The murderous mobs
IN the 1700s, the French were hungry. Not the wealthy, who were happily ensconced in the gilded halls of Versailles; but the poor who still relied on the vagaries of crops and weather to fill their stomachs.
In 1788, many political agendas festered in the galleys and gauntlets of the France, but those eking out an existence in the alleys of Paris or on the hardscrabble farms of the surrounding countryside knew only their hunger, the fact that there was no bread.
The drought, caused by harsh, inexplicably cold winters and deadened crops, went on year after year. By 1789, the price of bread had risen so sharply that few could purchase it at all.
By the September of 1792, the drought had matured into a monster and hunger and hopelessness had coagulated into a mass movement. On Sept 2, 1792, 24 priests being taken to a prison in Paris were attacked. The mob overtook the guards transporting the prisoners and tore their bodies apart.
The killings continued the next day, and the day after that, all orchestrated by mobs who had heard a rumour that the Prussians were about to invade and that they would be assisted by priests who opposed the revolution.
When they stormed the prisons they did not just kill the priests, they killed everyone else as well. In a few days that bloody September, about 1,200 prisoners in various jails around Paris had been killed. At a prison named Bicêtre, 43 of the 162 prisoners killed were under 18.
The September massacres of 1792 were only one in the many grisly episodes during the denouement of the French revolution but it was notable because of its vivid illustration of the capacity of an angry crowd to kill.
The poor who killed often other poor had indeed been wronged, ignored by an apathetic and decadent elite, by institutions that seemed distant and untouched by their hunger, and even by nature itself unwilling to water the crops they could make into bread.
Those who killed in the streets of France did so with a fury that terrified, most unknowing that their actions would one day be documented as the episodes of a revolution, along with public beheadings and limitless looting.
The summer in Pakistan this year has been as hot as any other, its furious temperatures magnified by deadened fans and unlit stoves. At the start, some three months ago, the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan attacked a prison in Bannu and freed all the prisoners before the gaping guards. At its height, some two weeks ago, they captured 17 soldiers, and beheaded them, filming the carnage for greater crowds than can fit in a public square.
Earlier this month, the acts of rebellion of a group graduated to the randomness of the mob. A man, otherwise unknown, was accused of blasphemy and taken to a local police station. Before there could be an investigation, a hearing or a conviction, a crowd of a thousand men gathered outside the station demanding that the accused be handed over to them.
The police could not contain them or calm them and soon they dragged the man outside. There, they beat him to death. Finally, they poured petrol on his body and burnt it.
The act of the crowd in Bahawalpur is not an anomaly. Some two weeks earlier, a crowd in Kuchlak, about 10 km north of Quetta, attacked a police station. They too, demanded that an accused be handed over to them. The accused, a mentally challenged man, was alleged to have committed blasphemous acts.
In the scuffle between police and the crowd, several cars were burned. Many people received gunshot wounds and two children were killed.
About the same time, an official with the Karachi Development Authority barely escaped the revenge of the mob. Police acting at the behest of a crowd gathered at the police station arrived at his house and told him he had been accused of blasphemy. He was lucky to be only arrested, the crowd having dispersed before they could destroy.
Pulling common threads is the task of historians; and for Pakistanis these actions of collective anger are facts of contemporary life that cannot yet be cohered into a story. At the same time, these moves by the mob are in their heightening frequency and senselessness representative of an outrage that may be about blasphemy but is certainly about rage and exclusion.
If the TTP intentionally refuse to believe in the ability of the democratic system to govern, the crowds of accusers, now newly born killers, seem to be the same thing. When crowds start to kill, the question ceases to be about right or wrong. It is simply about the power to kill — or be killed.
The project is the retaking of all that is lost or that never was and all that no one seems interested in returning unless it is grabbed. The system exists but they are not a part of it. And there are now enough of them to take its failing bits and tear them to pieces, killing whatever is attached to them.
Pakistan may or may not be at the foot of a revolution, or perhaps just tainted with enough greed and corruption and chaos crowned by the threat of foreign invasion, to make an accusation a conviction and a crowd the executioner.
The chronicles of the French revolution — the intersection of natural catastrophe and elite disconnectedness, the exclusion of hundreds and then thousands whose hunger was insignificant to those who ruled them and the senselessness of insatiable violence — present many of the flavours of contemporary Pakistan.
There was indeed a time, perhaps a decade or two ago, before floods and earthquakes and drones and power riots where the favoured clichés seemed pertinent. But in the story of Pakistan that will be penned in the future these summer killings of 2012 may be noted as the moment when the once moderate became simply the murderous majority.
The writer is an attorney teaching political philosophy and constitutional law.
I don't think this mindless violence in Pakistan is due to Islam. There are many countries in the world which are Islamic but are democratic. If Pakistan could get a leader like Kemal Pasha, things would surely improve!
