This post is based on an imaginary scenario.
Imagine Pakistan was a very different place. Imagine that it had politicians (not all, just a few, maybe one or two in government and one or two in opposition) who actually cared for Pakistan and made decisions based on what would be good for the country instead of just useful to their own hold on power.
I have probably already lost half of you, but let me keep going anyhow.
Imagine, what might happen in such a Pakistan in response to the brutal murder of Salman Taseer by the evil Malik Mumtaz Hussain Qadri?
What might the government do if it were really and truly serious about giving justice to Salman Taseer and rolling back the intolerance and extremism that gunned him down?
Let me suggest five things that would happen if Pakistan was, indeed, a functional state and society.
Instead of the emotional slogans, false tears, and petty political point-scoring that we are now seeing, here are a few things that might have happened if Pakistan was the place we all want it to be, but is not (starting from the easiest and moving to the most important):
- The immediate culprit – Malik Mumtaz Hussain Qadri – would be immediately and swiftly (that is critical) tried in a court of law and given the full punishment under the law. Justice which is transparent, fair, and speedy should be done, and seen to be done.
- All opportunities to turn the murderer into a public hero would be denied to him and his ‘fans.’ This means, no access to media, no opportunities to be garlanded, no occasions to shout slogans to TV cameras, etc. There are lots of simple means to do so and the media would be banned – for national sanity reasons – from reporting directly on his, running footage of him, or in any way projecting him. The purpose would be not to restrict information, but to resist misinformation on a pending case.
- Immediate investigation would be undertaken against all who had instigated violence and murder, issued fatwas, or in any ways created the inducement or provided encouragement to commit violence against Salman Taseer or others in relation to the blasphemy issue. This would certainly include, at a minimum, those evil jokers who were publicly offering money for murder but would also include an immediate and swift investigation into those on the media who had contributed to instigation and hysteria and inflamed emotions with violent rhetoric and also those political or public figures (including so-called ‘ulemas‘) who may have directly instigated violence in the name of this issue at any public rally. These investigations would swiftly lead to arrests, trials, and full punishment under incitement to violence laws.
- Anyone justifying murder, glorifying the murderer, or creating public incitement on this issue in the aftermath of the murder would be swiftly arrested, tried and given full punishment under the law. This could require large number of arrests to crush illegal rallies, etc., and the government would be ready to take that principled stand. This would also include full legal action against any media person using the media to justify the breaking of the law or the act of murder (for example, by arguing – directly or indirectly – that the murder of Salman Taseer was justified).
- The government would immediately move to repeal, or at least review the Blasphemy law itself and swiftly bring needed changes to it so that its spirit is not misused or made subject to vigilantism. This would be the least that could be done to honor the memory of Salman Taseer.
None of these would be easy to do, even in a saner Pakistan. But ‘difficult’ is never an excuse not to do what is ultimately ‘right.’
I do not really expect our current political leaders to do the right thing, on this issue or any other; or to give justice to Salman Taseer, or me. But at least I can try to push the conversation away from the inanities I hear on the TV and read in newspapers and towards a sense of what the ‘right’ thing to do would be, even if in an imaginary Pakistan.
Statement by Zardari:
http://tribune.com.pk/story/100257/salmaan-taseers -soyem-he-was-a-true-follower-of-bhuttos-says-zard ari/
At least he’s not wimping out in this instance. I never thought I’d agree with Zardari on anything, but I agree with him on this.
Pakistan needs to getrid of Right wing leftists one way or other.
tinyurl.com/33ocarg
Horrible reading! In fact our problem is simply ‘Jahalat’. Our basic moral values are distorted to the extreme. Our morality is confined to sexual behavior and drinking only. By corruption we mean only ‘wady or rishwat’ (Taking money for doing something illegally and unjustifiably) when actually it has very wide meaning. As copied from dictionary.com it means:
1.
the act of corrupting or state of being corrupt.
2.
moral perversion; depravity.
3.
perversion of integrity.
4.
corrupt or dishonest proceedings.
5.
bribery.
6.
debasement or alteration, as of language or a text.
7.
a debased form of a word.
8.
putrefactive decay; rottenness.
9.
any corrupting influence or agency.
The killer in this case is a state employee who was duty-bound to protect the life of the governor but he dishonestly, taking advantage of his position, killed the man who was virtually in his custody. As it is his act was cowardly and meanish also by every moral standard.
It was in fact a custodial killing of a constitutional head of the province and would have justified declaration of emergency and dismissal of the agency, prima facie, responsible for the same, before starting with the judicial inquiry against it.
Zardari did not attend because of the established security protocols where both the PM and the President are not supposed to be in public places at same time for some kind of ‘continuity’ sake except for defined exceptions (indoor meetings; joint sessions of the parliament etc). He sent his sister to the funeral.
NS and other PMLN leaders did not attend because the Jiyalas are all worked up against PMLN and that too could lead to ‘unpleasantness’; it just so happens that it suits PMLN just fine because of the threat issued by the so-called Ulemas to boycott the funeral.
Oh, this topic about ‘Justice for Salman Taseer’ is a no-go: There is no ‘we’ left in Pakistan to make these steps and the only potential ‘we’ is the military which can provide the muscle but the military is too busy look east toward India and toward the Talibs up north.
Heck, if senior most military officials’ family members get blown up in secured mosques during prayers, if the GHQ get attacked in broad daylight, and if the President-Cum-Army Chief Musharraf gets reduced to being a ‘bunker president’ then even the military is of questionable value.
The million dollar question should be: Who is going to bell the cat?
I’m sure Zardari skipped it due to security reasons — in any case, Gilani attended the funeral. But in general, shame on the politicians for not being unequivocal about condemning the murder.
It wasn’t too long ago, when extremists hijacked the comments section of this blog to have Facebook banned in Pakistan. Although it took them less than two hours to use the site to put up a congratulatory page.