Massacres of Ahmadis in Lahore : A prayer.... of sorts?
The
‘non-Muslim’ status of the Ahmedis and the laws that criminalise any reference
to their using Muslim religious symbols leads the media in Pakistan to steer
clear of controversy. Everyone in public routinely refers to their places of
worship as ‘mosque’ or their prayers as ‘namaz’. Failure to do so could earn you
three years rigorous imprisonment or a mob lynching. In this age of 24/7
television, I felt almost apologetic confessing that I wasn’t watching the drama
unfold on live TV. I was out and about, started getting the news much later.
Just as well. Dr Haroon Ahmed, the well known psychiatrist, says he wanted to
throw up, watching the gory scenes on TV. That’s another issue – the violence
brought into our homes through blow-by-blow accounts on TV and the “oxygen of
publicity” (as Bharat Bhushan, editor of Mail Today put it) it gives these
murderers. -- Beena
Sarwar
By Beena
Sarwar
A freebee giveaway Harkatul
Ansar clock : hands are a Kalshnikov, four of the five pillars of Islam mark the
quarter hour points. The fifth pillar, Tauheed, replaced by
Jehad.
There was a front page
photograph the day after the Lahore massacres, of an elderly Ahmedi with a cap
and small white beard, hands ‘clasped together in a prayer of sorts’ as Dawn
captioned it. ‘Of sorts’. Even Dawn did not want to risk calling it prayer. The
photo reminded me of the iconic picture taken during the Gujarat carnage in
India, 2002, in which a Muslim man, hands clasped, pleads for his life.
The ‘non-Muslim’ status of the
Ahmedis and the laws that criminalise any reference to their using Muslim
religious symbols leads the media in Pakistan to steer clear of controversy.
Everyone in public routinely refers to their places of worship as ‘mosque’ or
their prayers as ‘namaz’. Failure to do so could earn you three years rigorous
imprisonment or a mob lynching. In this age of 24/7 television, I felt almost
apologetic confessing that I wasn’t watching the drama unfold on live TV. I was
out and about, started getting the news much later. Just as well. Dr Haroon
Ahmed, the well known psychiatrist, says he wanted to throw up, watching the
gory scenes on TV. That’s another issue – the violence brought into our homes
through blow-by-blow accounts on TV and the “oxygen of publicity” (as Bharat
Bhushan, editor of Mail Today put it) it gives these
murderers.
The attacks, conducted almost
simultaneously on two Friday congregations of Ahmedis worshippers in Lahore on
May 28th, were cold-blooded, well planned events, conducted by trained gunmen
with suicide vests (reminiscent of those who attacked Mumbai in Nov 2008). Only
one was caught alive. Late at night on Jun 1, armed militants, in a bid to
rescue or kill him, burst into the public hospital where he lay injured (not
severely), chained to a bed. A quick-thinking nurse switched off the main lights
plunging the building into darkness and preventing them from finding their
wounded fellow. Luckily they did not hear him screaming from his hospital bed
(in some other language according to reports) because the ICU where he was kept
is almost soundproof. (He has since been transferred to
prison)
Where do these people get the
guts to operate so brazenly?
Perhaps because the
administration turns a blind eye to their displaying banners like the one
photographed recently on Mall Road outside Lahore High Court that reads:
'Yahudi, Isai, Mirzai Islam ke dushman haiN’ (Jews, Christians, Ahmedis, are
enemies of Islam).
Then there are the freebee
giveaways by banned outfits like Harkatul Ansar – like this clock, photographed
at a ‘parchoon’ shop in Karachi’s Delhi Colony. The hands are a Kalshnikov, four
of the five pillars of Islam, Namaz, Zakat, Haj and Roza (prayer, charity,
pilgrimage and fasting) mark the quarter hour points. The fifth pillar, Tauheed
(belief in the singularity of the Almighty), has been replaced by Jehad (holy
war), the word placed right in the centre. Jehad is not one of Islam's five
pillars. But of course, no one is going to proceed against them for
misrepresenting, some would say defiling, the religion.
Those who raise a voice against
these issues find themselves threatened with legal action or worse. A case in
point is Malik Rashid’s article ‘Faithful Killers, Fatal Worship’ (Ibrahim Sajid
Malick’s blog) about the massacre of Ahmedis in Lahore on May 28. In the
comments section, a reader threatened legal action against Malik Rashid for
referring to ‘Ahmedi mosques’. The fellow even provided his name, address and
phone number (the number proved erroneous when a doctor in the US attempted to
call it).
