I was in Buenos Aires recently attending a conference. During the daily commute to the conference venue I couldn’t help but be taken by the city’s grandeur, beauty and its ‘first world’ feel. Inquiring on their struggle with democracy, international pressures and the fear of being overshadowed by neighboring Brazil, the country’s similarity to Pakistan struck me as comforting.
During conference discussions, my nationality – like everyone else’s – was a common first question. Upon my response, “I’m from Pakistan” my business suits would prompt questions about the niqab. “That’s a personal choice in Pakistan. The niqab never enjoyed legal prescription in Pakistan as it does so in other countries” would be my response.
My urban adventures ensued with but one aim in mind; to understand how they got here and conversely could we? This whimsical feeling quickly wore off one day when I asked the hotel reception to call a taxi and when it arrived. Not only was the driver drunk, spoke only Spanish but he also chose to interpret my entire conversation with him mid journey as a refusal to pay. However upon arriving at the conference venue, I inquired about the fare and found that he had doubled the bill for no apparent reason. I didn’t fight it because I don’t haggle as a policy. But later in the night as I returned to the hotel I passed on this terrible experience to the front desk and requested that I may be called a more professional cab driver next time.
The next morning as I rushed to the last day of the conference I had an envelope in my name, which I opened expecting a message from the embassy, but it was plain cash – A reimbursement from the cab company. “But”, I protested, “this is much more than what I paid”. I was told it is what the company sent when the complaint was lodged. As I put that money in my purse, I was moved.
Argentina is haunted with the same terrors as the ones we are living, their history is replete with the same problems that Pakistan faces today. Argentina is a quoted case study on how IMF destroys economies through its ‘one size fits all’ policies. They too have suffered on the hopes of Peronism as we have in our dynastic politics; they too house many slums that grow faster than their ability to sustain the people; they too have an overzealous and intruding military. But Argentina has managed, in their 200 year history, to establish the supremacy of law.
In a recent ill-advised viewing of the Sialkot video of the lashing of the two boys I got the chance to appreciate the scale of the human rights outcry. So excessive was the man with the unrelenting stick, that he seemed almost mechanical, almost inhuman. His unsympathetic swings seemed without purpose other than to inflict pain. The violence of the act was so pronounced that one wouldn’t even know until the dust settled whether the purpose of the act has been served. Mob mentality is characterized as liberating and guilt-less with the anonymity that any one individual within the mob enjoys. However, the fact that among such a large group of people not a single person flinched, tells the story of a society that has seen far too much rage.
Pakistan is fighting a war with a phantom limb, one that was first created by the Washington Consensus to counter the red scare. After the fall of the iron curtain and the Russian withdrawal from Afghanistan, these men left without an enemy to fight and without a state to incorporate into, become a powder keg and implode, unleashing a decade of violence. This mental model of a persecuted global minority is real, and the defense against it is also real. Pakistan is persecuted, by its own leaderships’ inability to represent the people and hence creates a god-obsessed nation willing to go down fighting, without examining if the purpose of fighting is being served or not.
While the developed world enjoys a much higher standard of living and communal life, we are faced with a famished idea: The idea that God will provide. We fail our cricket matches because we don’t believe in the science of precision and preparation, we fail to predict floods because we haven’t invested in the concept of possibilities, we haven’t invested in adequate water management because these don’t buy votes. No country that today enjoys success got its success without the blood and sacrifice of its leadership.
In Boston, Massachusetts, 1770, John Adams witnessed the brutal torture of a British merchant at the time when the state of Massachusetts amongst others in the union was in the middle of brewing and negotiating an independent nation. The mob on the port of Boston, stripped the British merchant, mounted him on a cross and poured melted tar on him and paraded him in the streets while people threw feathers. Many watched where John Adams protested furiously. So ingrained was his sense of loyalty to the law that he once even defended British guards against the politically motivated independence rebels.
Pakistan is fortunate enough to have a founding father who was raised from the mantle of traditional English law that Johan Adams followed. Mohammad Ali Jinnah always sided with the law cautioning against conservatism, always accompanied by his sister, leading by example in his speeches he spoke about the rule of law, of justice, impartiality and fair play above all else.
We need to go back to our roots, and to our Founder’s vision. We need a little help.
Aisha Sarwari was in Buenos Aires for the World Association of Investment Promotion Agencies’ (WAIPA) annual meeting; Pakistan secured the Directorship of the South Asian Region for the Punjab Board of Investment and Trade (PBIT).
Nice article. Enjoyed reading this.