Pakistan WAS NEVER A MODERATE STATE. Killing and raping minorties is the birth mark.
Ms. Zakaria has done well in waking us up. We all must acknowledge that Pakistan is heading toward real troubles, regardless of the causes, some religious and some not. If a people's revolution is about to come in Pakistan, so be it. Once you cannot cure a body by drastic operations, it is left to die and pay attention to the livings and new borne. For sure, Pakistan would be a new country after a revolution, or some sort of big change. There is always a sliver lining in a dark cloud. The day after a storm is always spring like.
Dear fellows: oPakistan is going through a storm. It will blow away sometime in the future. So take it easy.
Wa salaam
Another sullen Indian pipe dream
The blasphemy law is being misused by fanatics in Pakistan. I wish to hang the whole mob who not only burned the man but also two copies of Holy Quran along with dowery of a Policeman’s daughter.
I sincerely believe ,we,Indians shd STOP advising Pakistanis ,WHAT THEY SHOULD DO and WHAT THEY SHOULD NOT ? It is none of our business ! Actually ,they have parted company and decided to live separately in 1947. Now,its upto them to decide for themselves . Its a matured separate country by now agter around 65 years . They know what is good for them. And they`ll decide accordingly.Secondly,unless one makes some mistakes ,one wd never know how to rectify them. So, I think the Pakistanis themselves `ll find their way for better life,peace and prosperity .Best luck to our neighbours !
Indians do not advise Pakistanis, mostly they lecture indignant Pakistanis about the state of their nation. If that makes a few look up facts independent of local media and stop believing mindless brainwash, it may be worth the effort.
What I can see is that Uzair Baloch is in charge of Pakistan. The people in power are turning to the drug trade for profits they can no longer make in legitimate international business or the stock market.
French revolution ? The French were hungry and dispossessed.
Your comparing the muslim lynch mob .. to the French .. is like grasping at straws in a category 10 typhoon
Please be decent enough to give the right epithets to your fellow muslims gone mad and bad. Or accept the fact that you are one of them.
"Down with the Crown."
I quite disagree with you Anand. Pakistan is in real trouble. It hides in the shadow of it's ego.
As an Indian you should know how dangerous the Pakistani religious zealots are.
This is an apt comparison with France, and Pakistan cannot wake up from it's dream of religion in time to save itself. The French could not either. If there are more natural disasters in Pakistan there will be no bread and rice. The surfs in Pakistan don't come close to those of Russia – not yet. The Russian surfs were virtual slaves to Russian royalty. The farmers could be leased out for manual labor to others. They were owned by royalty. When farmers can no longer pay their debts they are leased out by their creditors. Blacks in America after the civil war had no choice but to become share croppers, to receive no cash but only a percentage of the crops they grew for the White man.
More than any other reason, opium was the cause of the Chinese Revolution against the Qing (or Manchu Dynasty)..
The religious militants blame all of Pakistan's misery on the rich and elite.
"Revenge is a dish which is better served cold."
Grow up and smell the perfume and see who is really ruling the world the Federal Reserve Bank of the US is run by corporations/families. Your English sounding name doesn't hide the fact that the West's prosperity lies within looting and pilging of innocent nations/countries. The religious fundamentalism does exist in Pakistan and it is very dangerous for the nation. Have you ever bothered to dig out the background of this, no, it was created by the West.
Is there any hope to stop blaming someone else, always over and over? Look at Pakistan's internal woes: corruption and violence, disconnection between rich and poor, religious intolerance, ineffective parliament. That is the issue. It is not from any foreign nation. It is not from the so-called 'West'. To the contrary, the billions of dollars poured into Pakistan from the 'West' in hope of helping Pakistan gain stability and security, but which then gets lost from the people, is the problem.
Pakistanis, in their zeal to become 100% Arabs, have forgotten their true ancestry and culture: a Hindu-Buddhist ancestry and culture. They are more suited to Hinduism/Buddhism with its emphasis on non-violence, vegetarianism and kindness than on the Arabic culture. Pakistanis should start reverting to their real roots and good will follow.
Now that might be not a polite thing to suggest. there are fanatics in every religion , even hinduism. remember how Mahatama Gandhi died? we should not be claim to be saints only then can the things be settled.
Mob mentality and religous extremism, is a dangerous mix which is not controllable. Religion should be personal affair and everybody should have right to follow the religion as per his understanding. Let allah decide who is right or wrong, humans can not take over allah's duties.
I was walking across a bridge one day, and I saw a man about to jump off. I immediately ran over and said:
"Stop! Don't do it!"
"Why shouldn't I?" he asked.
I said: "Well, there's so much to live for!"
"Like what?"
"Well… are you religious or atheist?"
"Religious."
"Me too! Are you Christian or Jewish?"
"Christian."
