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.
i really shocked when i listened abt that murder……..sorry to say that we r v fanatic nation…..sorry
sorry state of affairs ,lack of education I would say.
And how can Islam be responsible? You wear the scarf, and yet you don’t. You stand in the presence of men with a painted face, not caring who’s around. You dare them for a reason which you don’t even know. Why? You simply don’t care. You don’t care if the country upholds a strict moral code (and what makes that sad?) It protects the poor, women, and men from sick lust(which is enough justification) You just look at the west which is being copied and the suffocating decadence. It makes people fear just as much when others can’t and will not understand ‘good living’ i.e living morally. Has the world gone mad? There must be some form of control. And I will be for this movement if it is done the legal way and manner. Good luck. (THIS IS MORE ABOUT THE ISSUE AND NOT THE STORY)
The apologists will be crying out saying that Islam was not responsible for it. In fact it is very responsible. Sharia courts and Hudood Ordnances promote exactly this kind of intolerance. In fact, a whole generation of Pakistanis has been brought up on religious guilt and this is the result. As a secular Muslim, I am incensed by this State-sponsored religious madness.
“… You may be Muslim, Christian or Hindu, but that has got nothing to do with the business of the State..”
It is time we removed the “Islamic” from the Republic of Pakistan, and modelled it on the pattern of Turkey.
Adil Najam expresses well the sense of outrage and dismay that all civilised and free thinking Pakistanis feel about the killing of Zill-e-huma Usman. However he then goes on to display the typical lack of nerve and dare I say it, intelelctual honesty when he immediately rules out the SOLE reason for this killing and I quote: “What killed Zille Huma Usman? Not religion. Not madness. But anger”.
No Adil, it WAS religion and more specifically the brand of superstittious and empty Islamic beliefs that dominant over the last 30 years-until this is changed this kind of thing will go on.