by B. R. GOWANI
Massacre of Shias
“Shias demonstrate and sit between the coffins of bomb blast victims in Quetta on January 12, 2013. Shia families refusing to bury their dead after twin bombings in Pakistan’s troubled southwestern city of Quetta vowed to continue their sit-in protest until the army takes over security. Sunni militant group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi claimed responsibility for the bombings, which took place in an area dominated by Shia Muslims from the Hazara ethnic minority.” PHOTO/AFP/Dawn
Over a hundred people, mostly Shias, were killed in twin blasts in Baluchistan. The Shia Muslims are a minority in Pakistan and are, for a long time, the target of Sunni militant groups, who consider them as heretics. Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, the group involved in the killing, was the creation of military dictator Zia-ul-Haq. One of the group’s leaders was in Karachi after the killing.
The government of Pakistan is so scared of the Islamic militants, that when on November 4, 2010, the Governor of Punjab, Salman Taseer was assassinated by one of his own bodyguards, President Asif Ali Zardari didn’t attend his funeral. The unwillingness of imams to offer the funeral prayers forced the government to bring in their own imam. Taseer’s crime was to ask for justice for a Christian woman named Aasia Bibi who was accused of blasphemy.
The Shia families of the victims buried their family members only after Prime Minister Raja Pervaiz Ashraf paid a visit and the provincial government was dismissed. The province in now under the governor’s rule.
History plays strange tricks on human beings. But to perform those tricks, history has to rely on human beings. So in that sense, history and humans are to praised or condemned equally.
The first president of the All India Muslim League was Sir Sultan Muhammad Shah Aga Khan III, a Shia Ismaili. Mohammad Ali Jinnah, the Muslim League president and the founder of Pakistan, was a Shia Ismaili too. (Later on he became a Twelver Shia.)
Today Pakistan is not safe for Shias. It is not safe for any minorities either. Women and the moderate Sunnis feel the same.
The President is in the bunker. The military supports the murderers because it has its own agenda. Ayesha Siddiqa points out that the military is supporting Lashkar-e-Jhangvi in Baluchistan “so that it can weaken the Baloch nationalist movement and create differences among local communities like the Hazaras and the Baloch to suppress the insurgency.”
The sign of some hope is that some of the people are coming out in the open to criticize the ghastly act and to blame Lashkar-e-Jhangvi. Politician Imaran Khan, former cricketer, visited Quetta and met the victims’ families.
Muhammad Tahirul Qadri
Dr. Muhammad Tahirul Qadri, chief of the Tehrik-i-Minhajul Quran (TMQ) PHOTO/Reuters/Indian Express
Last year, out of the 35 industrialized countries, Canada ranked 18th in child poverty.
In March of 2012, the United Nations’ agency UNICEF’s executive director David Morley had this to say about child poverty in Canada:
“The face of poverty in Canada is a child’s face.” “This is unacceptable.”
From that Canada, Muhammad Tahirul Qadri, an Islamic cleric of Pakistani origin, who holds dual nationality and had resided in Canada for the last seven years, travels to Pakistan to fight against corruption. He gives an ultimatum to the Pakistan government to change itself within a day or two.
Now a person who is living in Canada should have concentrated on drawing the Canadian government’s attention to ills such as child poverty or any other issue, and should have worked on bringing some positive change there. Then he should have thought about fighting against corruption in Pakistan.
But the Pakistani people are so screwed up and miserable, that even if a psychopath like Wayne LaPierre, Executive Vice President of the National Rifle Association, were to go there and tell them that he’s there to help them, they’ll believe him.
This is not South Asia’s Tahrir Square movement. Qadri is not even Pakistan’s Anna Hazare. He is military’s man. Pakistani military’s mental faculties needs a big applause.
Sometime back, a tabloid in Bangladesh had a story about an alleged affair between Pakistan’s foreign minister and the son of Pakistan’s president. It is believed that the Pakistani military was behind that story.
B. R. Gowani can be reached at brgowani@hotmail.com