"Me too! Are you Catholic or Protestant?"
"Protestant."
"Me too! Are you Episcopalian or Baptist?"
"Baptist."
"Wow! Me too! Are you Baptist Church of God or Baptist Church of the Lord?"
"Baptist Church of God."
"Me too! Are you Original Baptist Church of God, or are you Reformed Baptist Church of God?"
"Reformed Baptist Church of God."
"Me too! Are you Reformed Baptist Church of God, reformation of 1879, or Reformed Baptist Church of God, reformation of 1915?"
"Reformation of 1915!"
To which I said, "Die, heretic scum!" and pushed him off.
well written sarcasm reg: fanatics of religion.
Author says,"Pakistan may or may not be at the foot of a revolution,……"
The world believes Paksitan is at the precipice of anarchy and can tip over any day in to an abyss. It would not take much if the current trend towards no rule of law but only the mob rule and terrorists murdering and killing with impunity remains the order of the day.
Is there any attempt by the Pakistani Government or Parliament to rescind the Blasphemy law ?
I do not think such a law exists in any civilized country.
What an illiterate comment I must say.
i agree with PThind…..its the culture which should promote tolerance
I think it is there in some other muslim countries as well. I don't think any country with non-muslim majority has it. Not sure about Israel. Constitutional racism and apartheid sounds quite bizarre and unbelievable to people bought up in heterogeneous demographics. The root of these laws is the underlying culture of the country.
there is a blasphemy law in Saudi Arabia, what many Pakistanis think is the ideal nation
i think it might even be against the constitution and should be looked into by the constitutional lawyers but, alas, how can we expect such vigilance from a crowd that garlands the killer of salman taseer.
Yes this is the start of Revolution. But the terrifiyng Fact is it will be by hands of Taliban.
GOD only will save Pakistan if it Happen. And I dont think he is in any mood to save us.
I am really afraid now.
You are afraid?? We next door are shivering in fear of what could become a mob of 18 crore people. I am serious.
I believe you are from India. And yes You ought to be Afraid, as if this revolution happens, 18 crore people will be at your border, begging and trying to come back to India. It will be 1947 Again….
Yes actually YOU should start praying HARD for stabilization of Pakistan.
WE are Finished. Fullstop.
Yes i am from India. I can assure you that most people i know in India do pray for peace and stability in Pakistan. This is out of goodwill more than fear. I don't think people here or elsewhere see that this could grow to be a massive humanitarian and political crisis the like of which the world has not seen yet. Maybe, i am just paranoid and all will be well. What we see on websites is not really the sentiment at least in India people writing on forums are mostly trolls. In real life I think people on both sides are more worried about making a living than engaging in wars, religious or otherwise
I am Really afraid to Stay in Pakistan. every day is a struggle.
So whats our Option? Where should we Go..
America….They know We are Terrorists..
India….Wont Allow us Visa..as they are afraid of us.
We dont have Friends.
Your childish over-acting is revealing your true identity. Whats your real name?
Yes Imran. How right you are.
After reading all this …you are not worried about the POINT of discussion..but you are worried of me.
So if a fellow countryman talks Negative..that means he is Over-acting. If someone points out the Defects..that means he is Nuts….
GROW UP.
What do you think we do? While your agencies peddle lies about Indian intentions we here in india are praying that good sense prevails in pakistan and they come back to development instead of going to stone age. that is why we ask for trade agreements and offers of selling you cheaper electricity across the border ( way cheaper than rental power plants) . All this is shot down by your ' agencies' in the name of false pride.
What is said about the religious fundamentalism in Pakistan is true but you must give a credit to Pakistani media who highlights this issue. on the other hand your media hides social issues under the carpet. Please google search and look for the programme called Kashmir's Torture Trail. It was broadcast last night on a UK channel "Channel 4". This will show you how civilised Indians are. Don't pretend you are better than Pakistanis or other nations. Your have the same rotten systems and rotten prejudices and religious fundamentalism as Pakistanis. Please remember those 4 Australian Christian missionaries people who were burnt alive by Hindu extremists and don't forget to mention the killings of 3,000 human being in the hands of Hindu fanatics. So, please come off th high chair of self prestige and face the realities.
Well said.
"Most ignorance is vincible ignorance. We don’t know because
we don’t want to know."
— Aldous Huxley
It seems that the systematic Genocide of Hazaras in Quetta and mutilated bodies have no place in the mind of future historian..
It seems that the systematic Genocide of Hazaras in Quetta and mutilated bodies have no place in the mind of God.
Go to You Tube and watch the British play, GOD ON TRIAL.
The dialog takes place between Jewish prisoners (including a rabbi) in the Nazi's most famous death camp Auschwiz.
When resources run out, genocide becomes common place.
Careful now Cyrus, you're treading into dangerous territory.