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RASHID Rehman was told in court he would be killed for accepting the brief of a blasphemy accused. And then he was killed. TTP believes the administration of polio drops is a devious Western device to render Muslims impotent. It has continued to attack polio workers in Fata, KP and Karachi. Consequently, Pakistan has emerged as one of three countries that still export polio in this century. The other two are Syria and Cameroon. Syria alleges that polio has been exported to it by Pakistan along with militants carrying it and WHO thinks that might be true.
Pakistan hasn’t exported polio to Cameroon. But militancy might be a cause for polio’s existence there as well. Boko Haram — a Nigerian militant group that practises terror in the name of Islam and recently abducted nearly 300 girls and vowed to use/sell them as slaves — is, like TTP, against all things Western. While it focuses on Nigeria, it has safe havens in Cameroon, which makes the polio immunisation drive in Nigeria and Cameroon harder. Boko Haram, like TTP, celebrates Al Qaeda and believes in setting up an Islamic state through the use of force.
Do we even realise how scary a place we appear to the world? If enslavement of Nigerian girls by Boko Haram sounds too medieval and crazy in this day and age, what does TTP attacking polio workers or blowing up schools or slaughtering fellow Pakistanis sound like? And what’s our response to the barbarism in our midst? The resolute minority preaching and practising this madness is winning; the majority is numb to it, but growing acquiescent; and the leadership, consumed by petty quarrels, is oblivious to the approaching doom.
During last week’s media outrage over WHO’s recommended travel restrictions for Pakistanis, our focus remained on non-core issues: was Pakistan caught unawares that travel restrictions were imminent? Are government advisers paid too much and health workers too little? Polio is not a public health but a mental health problem. It is not proliferating in Pakistan just because our health system is corrupt and ineffectual. It is proliferating because our homegrown terrorist brethren believe that administering polio drops is un-Islamic, and anyone found doing so is killed.
When did we lose our ability to spot root causes of ailments and attack the disease and not just symptoms, or the patience to reserve our anger for those primarily responsible for our precarious condition as opposed to easy scapegoats? If you follow Boko Haram’s argument, it claims its position on slavery is supported by our religious texts. Most problematic in this case is not an unacceptable or flawed interpretation of revealed texts, but Boko Haram’s commitment and ability to shove its own interpretation down others’ throats by using violence.
What’s common between Boko Haram, the TTP and Rashid Rehman’s killers? They all believe they have a monopoly over the understanding of God’s word, an obligation to enforce such understanding over others and kill anyone who resists or disagrees. The hate and vigilantism of Rashid Rehman’s killers is one step advanced. They believe that not only is a blasphemy accused devoid of legal rights, anyone with the audacity to claim such rights for the accused also deserves to be executed.
Wanton killings of good men such as Rashid Rehman no longer cause alarm in our society. The majority has made its peace with the presence of Rehman’s killers amongst us and is left with no energy to grieve such ghastly yet commonplace killings. Within the thoughtful minority, still bothered by such undeterred killing, the response is twofold: a note to the self that this place is broken beyond repair; and a resolve not to espouse or practise principles that might make you the next Rashid Rehman.
Pakistan seems to be on a train that has travelled beyond the zone of rationality. The pogrom to eradicate compassionate souls such as Rashid Rehman, who keep a modicum of human dignity alive here, is only accelerating our journey down the abyss. How do you judge a society that starts producing lawyers who themselves don’t believe in the right of the accused to be defended in accordance with the law or whose legal guardians are too timid to stand up to those who insist that an accused can be stripped of his fundamental right to due process?
The right to be treated in accordance with the law and due process not getting entrenched in this society is one gauge of how intolerant we’ve become. The honest amongst us jeer at lawyers defending those convicted as being corrupt in the public eye through media trials. The democrats amongst us scoff at those representing a dictator. The patriots amongst us label as traitors those inquiring after the missing or defending suspects of terrorism. The righteous take judgement to a higher level: they just kill those defending blasphemy suspects.
Can you be dead set against those who subvert the Constitution and still believe in their right to a fair trial? Can you consider the TTP’s worldview the foremost threat to the country’s future and be a fierce advocate of affording TTP militants due process when captured? Can you be bitterly opposed to those insulting the religious sensibilities of others and yet demand that blasphemy suspects be deemed innocent until proven guilty? When did we start regarding perfectly harmonious positions as contradictory?
It is time to grieve for the death of our morality and rationality along with Rashid Rehman.
The writer is a lawyer.
Twitter: @babar_sattar
