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.
[quote comment=”35022″]Ahmadiyyat, Sunnism, Shiaism and secularism and lets serve Pakistan seriously.[/quote]
Really? How may Ahmadiyyat, Shias, seculars, agha khanis, parsis or christians killed any innocent Sunnis? The only exception are some shias who have only acted in self-defence as government does not protect them. The real problem is of fanaticism and of Sunni fanaticism if we must get into the nitty gritty. Sunnis must put their own house in order. Instead they start discussing it as if it is “our” problem. It is not!
Dear Akif,
[quote comment=”35018″]Adil, you are right in that as a society we need to learn how to talk to each other and to hold a dialogue without going into fits of rage about everything. However, I do not agree with you that cases such as this have much to do with rage.
I would bet you that this murderer is completely at peace with himself and has no qualms about what he has done. In his heart, he believes that he has done the right thing and sadly, millions around the country, secretly or otherwise, agree with him.
This tragedy highlights the failure of our society on sundry levels: the radicalization of the masses, the collapse of the educational system, the disregard for life in general and of women’s life in particular, the abject failure of law-enforcement and the judicial system…..it just goes on and on.[/quote]
It is quite apparent from the posts above that what you’ve written is probably true. I find it strange that after apprising people of this tragedy, Adil gave those Sarwar-Sympathisers a rider to make a backdoor entry. In a remarkable sommersault, our right to be outraged has been taken away, especially if for some reason we are considered “secular” on this forum. Please see Mr Adnan Siddiqui’s comments- which were aimed at downplaying this great tragedy and turning it into an imaginary “Secularist-Muslim” conflict. And you had Moeen Bhatti (someone please check IPs here) first calling for a ban on Islam and then taking a personal tangent unnecessarily.. And then you have Abu-Haleema- who instead of commenting on the great tragedy- decided to admonish me and for what? Expressing my outrage – eventhough I did not use the kind of obscenities and personal attack that is their wont.
This is NOT about SECULARISM. This is NOT about ISLAM. If you are a human being, a father, a Brother, a Husband and a Son… You ought to condemn this Barbaric incident with all your heart.
Good night.
It is ridiculous that instead of remembering the dead lady, two or three people are arguing because they think they are smart. Please stop this nonsense and be focused on topic.
She was murdered by a person who had his own cause. We shouldn’t link every bad thing with Islam and good thing with modern world. Please set aside your Ahmadiyyat, Sunnism, Shiaism and secularism and lets serve Pakistan seriously.
I think the point about anger in the original post has been completely missed by many.
We owe it to the victim to put some serious thought into how this kind of mindless extremism can be curbed and how the values of tolerance and acceptance for diversity are to be promoted.
Making angry statements like ‘screw the Mullahs’ is understandable when such an incident takes place. However, we need to focus more on solutions instead of just venting our anger. Statements like ‘ban all religion’ are not only outrightly wrong and stupid, but also totally counterproductive since they smack of extremism.
If religious extremism is to be combatted, we would need to have an indiginous logic for tolerance in a Pakistani vernacular. We would need to point out the logic for tolerance within Islam (and there is plenty of that) so that the distortions preached by the Mullahs are outrightly rejected by the people as violations of Islam itself.
Lastly, I hope the media will also talk about the police and judiciary and raise hell about how this idiot murderor got off the hook in the first place. The issue of reforming the police and judiciary has not received enough media attention as it deserved.
Adil, you are right in that as a society we need to learn how to talk to each other and to hold a dialogue without going into fits of rage about everything. However, I do not agree with you that cases such as this have much to do with rage.
I would bet you that this murderer is completely at peace with himself and has no qualms about what he has done. In his heart, he believes that he has done the right thing and sadly, millions around the country, secretly or otherwise, agree with him.
This tragedy highlights the failure of our society on sundry levels: the radicalization of the masses, the collapse of the educational system, the disregard for life in general and of women’s life in particular, the abject failure of law-enforcement and the judicial system…..it just goes on and on.