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.
http://slimlogix.blogspot.com/2011/01/salman-tasee r-mumtaz-qadari-conspiracy.html
Worth reading. A personal testimony by Javed Jabbar.
VIEW: Salmaan Taseer: a remembrance, a reflection
—Javed Jabbar
Daily Times Lahore | Tuesday, January 18, 2011
About 38 years later, and exactly 24 hours after he was gunned down, I went to the site of his death to join a civil society rally in Islamabad convened to honour his memory. The spot still stained by his blood was like a piece of mother earth frozen by the horror of what ignorant hate can do to sacred life, writes Javed Jabbar. The writer is a former Senator and federal minister.
In Salmaan Taseer’s brutal assassination, Pakistan has lost an exceptional public figure who possessed a modernist intellect, bold candour, physical courage, professional acumen, entrepreneurial capacity and political grit. Though occasionally he was a difficult person to relate to, he was always a refreshingly distinct, inimitable individual.
I knew him as a personal friend, a family friend, a neighbour in Karachi (1969-1971), a professional consultant and a political colleague. Some or all aspects of this multi-dimensional relationship spanned over 40 years even as the ties intensified or weakened. When I was critically ill in January 1972, and doctors apprehended that a blood transfusion may be needed urgently, it was Salmaan who was most forthcoming amongst my friends and instantly donated 500 cc of his blood. Though eventually the transfusion was not required as I miraculously recovered, Salmaan’s selfless gesture and his blood helped other persons in urgent need to recover their normal health. That spontaneous, unforgettable act by Salmaan symbolised his generosity and compassion.
About 38 years later, and exactly 24 hours after he was gunned down, I went to the site of his death to join a civil society rally in Islamabad convened to honour his memory. The spot still stained by his blood was like a piece of mother earth frozen by the horror of what ignorant hate can do to sacred life.
My last sustained interaction with Salmaan was unusually cool and intense. He had only recently become a minister in the caretaker cabinet appointed by President Musharraf in the last quarter of 2007. An emergency was imposed and the constitution held in abeyance. We met at a large mehndi celebration. We drew aside for about 20 minutes of a one-to-one encounter. It was also, for the most part, a one-sided harangue from me, lecturing him on the demerits of endorsing a gross violation of the constitution because of President Musharraf’s action in the capacity of a simultaneously serving chief of army staff (COAS). I knew there was only a limited right to sermonise because eight years earlier, I myself had joined General Musharraf’s cabinet upon his unconstitutional seizure of power. But to his credit, and most unusual for an irrepressible person like Salmaan, he heard me out in virtual silence, attempting only one or two mild responses. He both surprised and encouraged me into thinking that perhaps, at heart, he agreed with all or some of my hectoring.
In the 1970 elections, the first ever polls in the country’s history, we had the privilege of working together as supporters of a new party called the PPP. With other mutual friends like his professional partner, the respected chartered accountant Khurshid Hadi and budding lawyer, Syed Muzaffar Hussain Shah, later to become a chief minister of Sindh and Speaker of the Sindh Assembly, we went door-to-door in PECHS and other localities to canvass support for Kamal Azfar, PPP candidate for the National Assembly. Despite our candidate’s defeat, the political baptism that occurred in the historic election proved to be a binding element for our lives.
A few years later, on more than one occasion, he wanted me to open an office of my advertising agency in Dubai where he was already on his way to making millions. I declined but remained enthused about his political interests. His highly readable book, Bhutto: A Political Biography, released within months of the leader’s execution, aptly attempted to capture the subject’s paradoxes. Perhaps reflecting the inherent candour that characterised Salmaan’s personality, parts of that book did not please Benazir Bhutto.
Written shortly after Mr Bhutto’s callous execution, in the book’s preface, Salmaan praised the positive contributions the leader made. But he also bluntly referred to Z A Bhutto’s negative, self-destructive tendencies. For example, in chapter 16 titled ‘The Bhutto conundrum’, Salmaan wrote: “…he hated criticism with violent intemperance, and could be ruthless with those who voiced it…Bhutto saw enemies where none existed…he treated his political opponents as dangerous subversives, and succeeded in making them so…he weakened the judiciary, the industrial community, the bureaucracy and in the end, even his own party. He could not bear equals and ensured that even within the PPP, an alternative leadership never emerged.”
Such views notwithstanding, Salmaan also opposed the tyranny of General Ziaul Haq and martial law. With exceptional courage and fortitude he suffered torture and solitary confinement in the dungeons of the Lahore Fort.
During his days of being politically persecuted, soon after my election to the Senate in March 1985, he addressed a detailed, hand-written letter that helped me move appeals and motions, both outside and inside the Senate demanding justice for political prisoners. Our political paths converged again after the polls in November 1988. He soon became leader of the Opposition in the Punjab Assembly and withstood the Sharif brothers’ wrath while I became the first member of the Senate to formally join the PPP at Benazir’s invitation and then joined her first federal cabinet as Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting.
In the 1990s, in our own respective ways, we drifted apart from the PPP leadership. He retained an ambivalent relationship while I formally resigned in mid-1996 during BB’s second term of government as the misuse of executive power and the digression from the party’s original mission had become unacceptable.
Salmaan did not die in vain. His tragic loss poses major new challenges to politics and civil society in Pakistan, a subject that requires separate attention shortly.
Rehmat e Syed e Loolaak pe Kamil Yaqeen
Ummat e Syed e Loolaak say khof ataa hai
Correcr yourself Naveed, Those who quote this shair again and again have more Kamil Yaqeen on US than the Prophet(saw)
@FE:
What you call being intelligent is hypocrisy which is more suited to your favourite maulanas and politicians and not Salman Taseer. Taseer said what he meant and meant what he said like any upstanding person. Normally people like Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela who stand against apartheid and sometimes die in the cause are considered heroes and not blamed for their courage. Obviously not your cup of tea but no fault of Taseer’s. Any surprise you remain part of a backward nation?
Actually the explanation is much simpler, its incitement to Taseer’s murder by the maulanas as admitted by Qadri himself.
As soon as Maulanas are out this problem would be solved.
Fit as in being a hypocrite. That is why Salman Taseer was no Maulana Fazlul Rehman, I think everyone can agree to that.
Salman Taseer saw it coming but was not intelligent enough to not refer to blasphemy law as “kaala kanoon” in a country full of inhabitants for whom the law transcends into sacredness. Regardless of the morality of Qadri’s actions, which can be argued for from biological evolutionary perspective as well as from the perspective of subject morality, it seems, Taseer made himself vulnerable in a world where only the fit survives. Even a chameleon changes its color to enhance its survival from becoming a meal of its predators.