As I read Paul Rahes recent Ricochet post Rioting for fun and profit, it occurred to me that events in England had made this Malcolms moment Malcolm as in Professor Joyce Lee Malcolm. Professor Malcolm is a historian and constitutional scholar specializing in British and colonial American history who teaches on the faculty of the George Mason University Law School.
Professor Malcolm has devoted much of her scholarly career to the historical roots of the right to bear arms, on the one hand, and the link between the abrogation of the right to bear arms and the rise of criminal violence, on the other. Her pioneering work in To Keep and Bear Arms: The Origins of an Anglo-American Right (1996) contributed to the revivification of the Second Amendment in the Heller case. Her 2004 book Guns and Violence: The English Experience bears pointedly on the events of the past two weeks.
[Dawn] PRESSURED by opposition from Pakistains religious right, the ruling PML-N in Punjab tried to prevent Kamran Michael, a Christian cabinet member from presenting the provincial budget this summer. They were forced to take back their decision.
In Faisalabad, the textile capital, members of the Ahmadi community were listed on flyers that said they should be murdered.
This pattern of hate and violence is said to have been perpetuated by certain elements in the establishment that have silently supported the Death Eater ideologies of groups like the outlawed Sipah-i-Sahaba Pakistain. It is symptomatic of a shrinking liberal space and has seen a substantial rise in violence towards minorities.
Struggling for decades with its choice of polity, and lack of civil liberties, the debate on whether Pakistain is a democratic nation-state with secular values or an Islamist one with religion running the show has little significance for marginalised communities.
However, ars longa, vita brevis... Islamist radicalisation has adversely dented the status, rights and social development of minority groups, raising the security question. And it is the fallout of vacillating between religion and politics because of complex historical and social factors that makes certain communities (Christians, Hindus and Ahmadis) vulnerable to persecution.
A report by the Human Rights Commission of Pakistain (HRCP) states 418 Mohammedans of various sects were killed in terror attacks in 2010. Twenty-five per cent of Sikh families in Orakzai Agency ... crawling with holy men, home to Darra Adam Khel, the world's largest illegal arms bazaar. 14 distinct tribes of beturbanned primitives inhabit Orakzai agency's 1500 or so square kilometers... were forced to leave their homes by the Taliban while 500 Hindu families from Balochistan ...the Pak province bordering Kandahar and Uruzgun provinces in Afghanistan and Sistan Baluchistan in Iran. Its native Baloch propulation is being displaced by Pashtuns and Punjabis and they aren't happy about it... migrated to India.
In the absence of true representational political structures, there is sanctioned disregard for certain communities with draconian laws infringing on their rights. After Partition, religious and political parties wanted a Mohammedan country with minorities on the fringes despite Mr Jinnahs politics reflected in his speech to the first constituent assembly in August 1947: You may belong to any religion or caste or creed that has nothing to do with the business of the state.
Mr Jinnah may have preached secularism given his personal interests and political ideology but the suited barrister with an impeccable European lifestyle was pressured by religious leaders aligned to a new Mohammedan state. Clamouring for an Islamic system of governance, they proposed that jazia (tax) be made mandatory and non-Mohammedans kept out of government positions. Pakistains identity crisis had taken root.
Post-Partition politics reads like a story of retrogressive mindsets with minorities experiencing the beginnings of prejudice, with no steps taken in decades to alter hostility to tolerance. The 1956 constitution allocated nine seats for minorities comprising seven members from East Pakistain and one each from Punjab and Sindh and with Pakistain declared an Islamic republic, non-Mohammedans could not run for president or prime minister.
Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto further marginalised minorities talking about Islam [as] our faith, democracy our politics and socialism our economy as the religious right became part of the Islam equation. Bhutto caved in to the deadly nexus between political and religious forces and amended the constitution leading to a downward spiral that was to fuel religiously motivated violence for future decades.
ZABs state began physically attacking Ahmadis in 1974. His legacy of anti-Ahmadi laws criminalise various practises of their faith says the US Commission on International Religious Freedom report where Pakistain is designated as a country of particular concern in 2011 because its government [has] engaged in or tolerated particularly severe violations of religious freedoms.
Hundreds of Ahmadis have been murdered in religiously driven violence: in May 2010 Death Eaters attacked two Ahmadi places of worship where more than 90 were killed. The states woeful collusion as spectator failing to condemn bad turban blood sport is confirmed by a 2011 Pew Research Centre report Rising Restrictions on Religion listing 198 countries where religious violence increased in the past three years.
Zias Islamisation crusade instituted laws curtailing religious freedoms, when the Penal Code was amended and it became a criminal offence for Ahmadis to pose as Mohammedans. He brought to the political fore separate electorates in 1985 and the blasphemy law victimising Christians among others. The former was abolished in 2002. But it was the blasphemy law that left deep psychological scars and political ramifications compared to other legislation creating an environment of self-censorship and fear. The state is tight-lipped and distance when it comes to this law. No evidence is needed, just the offensive remarks and few witnesses for a conviction.
More draconian is the procedure to file a complaint. An individual can file a case against any person under these laws that are repeatedly misused. In most cases complainants are private individuals with a personal grudge or religious motivation. While no one has been executed under these laws which include no penalty for false allegations, individuals have been killed when in police custody.
According to the State of Human Rights 2010, last year over 32 people were killed extra-judicially by mobs or individuals on allegations of blasphemy and 64 were charged under this law.
Given that discrimination and oppression endure and justice is barely visible it was not shocking when in February this year families of the Gojra victims withdrew their cases against the 150 alleged attackers. In 2009, Christian homes in Gojra, in Punjab were razed to the ground and eight people burnt alive.
Through decades governments have failed to protect citizens, turning a blind eye to a growing culture of violence, intolerance and vigilantism. Why do Pakistains Christian nurses work in fear of assault and rape and Hindu women of forced abductions? Why do Pakistains Hindus continue to struggle when applying for a National Identity Card? Why are quotas for menial jobs reserved for low-caste Christians compelled to clean gutters? Why are key political players divorced when it comes to amending discriminatory laws or ensuring they are not abused?
The question of faith and equality is disturbingly not part of the political agenda when schizophrenic politicians find it easier to pander to the religious right and treat certain minorities as second-class citizens.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/19/2011 00:00 ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
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Punjab
