(Published in Sedaa – Our Voices)
You cannot secretly revere the doctrine that promotes Jihad, endorses misogyny, homophobia and other singularly inhumane aspects and then say that it does not endorse these things. Accept it, reform it and join the rest of the world in the 21st century. Other religions have done so and moved on. It is your turn now.
(Published in The Nation Pakistan)
Muslims have this tendency of explaining to others that Islam provided rights to women in an era where they did not have those rights. I tend to disagree with that but that is a whole other debate. Let’s assume that they were provided with these rights. And these rights were perfect. The thing to understand is that they were perfect for 7th century Arabia. They are not perfect today. In fact, they are not even rights but just methods to subjugate women.
(Published in Sedaa-Our Voices)
Transgender people have long been a part of the history of South Asia. Their stories are told in the Kama Sutra and they have existed in the Indian sub-continent for centuries. They were part of the courts of both Muslim and Hindu emperors and performed various spiritual and gender-liminal roles.
Subsequently, while they were not openly ostracised by society, they tended to live on its edge, making their living by performing at functions, begging and as sex workers — but never as full members of the population with rights equal to hetero-normative people. That is until recently, when Pakistan, India, Bangladesh and Nepal recognised them as a third gender, even on identity cards and passports.
(Published in The Nation Pakistan)
It isn’t often that one wakes up in Pakistan to good news. Contrary to expectations, today, February 29, was such a day. For the first time in many many years the Government of Pakistan showed some resolve and the murderer Mumtaz Qadri was hanged. Salmaan Taseer got justice.
Keeping with the tradition in Pakistan, whereby each time after a terrorist attack, fingers are pointed at someone else, this time again blame was laid squarely at the door of others.
The establishment’s favourite boogeyman is India and sure enough the news that the terrorists that shot to death almost 30 people at Bacha Khan University, were affiliated with the Indian intelligence agency RAW, started making the rounds soon afterwards. The government machinery was quick to respond after the attack by blaming each other as well.
The question that the citizenry however was asking was simple. What happened to Zarb e Azab, the military action started a year and a half ago to wipe out militants from the country’s north? While the strikes against the militants may have seen some success, questions still arise as to why then the militants are able to carry out attacks, such as the one on Bacha Khan University.
Subsequent to the vile and horrific shooting by the taliban, of school children of the Army Public School in Peshawar in December 2014, the ruling machinery seemed to gather pace and came up with the National Action Plan, which included enforcing executions for terrorists sentenced to death; setting up of special anti-terrorist courts under the military to speed up the trial process; banning armed organizations; and taking action against those spreading hate, extremism and sectarianism, among other actions.
While we saw the speeding up of executions, most of those executed were not terrorists but criminals on death row. While some organizations were banned on paper, they are still free to hold rallies and conferences. In fact, one even won 9 seats under a different name in the Local Bodies Elections in Sindh.
Meanwhile, last week all schools in Punjab and many in Sindh were closed down due to terror threats. This is where we have come. Instead of curbing terrorism, we have contributed to the already pathetic state of education in this country, by closing down schools. Which, by the way, is what the taliban and ISIS types want.
One provincial government has decided to provide arms training to teachers and to provide them with guns. An idea so stupid that I do not have words to even show my utmost disgust with it.
And while all of these shenanigans are going on, as mentioned before, organizations and seminaries with terrorist affiliations are still going about their business. One prime example of this is the notorious Red Mosque in the capital Islamabad, whose female wing has issued a video pledging allegiance to ISIS and whose main Mullah constantly threatens the state and government. He and his seminary continue to do this, as well as spreading sectarian hatred. The government has been unable to take him into custody even after a number of criminal complaints lodged against him. A civil society movement against him has been organized and this has resulted in the movement’s members being maligned by him. And still the government seems paralyzed to stop other such parasites from spreading their extremist and hateful agenda.
Such is the power of Islamic terrorism here, that a even after numerous attacks and deaths of its people a nuclear nation is not able to bring down the perpetrators. This is because there exists a general mindset: Muslims could never do such horrible acts. This is what the majority of Pakistani populace believes, whether they are conservative Muslims, Islamists or even moderates. The madrassa (seminary) is the main site of such ignorance, but they are not alone. Our whole education system also promotes this.
Added to this, the military has supported (and continues to support) factions of the taliban as strategic assets for insurgency into Afghanistan and other extremist organizations for insurgency into India and it becomes quite clear why terrorist activities are still going on . It is, after all, very difficult to give up on your assets.
And this is what Pakistan needs to understand. No amount of executions and military strikes are going to stop this monster that we ourselves have created, unless we get to the root of this. We need to say that it is Islamism that is the problem. We need to stop blaming India or Afghanistan and change the mindset of our populace by expunging the superiority of Islamism from our text books. Pakistan needs to look towards secularism if it wants to survive as a country and stop giving Islam precedence over everything else. And it most certainly cannot continue to provide support to the Islamists, use them as assets and then cry victim when those same Islamists come after its people.
(Published in The Huffington Post)
Blasphemy is a crime in Pakistan, the punishment for which can be death. The law is a left over of the Indian Penal Code that the British had introduced, and which was later expanded upon by the military dictator Zia ul Haq. More often than not, it is used to target minority communities, especially the Ahmadiyya, who were declared non-Muslims in 1974, through a constitutional amendment. Under this amendment, the community is banned from using Islamic terms, using Islamic texts to pray or even calling their places of worship ‘masjid’.
(Published in The Nation Pakistan)
His idea that free expression and scientific discovery should replace religion as a means of teaching ethics and as a means of defining humanity, was and is something that clearly should be strongly considered in this age, where religious extremism and terrorism have become a norm. Think about where the human civilization would go if it started concentrating on something other than religious morality.
(Published in The Huffington Post)
On January 4, 2011, the Governor of the Pakistani Province of Punjab was shot and killed by one of his own security guards, Mumtaz Qadri. The reason for this was Taseer’s defense of the proposed amendments in the Country’s blasphemy laws, as well as his support for the release of Asia Bibi, a Christian woman who has been sentenced to death for allegedly insulting Prophet Mohammad. The murderer Qadri was subsequently sentenced to death for his crime.
(Published in The Nation Pakistan) It is a little known fact that it is also secretly practiced in Pakistan, primarily by the Bohra Community, who are thought to have brought the practice over from Africa and whose leaders consider it a religious duty. Girls of 7 or 8 years are made to undergo this violation of their rights, often performed by medically untrained women. However, the Bohra community now claims that trained health practitioners perform the practice. The Sheedi community is also thought to practice it and they too brought them over from Africa.
(Published in The Nation Pakistan) Stop trying to do damage control and posting this one verse and stop expecting people to magically believe that Islam means peace, when the word’s literal meaning is “submission”. Groups like ISIS, Taliban, Al-Qaeda, Boko Haram, etc are doing exactly that: submitting and making others submit. Saying that these people are not Muslims is a disservice to the world and to yourselves, because they are – they themselves say so. This kind of takfir is exactly what gives them agency to kill people.
