Two months ago, after Governor Salmaan Taseer's murder and the jubilant support for the policeman who killed him, religious scholars in Pakistan told us that since common people don't know enough about religion they should leave it to those who do – basically anyone with a beard.
Everyone thought it made a cruel kind of sense. So everyone decided to shut up: the Pakistan Peoples party (PPP) government because it wanted to cling to power, liberals in the media because they didn't want to be the next Taseer. The move to amend the blasphemy law was shelved.
It was an unprecedented victory for Pakistan's mullah minority. They had told a very noisy and diverse people to shut up and they heard back nothing but silence. After Pakistan's only Christian federal minister, Shahbaz Bhatti – the bravest man in Islamabad – was murdered on Tuesday, they were back on TV, this time condemning the killing, claiming it was a conspiracy against them, against Islam and against Pakistan. The same folk who had celebrated one murder and told us how not to get murdered were wallowing in self pity. More...
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Well, looking at the Islamist infiltration on the prior thread – and that’s just ON THE INTERNET – sadly, a toxic political climate is going to endure in Pakistan where these unbelievably deranged and self-righteous people have forced everyone down to their level.
ReplyDeleteThe surprising thing ,as the article clearly points out, is the loud silence on the part of the majority of Pakistanis. That's really hard to understand...
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