Pakistan’s chaos theory: A liberal dose of silence

Qadri looked victorious and was praised by lawyers for not fleeing the scene of the incident. It would only be hasty to assume that the pro-Qadri phenomenon was limited to the less-educated and radical sections of Pakistani society.

Ahmadiyya Times | News Watch | Int'l Desk
Source/Credit: DNA India
By Shiv Vikas | December 30, 2011

As several high-profile events unfolded in the country through 2011, Pakistan watchers had an eventful time. While Osama bin Laden’s death in a US operation in Abbottabad made a severe dent in Pakistan’s image of a “credible ally” in the war on terror, growing tensions between the army and the federal government kept its citizens and the international community on tenterhooks. However, amid these high-octane events, the Islamic republic also witnessed a slow but noticeable change in its social fabric.

This year, which has been severely hard for Pakistan’s liberal society, has also seen a simultaneous surge in the number of far-right groups. Moderates, who amid widespread violence have always been a calming influence on many of Pakistan’s right-leaning citizens, have been silenced through either killings or fatwas.

Such oppression has now become an alarming trend across the country. Added to this is the concern that mainstream political parties have been appeasing far-right religious groups with newfound zeal.As a consequence, Pakistan today largely stands divided between the right and far-right, with most moderates finding refuge in silence. Some signs show that the country could follow the same trajectory in 2012 and beyond.


If Pakistan fails to contain it, it will be almost impossible to keep extremist groups like the Tehrik-i-Taliban in check, and that could have disastrous consequences for all.

The question, though, that one is inevitably left with is this — What went so wrong in 2011 that the social balance of Pakistani society is being this irrevocably threatened? To answer this, one would have to take a few steps back in time to comprehend the events over the last 363 days that have spelt doom for the liberals and have, as a result, propped up hard-line groups and their ever abundant sympathisers.

The unfortunate killing of Salman Taseer — while he was serving as the governor of Pakistan’s Punjab province — and the country’s sole minority federal minister Shahbaz Bhatti, shook the very core of Pakistani society. Both leaders were killed because of their liberal views on the country’s controversial blasphemy law. The law seeks to protect Islamic authority and maintains that it is the country’s duty to foster the Islamic way of life, but has in effect been loosely used to target minorities for years. Thousands were charged under this law until November 2010 and convictions were an accepted norm.

The law and its misuse, however, caught worldwide attention when a woman was handed the death penalty by a Punjab court in November last year. Asia Bibi, a practising Christian, was convicted over allegedly making remarks against Islam during an argument with a group of women in Shekhupura district of Punjab.

The conviction sparked a fierce debate in the country and gave religious and hardline groups much-needed fuel that they could use to reach out to masses.

In massive rallies that were held in all major Pakistani cities, there were many who criticised the killings, but who were also protective of the law itself. The unprecedented support given to the law largely silenced the liberals. Former minister Sherry Rehman was the first casualty of this divide in the country. Disturbed by the incident, Rehman decided to move a private member’s bill in the National Assembly to amend the blasphemy law.The move backfired and she was heavily criticised, even by her own party. She was forced to keep a low-profile, fearing for her life after numerous fatwas were issued against her.

Unfazed by Rehman’s fate, Taseer decided to take Bibi’s case to the parliament and to President Asif Ali Zardari. Angered religious groups and sections of the media did not moderate the criticism they heaped on the leader as a result. Taseer did not compromise on his stand and was eventually killed by his own bodyguard Mumtaz Qadri on January 4 this year. Qadri belonged to an Islamic sub-sect called the Barelvi movement and was miffed with Taseer for supporting Asia Bibi in an interview on a television channel.

Taseer’s assassination was a sad event but the events that followed served as an even greater reminder of liberalism’s slow death in Pakistan. Qadri was received outside an anti-terror court to a hero’s welcome. Rose petals were showered on him for “protecting” Islam and many lawyers queued up to fight his case.

Qadri looked victorious and was praised by lawyers for not fleeing the scene of the incident. It would only be hasty to assume that the pro-Qadri phenomenon was limited to the less-educated and radical sections of Pakistani society. Many new-age Internet users created hundreds of pages on Facebook and YouTube. One such page gave him the title of Gazi (a Muslim warrior), much to the amusement of the world outside. Some users of social-networking websites did not stop at that and they continue to create offensive pages against the Taseer family to this day. The family’s only fault was that they held liberal views and found nothing wrong in that.

It is interesting to note that the Pakistan government had banned Facebook over publishing blasphemous content in 2009, but it does not find anything wrong in malicious content being published about the Taseer family. On August 26 this year, a group of unidentified gunmen kidnapped Taseer’s son Shahbaz. He has not been found till date and the media has also put the story on the backburner. One can only wonder if the surname Taseer is now irreversibly jinxed.

Bhatti, another liberal thinker, suffered the same fate as Taseer in February 2011. He was killed by unknown gunmen while going to his office in Islamabad. He was at the forefront of efforts to reform the blasphemy law. Bhatti was a practising Roman Catholic and had assumed the position of an unofficial spokesperson of minorities in the federal government. After these high-profile killings in January and February respectively, religious groups continued making inroads in Pakistani society through the year.

Today one cannot mention many names that openly stand for the rights of minorities in Pakistan. Though in the same breath it must not be denied that liberal thinkers still exist in the Pakistani society. It is just that they would prefer to stay away from controversial subjects like the blasphemy law. With its liberals silenced, Pakistan appears to be a country sliced; certainly an unhealthy status in a world on the brink of catharsis.


The author is a political commentator on South Asian affairs


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