Afghan Journal
Lifting the veil on conflict, culture and politics
from Pakistan: Now or Never?:
In Pakistan, an assassination and the death of words
When I first heard about Shahbaz Bhatti's assassination, there seemed to be nothing sensible to be said about it. Not yet another prediction about Pakistan's growing instability, nor even an outpouring of anger of the kind that followed the killing of Punjab governor Salman Taseer in the English-language media. The assassination of the Minorities Minister did not appear to portend anything beyond the actual tragedy of his death. And nor could anyone say it came as a surprise. A loss of words, then. A painful punctuation mark.
Cafe Pyala has now articulated far better than I could what went through my mind when I first heard about the assassination.
"There was a time when some of us would have leapt at the chance to throw words into this maelstrom, to comment on a senseless tragedy like the one today. As journalists, as commentators, as columnists, it would have been like going to the Promised Land. High profile murder? Check. Law and order issue? Check. Spectre of extremism? Check. Possibility of point scoring against toothless government? Check. Energizing, empowering, emboldening feeling of being part of a struggle that is bigger than one’s self? Check, Check, Check and Check!
"That time is long past."
It is that loss of words that is perhaps the most troubling. Everyone already knows that publicly challenging the blasphemy laws in Pakistan can be a death sentence. Everyone already knows the government appeased the religious right by pledging not to amend the laws after Taseer's death (that appeasement, incidentally, is not unique to the current civilian government -- the Musharraf government was also quite clear the laws could not be touched.) Everyone already knows that Pakistan's minorities are particularly vulnerable (according to The Express Tribune, they comprise almost 10 million people, equal to everyone in Tunisia, or one-and-half times all of Libya. )
Pakistan’s nuclear weapons and the enemy within
Steve Coll, the president of the New America Foundation and a South Asia expert, has raised the issue of the safety of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons in the wake of the assassination of the governor of most populous Punjab state by one of his bodyguards. It’s a question that comes up each time Pakistan is faced with a crisis whether it a major act of violence such as this or a political/economic meltdown or a sudden escalation of tensions with India obviously, but also the United States.
Pakistan’s security establishment bristles at suggestions that it could be any less responsible than other states in defending its nuclear arsenal, and its leaders and experts have repeatedly said that the professional army is the ultimate guardian of its strategic assets.
Pakistan’s blasphemy law strikes fear in minorities
Pakistan’s anti-blasphemy law has been in the spotlight since November when a court sentenced a Christian mother of four to death, in a case that has exposed deep rifts in the troubled Muslim nation of more than 170 million people. While liberal Pakistanis and rights groups believe the law to be dangerously discriminatory against the country’s tiny minority groups, Asia Bibi’s case has become a lightning rod for the country’s religious right.
On Tuesday, the governor of the most populous state of Punjab, Salman Taseer, who had strongly opposed the law and sought presidential pardon for the 45-year-old Christian farmhand, was gunned down by one of his bodyguards.
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