LOS ANGELES: "More than anything else I mourn the apathy I see around me, as I feel that Pakistanis empathise with victims only if they represent their sect, ethnicity or religion and not as a community or a society," activist Jibran Nasir said an hour before giving a talk at the Claremont University on Tuesday evening.

Currently on a six-week tour to the United States that started in April and already spoken at half a dozen universities, Jibran Nasir has multiple messages for the people listening to him and one of them is that Pakistanis are not Taliban apologists. There's a lot that has happened in these past two months, one of them is the killing of an outspoken activist like Sabeen Mahmud.

Jibran, who has received accolades as well as brickbats and threats for his current social and political awareness campaign, says this is unfortunately a "reality he has accepted."

"I know what will happen if in case I'm shot dead. There will be articles in English newspapers and a hashtag trend on social networking websites asking for justice lasting for about two days. But that's the price you pay for being out there with your ideas," he shrugged.

Instead, Jibran says his focus is to look for solutions where people are only looking for mistakes. "The idea is to make people question the leaders they vote for and make them take a stand against terrorism. So, unless it is a Pakistan Tehreek-I-Insaaf in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa or a Muttahida Qaumi Movement in Karachi or a Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz in Punjab, you can't rid the country from terrorism until these leaders take a stand against it."

Before beginning his talk, an eight minute documentary made on his work and the overall issue of sectarianism and religiosity in Pakistan was shown. But the part that got an emotional reaction from the audience was when slain activist Sabeen Mahmud came up on screen speaking about "how a handful of people are out there trying to stop what others only complain about."

During his talk, Jibran pointed out the role of the military establishment in "providing the religious extremists the platform to exist, while the political parties ensuring their growth by making coalitions and seat adjustments with them to stay relevant."

He however also said that he doesn't want the people to look for messiahs, "because no one person or party can change the fate of the entire nation, rather I aim to let people reform the political parties they already vote for by asking uneasy questions. For instance, what is the political party I vote for doing for my security? And the question to ask yourself again and again is, am I putting these people, and the ones they collude with, accountable for terrorism?"

The subsequent answers, he said, will determine the next step as to how much the general public wants things to change.

But the bigger question he says is to counter apathy. "We can counter it by giving a face to the victims of all kinds of attacks be it religious, sectarian or ethnic, so that the killing of a persecuted minority is not justified. It'd eventually anger people the same way."

To a cynic, this talk of accountability from Pakistani politicians and the concept of a secular state may sound utopian. But to Jibran Nasir, "these ideas are bulletproof. I, in my individual capacity, only have to ensure to stir a positive chain of events that will continue even after I am no more."