intellectuals of KP have been increasingly targeted.

All religious and right-wing parties who refused to see the flaws in the British-made law and would not recognise that this law is used to target people to settle personal and political disputes and vow to attack those who speak against its oppressiveness are partially responsible. All those who incite and provoke ‘believers’ to carry out punishments as religious duty should be named in FIRs and prosecuted because this nullifies the need for a state at all. The ‘right time’ for citizens to actively engage in radical progressive politics passed years ago, now its a matter of survival, even though it may be too late, as Taseer’s assassination shows. People may be intimidated and censor their opinions. Then we’ll be at the point typically cued as the point to pack up and go home. But we are home. Whoever does not overtly challenge, tacitly condones.


Sun of liberalism sets on Islamabad’s horizon

 

[Awesome]

Let it be known that with all his quirks, warts n all... Salman Taseer dies a hero and a martyr of Pakistan.

I hope his death brings about an end to these laws, once and for all.

 

[Xeric]

This conveys my stand:

Mumtaz Qadri: Ghazi or Murderer? | The Pakistani Spectator

Mumtaz Qadri: Ghazi or Murderer?
By Gul Raiz • Jan 5th, 2011 • Category: Politics • No Responses

I have been following the twitter and facebook since afternoon yesterday and I have noticed that the public opinion is heavily divided and perhaps to the dismay of many moderate people, people are tilting in the favor of the Malik Mumtaz Hussain Qadri, the person who poured 40 bullets without pause into the body of governor Punjab Salman Taseer.

Some are calling him the murderer and many are terming him the Ghazi who did the right thing. The TV channels are very cautious and they are not calling Salman Taseer as Shaheed. Even some of the PPP leaders are not saying him martyr. Sheeri Rehman, another character from PPP who called blasphemy law a black law has almost wept in front of cameras and has said that she never meant to insult or degrade the blasphemy law. Everybody is treading a fine line.

Now the debate is going on. The Western media is using this occasion to highlight the extremism in Pakistan and branding the whole of Pakistan as the society of intolerant, gun-totting mullahs roaming the street, opening fire just at the hint of anything against their beliefs. Pakistan’s bad image has gotten worst.

We as a society still are very much unsure as what is the right way. We are Muslims and we know that Islam means peace and we know that in Islam the murder of one human is murder of all humanity, and yet we are unsure of blasphemy law. That law was made by a human and yet we cannot discuss it, improve it. We all love our holy prophet Hazrat Muhammad (PBUH). We need to make sure that, that love doesn’t become property of Mullah.

 

[Xeric]

BTW, if i am correct isnt 85 out of 90 or so blasphemy case suspects were Muslims?!

 

[mjnaushad]

Sir I am also very perplexed at the heights of Pakistani intolerance. Discussing Blasphemy laws at the morning chai in the morning today, a colleague came really close to threatening me too for just debating issue why its not okay to kill no matter what is being said.

Concepts of freedom haven't touched these people, they have been slaves of one thing or the other their entire life. These are not Muslims but slaves of an ideology they think is Islam.

This is no country for brave men, indeed - just whiny tantrum throwers. The rest of us, that matter, we have bullets with our names on them.

To be honest..... I tried to argue once but then never did it again.... Because when they lose the argument they take it as personal phadda....

 

[fatman17]

BTW, if i am correct isnt 85 out of 90 or so blasphemy case suspects were Muslims?!

yes-correct

 

[Xeric]

yes-correct

So Qadri saab was flabbergasted because Taseer went to sympathize with Asia bibi.

 

[fatman17]

So Qadri saab was flabbergasted because Taseer went to sympathize with Asia bibi.

correct again!

 

[Xeric]

correct again!

Isnt it amazing?

 

[ice_man]

BARELVI'S CELEBERATE!

KARACHI: More than 500 religious scholars belonging to the Barelvi school of thought paid rich tributes to the assassin of Punjab Governor Salmaan Taseer on Tuesday and urged ‘Muslims across the country’ to boycott the funeral ceremony.

While the Deoband and Barelvi leaders appear to be on the same page when it comes to condemning the slain Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) leader for terming the blasphemy law as a black law, the Barelvi scholars, who claim to be the ‘true lovers of the Holy Prophet (pbuh)’, have taken a more hardline stance.

The largest body of the Barelvi group, the Jamaate Ahle Sunnat Pakistan (JASP), whose directions are considered binding on every other organisation that follows the same school of thought, issued a statement saying that “No Muslim should attend the funeral or even try to pray for Salmaan Taseer or even express any kind of regret or sympathy over the incident.”

