Adil Najam
Report from News (21 February, 2007):
A fanatic shot dead Punjab Minister for Social Welfare Zill-e-Huma Usman “for not adopting the Muslim dress code” at a political meeting here at the PML House on Tuesday. A party worker caught the accused, Maulvi Sarwar, and handed him over to the Civil Lines Police. Huma was at the PML House to hold an open Kachehry. As she was busy meeting the PML women activists, the accused sitting in the audience approached her with a pistol and pumped bullets into her head from a point-blank range… The accused, M Sarwar Mughal – popularly known as Maulvi Sarwar – is a resident of Baghbnapura in Gujranwala. Two police stations of Gujranwala and the Tibbi police of Lahore had booked Maulvi Sarwar for the murder of six women, but he was acquitted for want of sufficient evidence. His alleged spree of killing “immoral” women started in the year 2002. In his confession statement before the police on Tuesday, he said he was opposed to women holding public office. He added that after he read in the newspaper that the minister was holding an open court, he decided to kill her.
Sometimes you just wonder why! Sometimes you just want to give up!
I have been feeling sad and numb and down and dejected all day. I heard about the brutal murder of Punjab Minister Zile Huma Usman’s murder by a crazed fanatic some 10 hours ago. And I have been in utter shock.
I have tossed and turned. I had thought earlier that I would not even write about it. What is the use? When a society goes so mad that a woman is killed just because she is a woman, what can a blog post do. Just ignite more silly debates; more childish heckling; more immature point-scoring; trying to show how smart you are; or, more likely, trying to show how idiotic others are; reaffirming your own belief that you are always right, and everyone else is always wrong; single-track chest thumping; self-righteous finger-pointing. No remorse. No compassion; not a word of sympathy; not a shred of caring. All there is, is anger; getting high on our own anger; anger for its own sake; getting so very angry that you even forget what or who you are angry at.
But now I do want to write about this. We, as a society, have some serious thinking to do.
What killed Zille Huma Usman? Not religion. Not madness. But anger. Uncontrolled anger.
A society that seems to be fueled by anger. No conversation is seen to be legitimate unless it is an angry conversation. And the solution to everything seems to be violence. ‘Kill the infidels’ say the believers. ‘Kill the mullahs’ shout the modernists. ‘Hang them by the gallows.’ ‘Put them in boats and let them sink.’ ‘Death is what they deserve.’ We have heard it all right here. I suspect we will hear it again. That dastardly, self-righteous anger. This violence in the language, as Zille Huma so tragically found, becomes the violence of bloodshed all too easily. Today it was in the name of religion. Tomorrow it will be something else.
So, do me a favor folks. Give her some dignity. Hold your anger. Think about what happened. Ponder. And pause. For the sake of whatever is sacred to you; please pause!
An innocent woman’s life has already been taken by our inability to put a lid on our passions and our anger. Let us please not make a tamasha out of her death by making her a poster child for whatever ’cause’ we are parading for right now.
So a woman is killed in broad day light in my country by a fellow who claimed to follow my religion? And I am not allowed to be emotional- if at all. Remarkable logic. We must ALL express our collective outrage … we should NOT become de-sensitised to an issue of this magnitude.
Dear Abu Haleema,
1. I am afraid we have to agree to disagree. No need to insult anyone’s intelligence by making comments with no roots in reality.
2. If I sound emotional (I was accused of being unconcerned about the human side only minutes ago), it is because I LIVE here and this is my country… this is where my mother, wife and daughters live. I have every right to be emotional given that this will make any reasonable (yes that is the key- reasonable) person emotional. I will CONTINUE to drum about this daughter of Pakistan. When a woman is killed in broad daylight for being a woman, only a coward does not drum about it. I am outraged… this is my country. I have EVERY right to be outraged. So don’t tell me what I should or shouldn’t do
3. I created the Wikipedia Entry and I announced it. Your claim that I was using it to support my point of view is ridiculous when I declared that I created it. Now this is what is called an argument that is neither here nor there.
4. I have only expressed my feelings on a message board. I suppose in your esteemed opinion the reasonable and rational person was that fellow who decided to shoot an innocent woman in the head for being a woman?
Balance for god’s sake. I am sick of people who try and divert the issue into personal character assassination like the sort you’ve started in your last post.
Dear Adil
I had actually been waiting since yesterday for this post, but now, with a 20-20 hindsight, I agree with your first instinct that you did not want to write a piece about this tragic incidence. I was totally wrong in thinking that this post would not become a mud slinging match for people having a difference in opinion, and totally disregarding the solemness of the situation. May God have mercy on her soul and may God help us and our country.
This incident is sad but when did getting emotional solve any problem?
We need to focus on the real reason for this incident – and for that matter most all terrorist incidents in Pakistan – i.e. uncontrolled abuse of religion. And folks let’s not bring in seculars/modernists in this discussion; they have not killed this poor women.
After reading the article and the responses, the only person who is not able to control his emotions seems to be YLH who has gone to an extent of creating a wikipedia entry, probably to support his view.
YLH, the more you type about the minister, the more it seems you are making a mockery of her.
It seems Adil is right when he says that:
“more silly debates; more childish heckling; more immature point-scoring; trying to show how smart you are; or, more likely, trying to show how idiotic others are; reaffirming your own belief that you are always right, and everyone else is always wrong;… ”
Do not beat the drum so hard that you numb everyone’s ears and the beat is not heard anymore.