Adil Najam
Salman Taseer – Governor Punjab, businessman, media mogul, PPP leader – was gunned down outside a restaurant in Kohsar Market, Islamabad, by one of his own guards. The guard – reportedly, a Malik Mumtaz Hussain Qadri – was part of the security Elite Force depute assigned to keep Salman Taseer safe gunned down the Punjab Governor with as many as 27 bullets. Later the guard handed himself to the police and said that he had killed Salman Taseer because of his vocal opposition to the Blasphemy Law.
Malik Mumtaz Hussain Qadri may have pulled the trigger but let us all hang our head in shame today because Salman Taseer was killed by the intolerance, the hatred, the extremism, the vigilantism, the violence and the jahalat that now defines our society. He was killed by the unchecked abundance of false sanctimony where custodians of morality have been breathing fire and instigating violence. Each one of us, including his own party, should be ashamed today for having tolerated the pall of intolerance that has eventually gunned down this man. Today’s Pakistan is defined by Mumtaz Hussain Qadris. They exist all around us. And it is all of us who tolerate them and their intolerance. It is this tolerance of intolerance that kills.
Today, it claimed yet one more victim.
Just as one example of many that we should have been paying heed to already, it was less than a month ago that a dispicable man in Peshawar was publicly offering money to anyone who would murder in the name of the blasphemy law. The news flashed on the media. Was highlighted in disgust by those like us. Yet, no action was taken; indeed, not even note was taken by those in power. It was ignored as mere ‘josh i khitaabat’ and emotionalism. It was obviously more. The tragedy is that there are too many like this man. Are people like him not responsible for spreading hatred and the results of that hatred? People instigating violence. People celebrating violence. People supporting violence. All of these people are responsible for Salman Taseer’s death. As are all of those who have stood silent and let these merchants of violence sell their wares. (Full story here).
At one level the details of what exactly happened in Islamabad today are less important than what we have allowed to happen in our societies for all the years that have led to this day, but for those who may not have seen the (still developing) details, here is an update from Dawn:
Gunmen killed the governor of Pakistan’s Punjab province, a senior member of the ruling party, in Islamabad on Tuesday, his spokesman said. “Yes, he has died,” said the spokesman for Salman Taseer. Police official Mohammad Iftikhar said Taseer was gunned down by one of his elite security force protectors. Five other people were wounded as other security personnel responded to the attack. Police said earlier Taseer had been shot nine times and wounded near his Islamabad home in the F6 sector and close to Kohsar market, a popular shopping and cafe spot frequented by wealthy Pakistanis and expatriates.
Another police official, Hasan Iqbal, said a pair of witnesses told the police that as the governor was leaving his vehicle, a man from his security squad fired at him. Taseer then fell, while other police officials fired on the attacker. In recent days, as the People’s Party has faced the loss of its coalition partners, the 56-year-old Taseer has insisted that the government will survive. But it was his stance against the blasphemy laws that apparently led to his killing.
Interior Minister Rahman Malik told reporters that the suspect in the case had surrendered to police and told them he killed Taseer because “the governor described the blasphemy laws as a black law.” Taseer was believed to be meeting someone for a meal, Malik said. Other members of his security detail were being questioned, Malik said. The security for Taseer was provided by the Punjab government. “We will see whether it was an individual act or someone had asked him” to do it, Malik said of the attacker.
Religious intolerence at its worst indeed…. Salman Taseer was in favor of repealing the blasphemy law… a debatable point – yes, but a reason for killing – no way. How are we going to move forward as a society if we do not let an open discussion happen? or do we want to go back to stone age?
These are sad and dangerous times for Pakistan.
Unfortunately it is the Mumtaz Hussain Qadri’s of the world who define today’s Pakistan and life is unsafe for anyone who talks of tolerance.
You are a courageous man, Mr. Najam, to boldly say what you say despite the threats. Please be careful. Jazak Allah ul Khair for people like you who still speak up against these barbarians and fanatics.
If there is a dying message from Salman Taseer, it is the second para in his FT obituary.
Just a few weeks before his death he warned a visitor: “Beware of the mullahs. They have to be confronted or they will take over our lives.”
Worth reading. Taseer’s obituary in the FT:
Obituary: Salman Taseer
By Farhan Bokhari and Amy Kazmin
Salman Taseer, the Pakistani politician assassinated on Tuesday, was deeply preoccupied with the consequences of his country’s support for radical Islamists in Kashmir and Afghanistan.
Just a few weeks before his death he warned a visitor: “Beware of the mullahs. They have to be confronted or they will take over our lives.”
An ally of Benazir Bhutto, the former premier assassinated in 2007, Taseer could talk for hours on his favourite subject: the price that Pakistan had paid for jihad and the need to turn back from this “deadly legacy”.
Born in 1946, a year before the traumatic partition of the Indian subcontinent, Taseer was the son of an urban intellectual. He studied at the prestigious St Anthony School in Lahore and travelled to the UK for his higher education in chartered accountancy.
Returning to Pakistan, he was an active supporter of Benazir Bhutto’s father, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, the charismatic former prime minister, and his Pakistan People’s party. But when Bhutto was toppled in a 1977 military coup led by General Mohammad Zia-ul-Haq, the dictator, the young Taseer was arrested, kept in the dungeon of the magnificent Lahore fort and tortured.
He did not like to dwell on his experiences as a political prisoner, telling friends they were the worst years of his life. After his release he went into exile in the UK, where he wrote a political biography of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, which was published in 1980.
He had six children with his Pakistani wife. An affair with an Indian journalist, whom he met during a book promotion tour in India, led to the birth in 1980 of a son, now a prominent writer.
Just a few weeks before his death Salman Taseer warned a visitor: ‘Beware of the mullahs. They have to be confronted or they will take over our lives’
In Pakistan’s first free elections after Zia-ul-Haq’s death in 1988, Taseer won a seat in the Punjab provincial legislature, riding the wave of popularity for the young Benazir Bhutto. Throughout his life he remained a fierce PPP and Bhutto family loyalist, vehemently and vocally critical of opposition leaders Nawaz and Shabaz Sharif.
After serving one term in the legislature, Taseer – known for his distinctive outfit of traditional shalwar and kameez with Savile Row-style jacket – turned his attention to business, founding various chartered accountancy and management consultancy firms, an equity brokerage and a leading mobile phone operator. He also owned a television channel and an English-language newspaper.
In 2007 he was appointed as an interim cabinet minister for industry, and a year later was made governor of Punjab, the province bordering India, which has come under repeated attack by Islamist extremists over the past two years.
Known as a committed secularist in a country where Islam remains both a unifying and a divisive force, Taseer was worried that US drone attacks on the Taliban and al-Qaeda were radicalising young Punjabis.
But in a Financial Times interview in November he insisted – with both pride and defensiveness – that Pakistan would not go the way of Afghanistan. “Pakistan is a vibrant democracy,” he said.
“It has an educated middle class, a civilian government and a free press.”
He dismissed the foot soldiers of Pakistan’s own Taliban insurgency as “brainwashed, illiterate tribes”.
At least twice Taseer brushed aside suggestions from aides that he turn his former dungeon in Lahore fort into a shrine recalling his time as a prisoner.
“Let history speak for itself,” he told a friend. “What has jihad and military rule done to this country, other than bring us destruction.”
No one insults the message of teh Rasool (PBUH) as much as these self-styled “Aashiq-i-Rasool” whose actions are those of the dusmanaan-i-Islam!