@YLH
Thank you dear Hamdani for wasting your precious time in trying to remove my ‘delusion’. In fact, I wanted that a man like you should be ‘provoked’ to revisit this ID episode which represents the psych of the Muslims of Indian subcontinent.from a common man like, Ilam Deen, a teen age son of a tarkhan, who came to be called Ghazi and Shaheed, by the Muslims of India, to Dr. Sir Mohammad Iqbal, a man who was bestowed the Knighthood by the British Empire and Jinnah, who became the Quaide Azam of the founder of Pakistan fame, in the background of the Judicial system of the British India.
Ilam Deen’s lynching of a Hindu for the accusation of blasphemy was considered a great feat by the Muslims in that background but today such lynchings have become a routine and they are even condemning such lynchings for the same accusation. And above all comes the phenomenon of the suicide bomber, a teen-ager’s self-lynching to send dozens of the unknown humans to heaven in the very name of religion and the recent Sialkot mob-lynching of the two teen-agers, a lynching galore.
If any body can dare to carry out a truthful analysis of this progression of the history of lynching in the Islamic history which may, I am afraid, end in the national self-lynching, it is you, dear Hamdani, in my view.
I suppose one cannot disprove that Allama Iqbal founded Pakistan any more than one can disprove that George Washington founded Pakistan. However there is a world outside your and the usual Pakistani chamber of self delusion.
About what Jinnah said about the blasphemy law in its mildest form…here is the primary source record…
Jinnah on 5th September 1927:
“I thoroughly endorse the principle that while this measure should aim at those undesirable persons who indulge in wanton vilification or attack upon the religion of any particular class or upon the founders and prophets of a religion, we must also secure this very important and fundamental principle that those who are engaged in historical works, those who are engaged in the ascertainment of truth and those who are engaged in bona fide and honest criticisms of a religion shall be protected.”
Now coming to Ilamdin…I did not say whether Ilam Din did it or not… but what Jinnah’s stance in the court was. Why Jinnah appeared on Ilamdin’s behalf in the court of appeal is something Jinnah alone can answer … so good luck. My only contention here was that Jinnah did not defend the actual act of murder… but had pleaded on behalf a client who claimed – consistently- that he did not do it.
The record/hearsay you refer to is from the trial court in which Jinnah did not appear. So why don’t you first read the record instead of “gathering” information from dubious sources.
As for Ilamdin’s status Ghazi and Shaheed… I frankly don’t know or don’t care about such religious nonsense… but I do know that after the Lahore High Court quashed his appeal, he filed a mercy petition with the crown emperor.
So much for his Ghaziness and Shaheedness.
@YLH
Surry! I overlooked this last para of your post, which gives the misunderstanding, which is the real cause of your provocation.
You say:
“Jinnah had opposed the blasphemy law in even its mildest form. So what you are ascribing to the man is just patently false.”
I may tell you that I have a great regard for Jinnah for his integrity and his love for truthfulness. It actually pains me to see him behaving just like a petty professional lawyer in the case of Ilam Deen’s case just to earn some publicity. Tell me honestly will you take up the case of a murder accused if you know that the accused’s defense is based on a big lie. Do you think lawyer and liar are the same thing?
I m sure Jinnah would have opposed blasphemy lynching and the existing law of blasphemy and more so the way it is being implemented these days in the Pakiland. I, however, don’t know whether he had ever actually opposed the law in a milder form in the pre-partition days.
YLH
Thank you for taking note of my lack of knowledge about history, but was surprised for your provocation for getting emotional about it just like that teen ager son of a ‘tarkhan’’.
You start to say:
“Two Facts:” and then start giving your judgments:
The first one “Allama Iqbal is not a founding father”.
How can this be a fact when it cannot be proved or disproved by a DNA test?
You do not deny Jinnah as an F.F. Thanks!
But nevertheless you proceed to make a show of your ‘wakilana’ love of facts.
So you say:
“a. Ilam Deen did not do it. Ilam Deen testified that he did not do it.
(Had there been a lawyer like our Ain Fatmi, he would have said,” My lord, my client is lying”.)
b. Once it was proved that Ilam Deen was the guilty party, Jinnah’s argument was Ilam Deen was a young boy who had been provoked by the Mullahs to do it and that his life should be spared”.
My humble submission:
a. If, as you say, Ilam Deen did not do it why he got the double title of Ghazi and Shaheed.
b. Again, if it was the fact that he did not do it, why Jinnah needed to take the plea of provocation to get the life of his client spared which is tantamount to admitting his guilt or just saying that my client is lying actually he was provoked by the Mullah to do it…
As far as I could gather from the record, history or hearsay, whatever you may call it, Jinnah had pleaded provocation of his client to have been caused by the contents of the impugned book, which argument was rebutted by the prosecution by saying that since the writer had simply collected some Ahadees from authentic Hadees books on a particular topic and had added nothing from himself provocation against him was misplaced. Naturally, it should have been directed against the relaters (raavi) of the relevant Ahadees or compilers of the relevant Hadees Books.