Deflecting from the church attack

The Peshawar church bombing has once again exposed the disturbing attribute of deflection within the Pakistani discourse. If we are uncomfortable discussing it, we may want to consider the discomfort that was experienced by the bodies torn apart in the church bombing on Sunday.

Our national discourse is particularly incapable of staring darkness in the face. We like to dodge, evade and deflect darkness. After Peshawar, this deflection has taken several forms.

The Peshawar church attack was designed to murder Christians. There should be no deflection of this.

Yet, immediately following the attack, there it was. A tsunami of newfound ‘white’ on our national flag. The mealy-mouthed, self-conscious and frankly, shameful, deflection manifested itself across a spectrum that stretched from: “Why call them Christians? They are Pakistani!” to “Where was your outrage when Muslim bodies were being torn apart by drone attacks?”

Many readers will relate to this spectrum of deflection. It is a widespread moral and spiritual disease. An op-ed in this paper will not cure such a disease. But at a minimum, we need to find the courage to call it what it is. It is a disease.

When Muslims are killed in Pakistan, it is almost never because they are ‘Muslim’ (though it is often because they are Shia, Barelvi, Deobandi, or some other brand of Muslim). But there is no such thing as ‘anti-Muslim’ violence in Pakistan.

But when Christians, or Hindus or other minorities are killed in Pakistan, whether we like it or not, it is most often because they are Christian or Hindu. There is anti-Christian violence in Pakistan.

Minorities in Pakistan feel insecure because they are insecure. And nothing that Narendra Modi does (or did in 2002), or India’s RAW does, or the US government’s Special Ops soldiers do, or Raymond Davis did, or the Israeli Mossad does justifies this.

What happens in other countries doesn’t make the same thing happening in Pakistan okay. Nor does it make it okay to simply blame what is happening in Pakistan on others. Even if ‘others’ are doing it, this is our home and, therefore, our responsibility. These are not complicated concepts. But the simplest concept of all is this: nothing justifies Pakistani minorities living in fear for their lives, their property and their children’s future.

This fear that they live in is unjust, it is against the constitution, and it is a severe violation of any form of Islam.

So instead of waltzing around the issue and trying to force the word ‘Pakistani’ down the throat of minorities that live in fear and are lacking the support of the state, it is important to at least admit these basic truths.

Now. Some of us will respond to this by asking what about the fear experienced by those living in Fata under the shadow of drones, or families in Karachi living in fear of kidnappings, or poor, landless Sindhi farmers living in fear of waderas, or Baloch tribesmen living in fear of our intel agencies.

All people everywhere deserve to live free of such fears. The only fear anyone should live in is fear of God (and if you’re a criminal, fear of the police, the courts and the prison system).

But an expression of empathy for Christians in Pakistan does not in any way suggest a lack of empathy for all or any of the other groups. The difference is that not each group is experiencing the fear because of their religious identity, and not every group that does experience this fear experiences it because of systemic social discrimination and bias. Pakistani Christians do.

Here is another way to look at it.  Consider how so many of us feel about the Rohingyas. Last year, the National Assembly passed a resolution condemning the manner in which Myanmar (or Burma) was allowing Muslims to be treated and I recall distinct diplomatic efforts by Pakistan to address the issue.

Now imagine essentially the whole of Europe, the United States, Canada, all of Latin America, and several African countries all having resolutions passed to condemn Pakistan for its treatment of Christians. Imagine some of them going even further, because of the economic power they enjoy. Imagine that.

Consider how so many of us feel when we hear about an attack on a mosque in the UK or America. It is rare for anyone to die in those attacks, but such attacks scar us. They hurt our feelings. I know I get very upset when a mosque is attacked anywhere. Many of us even feel angered by those attacks.

Now imagine how roughly two billion Christians around the world felt when they saw those pictures from Peshawar of dead and dying Christian children and Christian women. Imagine how Christians around the world felt when they read about what happened in Peshawar. Imagine how they feel about the words ‘Pakistan’ and ‘Peshawar’. Imagine that.

The point is not for us to beat ourselves up. We are already taking a beating from terrorists. We don’t need to engage in a maatam. But we do need to get real.

Just that fact that human beings were massacred in Peshawar should have been enough for us to unconditionally empathise with the victims. Yet immediately we were trying to strip them of their religious identity, cloak them in Pakistan flags and move on quickly, so as to avoid a discussion about the state of fear minorities live in here.

This deflection only hurts us. Other countries in the neighbourhood that use deflection to hide the way they treat their minorities do so at a great cost to themselves. We don’t need to follow in their footsteps. We should be braver and more honest than those countries. Because we are better than them. Aren’t we?

The other, perhaps more politically pertinent way in which deflection is being employed is around the issue of how to deal with the TTP. For all practical purposes the TTP is Al-Qaeda Pakistan. Yet, because they have cleverly named themselves ‘Taliban’ and because of a romance for the Taliban among misguided right- and left-wingers in Pakistan, we are engaged in a debate about ‘dialogue’ with the TTP. No country in the world is confused about fighting Al-Qaeda, because Al-Qaeda is not confused about killing innocent people.

Should we talk to Al-Qaeda Pakistan? I suppose we should always talk to everyone. But during a crescendo of build-up towards dialogue, when they suicide bomb a church full of Pakistani women and children, the correct response is not to allege a conspiracy against dialogue. The correct response is to respond. In kind. No bully ever stopped bullying because they were asked nicely. Bullies stop bullying when the fear of Allah is put into them.

Dialogue must not be mutually exclusive from justice. Both must be pursued. But we must not be bullied into a corner by Al-Qaeda Pakistan.

And we must pursue justice. Justice for the victims of drone attacks, justice for the victims of terror attacks, justice for the GHQ, for PNS Mehran, for Parade Lane, justice for Major General Sanaullah Khan Niazi and justice for the Peshawar church attack.

The writer is an analyst and commentator.www.mosharrafzaidi.com