It was a strategic decision to write this article a week and a half after Shahbaz Bhatti’s assassination.
The biggest worry most had the day Bhatti was gunned down was Pakistan’s fate in against Canada in the Cricket World Cup.
So while you followed up on the cricket – and danced to Shahid Afridi’s wicket taking provess (he is proving very adept captain I must say), let me tell you the set of news that you missed.
The captain that was hoping to steer the ship of Pakistan’s religious minorities from a dismal position was assassinated. More bewildering was that he was assassinated after he had forfieted the match. The battle to restore the dignity of Pakistan’s religious minorities had already been given up. Now they were trying to survive by by laying low. ‘Avoid follow on,’ you’d chip in in test match language.
Yes, indeed. The religious minorites of Pakistan were trying to avoid ‘follow on.’
It was in this feeble, defensive state, with a nightwatchman assisting the captain out on the pitch, that the captain was murdered. In broad day light; in front of the umpire.
No one uttered a word. The religious minortiies in Pakistan had been bowled straight out of the field.
And the Cricket World Cup 2011 and the fate of the Pakistan Cricket Team became our concern, again.
Much has been written about dear Shahbaz after his murder. But nothing that will leave a lasting imprint as powerful as his assassination itself.
Let me whisper the news to you: the religious minorities in Pakistan have (finally) been murdered. The white in the flag has been coloured green.
The eerie silence that has followed proves it.
Strange ways of understanding events:
When Shahbaz Bhatti was murdered I made the error of putting it up on Facebook and writing out a brief news report stating that a self-proclaimed Taliban group had left leafllets condemning Bhatti for seeking review of the Blasphemy Laws.
Immediately did I have a friend argue with me over how I could rule out ‘American’ forces behind the attack. It took a ten message conversation to explain to him how I, despite having the Aasia Bibi casefiles (and knowing their problems inside out), had refused to file a story on it. Then he did concede the point. But it was a thoroughly useless discussion to begin with.
The idea of Raymond Davis types orchestrating every blast in Pakistan’s territory was already rather popular before Davis’s moment of madness. But these mechanisms in our popular imagination are only ways to shirk responsibility of the internal production of events that have the possibility of fundamentally disturbing us.
We don’t let ourselves be disturbed. We blame America and return to watching the next cricket match.
No responsibility is ever accepted by us.
For those still unconvinced, it must be brought to their notice that incidents of individuals being killed for alleged blasphemy are not an exception in Punjab. The idea that words can offend the Sacred has wider acceptance in Punjab than the rest of the country, though it may be that the effects of the current debacle shall have spillovers.
The production of an intolerant imagination:
It was also very strange when I returned to my home village Sangla Hill to study the status of minorities there that the power of the Khatam i Naboowat conference and the mass sprouting of madrassas was revealed to me. It was rather later that I came to discover that Sangla Hill had had its Gojra incident in 2005.
When I took a friend who teaches at the Lahore University of Management Sciences to Itanwali (Aasia’s village) she was asked by the lady’s that accused Aasia to recite the first kalma and offer prayer. Their mother refused to shake hands with her before her daughters ‘confirmed’ to her that my friend was ‘Muslim.’ When my friend retorted, “Why do you not shake hands with Christians?” the mother of the accusing girls retorted, “If you were Muslim you would not have asked me this question.”
Simple. The mother of the accusers had no qualms about stating that non-Muslims were not to be ‘touched.’ If it be reminded then ‘touching’ a glass is exactly where the Aasia case itself began.
The idea that non-Muslim are below human dignity is a widely prevent idea in the Pakistani landscape – and it has to do with the particular memory that produces our breed of nationalism and religion.
The strangest of condemnations:
After hearing Sunni Tehreek leaders orchestrate the struggle against the review of the Blasphemy Laws and popularize the idea that even someone who criticized the Blasphemy Laws (Salmaan Taseer, namely) was eligible for death, the condemnations that came from them after Shahbaz Bhatti’s murder on national television were common sense.
Rather it was to strange to hear people saying, “it is a positive sign that the religious right has condemnded the act.” These folks had forgotten that the killing of Shahbaz Bhatti was only a logical conclusion of the madness set in motion by the same groups appearing to condemn it. To accept their polite shirking away from owning up the incident, saying, “We did not wish this to happen. It is a conspiracy against us and Pakistan,” is tantamount to allowing them to keep their control over our imagination. It is another trap for us to not see what has truly happened.
The Pakistani flag has been painted green. Fully green. The white has been washed away.
So it is best that we return to watching cricket.
And when it comes to suffering Christians in Pakistan let us declare, “there are no Christians suffering in Pakistan. There are no Hindus suffering in Pakistan. There are no Ahmadis suffering in Pakistan.” Rather let us say what we’d rather say, “there are no Christians in Pakistan” and return to watching the next cricket match (who is it between, Pakistan and Australia, is it?).
Religion and cricket: in cohoots?
But just one more word. As we return to sell the soul of our nationalism to cricket – we must be reminded that we are in the footsteps of the Sunni Tehreek who declared that it shall not hold a set of conferences (I feign deliberate ignorance) scheduled for 23 March so that the Pakistani Ummah can watch the Cricket World Cup 2011 Quarter Finals.
It is such a strange world that we have created for ourselves as those who breed the most intolerent of ideas still ‘respect’ the love of cricket.
What are we left with? Cricket and intolerance, as the two virtues of our nationalism.
Is there any human form to salvage a human from the fetters of our national identity?
First, we must reexamine partition. Second, we must reexamine the two nation theory. Third, we must reexamine our indepedence narrative for a semblance of humanity somewhere within it – and then we must grab onto it.
The worry though is: will we find it?
No one knows. It is true that no one knows where we shall find the ink to paint the White back onto Pakistan’s flag.
But then we should not worry about finding a painter. Who was Shahbaz Bhatti, anyway? Let’s all just settle down to watch the next cricket match – and forget this rather imprudent man.
Why must we even ask these questions when we can say, ‘Great bowling, Shahid. Great bowling.’
- The article was printed in The Review with Pakistan Today on 13 March 2011.
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