The massacre of Ahmedis in
Lahore was not an isolated incident. Other mosques have been attacked at times
of prayer, like the attack on the Rawalpindi army mosque last December that
claimed over forty lives. Such incidents underline how various strains come
together that have been tearing apart Pakistan in the bloodiest way. Several
other recent incidents are part of this continuum, all of which have claimed
many innocent lives, like Gojra, the Christian village accused of `blasphemy’
(and earlier, Shantinagar), Marriot Hotel in Islamabad, Sri Lanka’s cricket team
and police academy in Lahore, the Ashura Moharram procession followed by
widespread arson and later the blast that killed Shi’a mourners in a bus in
Karachi.
Each of these attacks, and more,
are seared into our consciousness. There are many other incidents, at places
where the TV cameras did not reach in time, like the mosque bombed at the
frontier, the girls’ schools blown up in the tribal areas. And of course the
target killings and attacks on women teachers, journalists, politicians, Ahmedi
and Shi’a doctors… Not to mention all those murdered for alleged ‘blasphemy’ (as
well as the robbers lynched for stealing)… The Human Rights Commission of
Pakistan has for years been documenting these violations, demanding legal
action, and warning of threats, including to the Ahmedi mosque in Model Town,
which was provided no police protection.
Friday, May 28th, had already
begun with bad news: the Maoist attack in West Bengal that derailed a passenger
express train. Some 80 innocent people lost their lives in that attack. Rajdeep
Sardesai tweeted about the ‘red terror’ issue that he was planned to focus on in
his show that night. My response: “Terror has no colour. Red terror, green
terror, saffron terror – basically they are all criminals & should be dealt
with as such.”
The Ahmediyya community has
blamed Pakistan’s policies for the attack. They could as well add the US and
Saudi Arabia to the list of those responsible. This trajectory of violence
fuelled by religious bigotry took a life of its own when all these countries
used religion as a tool against communism after having drawn the Soviets into
Afghanistan.
Perhaps in the same way India’s
policies can be blamed for the Maoist attack. But in the end, the responsibility
for the attacks lies with those perpetrating the violence, whether state or
non-state actors.
There are those who justify the
Taliban’s violence as a reaction to America’s drone attacks. They say everything
will be fine once America leaves the region. Sorry, no. The intensity and scale
of violence is certainly linked to the American presence but the extremists’
agenda was always clear – they were target killing Ahmedis, Shi’as, blowing up
girls’ schools, attacking music shops, de-facing billboards with women on them,
long before America returned to the region in the wake of
9-11.
Others remain in denial about
the ‘Muslim involvement’ – “They can’t be Muslims, they can’t be Pakistanis”.
Theoretically, yes, they are not Muslims because Islam means `peace’ and its
followers should adhere to the belief that to kill a human being is to kill all
humanity – but they consider themselves to be Muslims. For those who say that
the perpetrators were RAW agents – that’s some zeal being exhibited by employees
of an intelligence agency, to blow themselves up in their government’s
service.
For years we have treated the
Ahmedis as non-citizens, even non-humans. I remember my shock at the
discrimination they faced when I moved from Karachi to Lahore in 1988 (the
community does not live in Karachi in large numbers and it was never an issue
there). I wrote a long, researched piece about the discrimination but no one
would publish it. ”First make it part of a series,” the editor of a then newly
launched weekly magazine told me.
I had an argument with another
former editor, an otherwise reasonable senior journalist who had become
religious. His reaction to the Ahmedi issue was visceral: he thought they
deserved no rights because they were “imposters”. That’s what differentiates
them from other religious minorities – they claim to be Muslim, have Muslim
names, observe Muslim rituals, but are not recognised as Muslims, according to
Pakistan’s constitution – thanks to Z.A. Bhutto and his disastrous policy of
appeasing the right-wing as his power faltered.
Ziaul Haq further
institutionalised the discrimination against Ahmedis. A religion column was
inserted in the passport application form, solely to distinguish ‘Muslims’ from
Ahmedis – you tick on the religion box, and if you’re Muslim you have to sign a
declaration saying that you believe Mirza Ghulam Ahmed (the Ahmedis’ spiritual
head) was an imposter. The only person I know who got away with not signing this
was Dr Eqbal Ahmad when he was applying for his passport in New York after the
‘return of democracy’ – he threatened to hold a press conference and make a big
noise about it. (there is a similar requirement you obtain your national
identity card)
These bigoted views are now
entrenched into many psyches. “I had a customer come in, the TV was on showing
these attacks,” my DVD wala told me the day after the attacks. “He said, `They
(the attackers) are doing the right thing’. I was stunned, but we can’t argue
with customers. I just turned the TV off. What kind of beast can justify the
killing of innocent people, that too during prayer?”
I hope and believe that most
people share the DVD wala’s views more than his customer’s but I don’t
know.
Source: Viewpoint
online
1:23 AM
Sultan Shahin
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