The statement which has been endorsed by senior Barelvi leaders such as Professor Saeed Shah Kazmi, Allama Syed Riaz Hussain Shah, Syed Shah Turabul Haq Qadri and Hajji Mohammad Tayyab calls the assassin Mumtaz Hussain Qadri ‘Ashiqe Rasool Ghaziye Mulk (Lover of the Prophet, Commander of the Country)’.

“We pay rich tributes and salute the bravery, valour and faith of Mumtaz Qadri,” the statement said, adding that the ministers, politicians, ‘so-called’ intellectuals and anchor persons should learn lessons from the governor’s death. The scholars said that those who insult the Holy Prophet (pbuh), even if they did not intend to, were liable for death.

Hajji Mohammad Tayyab, who is also the secretary general of the Sunni Ittehad Council, told The Express Tribune that scholars had “repeatedly urged the president, prime minister and Governor Taseer himself that if their knowledge about the blasphemy law are limited, they should consult them and avoid debating over the issue as it would inflame the people and then anything could happen.”

Shah Turabul Haq Qadri’s son Siraj, also a senior member of the JASP, endorsed the statement and said it was now binding on every Muslim.

Jamiat Ulemae Pakistan (JUP) central executive committee member Maulana Shabbir went as far as saying that in his opinion Salmaan Taseer was ‘Wajubul Qatil’ (must be killed according to divine law). “He had called the divine law of God, a black law and tried to protect a condemned blasphemer,” he said.

Senior Sunni Tehrik leader Shahid Ghauri said although his party was yet to issue any formal statement about the matter, he would support the call of JASP because the people who gave the edict were his elders.

Senior Jamaate Islami leader Farid Paracha distanced his organisation from the JASP statement, but condemned the governor for calling the blasphemy law, a black law. “I believe that this call for changing the law was being done at the behest of the US and other western powers.”

Senior cleric of the Deoband school of thought and Jamia Binoria chief Mufti Naeem said he could not understand why the slain PPP leader invited trouble for himself, especially given that the blasphemy law was passed in 1985 by the parliament unanimously. “He kept on taking Aasia’s name, but I ask why didn’t he ever make a similar plea for Aafia (Siddiqui).” Naeem said although Islam says that anyone who commits blasphemy is liable to death punishment, what the killer Mumtaz Qadri did was totally wrong as he took the law into his hand.

“The blasphemy law was made exactly to prevent such incidents. Else there will be chaos in the country and everyone would kill everyone,” he said. Maulana Asad Thanvi too supported Naeem’s stance and said although what governor Taseer did was condemnable in the strongest words, he should have been tried in the courts.

Allama Abbas Kumaili of the Shia school of thought said the blasphemy law can be misused and there was no doubt about it. “But the way Salmaan Taseer took up the matter was blunt which inflamed the more emotional and ignorant people of our country.”

Published in The Express Tribune, January 5th, 2011.

Hardline Stance: Religious bloc condones murder – The Express Tribune

 

[Awesome]

Main baghi hoon

Iss daur k rasm riwajon se,
in takhton se inn tajon se,
jo zulm ki kokh se jante hain,
insani khoon se palte hain,
jo nafrat ki bunyadain hain
aur khooni khet ki khadein hain,
main baghi hoon main baghi hoon
jo chahe mujh pe zulm karo

Wo jin k hont ki jambish se,
wo jin ki aankh ki larzish se,
qanoon badalte rehte hain,
aur mujhrim palte rehte hain,
in choroon k sardaron se
insaaf k pahre daron se
main baghi hoon main baghi hoon
jo chahe mujh pe zulm karo

Mazhab k jo byopari hain,
wo sab se bari bemari hain,
wo jin k siwa sab kafir hain,
jo deen ka harf-e-akhir hain,
in jhute aur makkaron se
mazhab k thekedaron se
main baghi hoon main baghi hoon
jo chahe mujh pe zulm karo

Mere hath main haq ka jhanda hai,
mere sir pe zulm ka phanda hai,
main marne se kab darti hoon,
main moat ki khatir zinda hoon,
mere khoon ka suraj chamke ga
to bacha bacha bole ga
main baghi hoon, main baghi hoon
jo chahe mujh pe zulm karo

 

[apophenia]

Qadri saab...no more virgins....sorry.

 

[Safriz]

Thanks to the supporters and opposers of the least significant Blasphemy laws which haven't effected more than a dozen people since introduction..the solution of most important issues,such as price hike and load shedding which effect tens of millions..will be further delayed..
when will we set our priorities right?