Illustration by Faraz Aamer Khan

A deeply divided nation, not yet 70 years old, is convulsed by religious violence. In one major city, members of a persecuted minority request that their children be permitted to read their Holy Book in school. Militant members of the religious majority are enraged. Their ensuing fulminations whip up hysteria, spawning riots and mob violence. The minority’s worship centers and homes are torched, and when the smoke has cleared, 20 people are dead.

This is not a depiction of present-day Quetta, Karachi, or Lahore. It is a portrait of Philadelphia in 1844, and evokes the antagonism then prevailing between America’s Protestants and Catholics.

In the aftermath of violent protests in Pakistan staged in reaction to an anti-Islam video, and in light of the seemingly weekly — if not daily — sectarian attacks that ravage Pakistan, there is a tendency (especially here in Washington) to assume that religion and violence go hand-in-hand in Pakistan, and on a level seen in few other countries (that most Pakistanis chose to register their disgust toward the film in purely peaceful ways has gone unacknowledged around these parts, and in most major media).

There is certainly truth in the assumption that Pakistan is awash in sectarian bloodshed. I would argue that along with the country’s human development challenges — water and energy shortages, public health crises, educational dysfunction — religious violence poses the country’s greatest long-term threat.

Yet it’s also important to step back and consider some historical context.

Back in the 1830s and 1840s, according to religious freedom scholar Albert J. Menendez, religious hostility in the United States “threatened to tear the country apart.” In an eye-opening article written about 15 years ago for an obscure publication named Freedom Writer, Menendez described how “religious agitators” convinced “large numbers” of American Protestants that Catholics were out to “enslave” non-Catholics. Nuns and priests were demonised, students were beaten, churches were dynamited, and crosses were stolen. Flouting the laws of religious freedom enshrined in the US Constitution, American legal authorities offered little support; state legislatures even introduced bills that banned convents.

This dreadful state of affairs lasted into the 1870s. Menendez chronicles how Protestant riots in New York City on a single day in 1871 led to 62 deaths—most of them Irish Catholic immigrants. The media, the courts, and law enforcement expressed little sympathy toward the victims. Instead, they blamed Catholics for “opposing law and order and Bible-oriented education.” Harper’s Weekly, a leading journal, denounced Catholics as the “bitterest enemies” of “good order and progress.”

The United States experienced different manifestations of religious persecution well into the next century — from anti-Mormon campaigns to anti-Semitism, and spearheaded by a new generation of villains ranging from deranged preachers to the Ku Klux Klan. Today, America — excluding periodic incidents such as the attack on a Sikh temple in Wisconsin earlier this year — is generally a paragon of religious freedom and tolerance. But it certainly wasn’t always that way.

Some may argue that Pakistan’s sectarian strife should be understood as the growing pains of a young country, and that with time, the bloodshed will abate. After all, such has been America’s trajectory.

Alas, that’s the wrong argument to make. I enjoy pointing out the similarities between the two nations, but in this case it’s hard to make comparisons. In the United States, the legal system contains copious legal protections for minorities, a clear separation between religion and state has long been in place, and powerful militant religious movements (much less those with possible ties to the government) are nonexistent.  None of this applies in Pakistan—which suggests that religious violence won’t be going away anytime soon.

Here’s the correct argument to make when confronted by the legacy of religious violence in America: History shows that no one country has a monopoly on sectarian conflict. Yes, its sharpest and most tragic manifestations today may be in the Middle East and South Asia—but this is far from the full story.

If we take off our reductivist blinders and acknowledge this fact, it is easier to get a more nuanced — and hence more accurate — picture. We will recognise that the filmmaker(s) in America who produced the anti-Islam screed represent the present-day incarnation of those who orchestrated campaigns of hate against Catholicism in the 19th century, and Judaism in the 20th century.

Henry Ford, the American automobile titan (and a notorious religious bigot) famously said that “history is bunk.” However, for anyone wishing to develop a fair and complete understanding of the nature and extent of sectarianism, history is anything but bunk.  Rather, it is sadly instructive. The philosopher Voltaire once opined that history is “nothing but a tableau of crimes and misfortunes.” Sadly, this tableau is voluminous in scale, and global in scope—as grimly illustrated by the world’s history of sectarian strife.

The author is the program associate for South Asia at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, DC. You can reach him at michael.kugelman@wilsoncenter.org

The views expressed by this blogger and in the following reader comments do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of the Dawn Media Group.

Police examine the site of an attack in Quetta. — Photo by APP/File

QUETTA: A man was killed in firing on Quetta’s Kawari road on Saturday.

Police told APP that a shopkeeper was sitting inside his veterinary medicines store on Kawari road when unknown armed men riding a motorcycle came outside his shop and opened indiscriminate fire on him.

The shopkeeper identified as Haji Noor Ali sustained several bullet wounds and succumbed to his injuries.

The attackers managed to escape from the scene.

The police rushed to the site and cordoned off the entire area to trace the suspects.

Further probe was underway.

Members of the media gather as rescue workers and police shift the body of Khalil Rasjed Dale, a British doctor working with the International Committee of the Red Cross, at a hospital in Quetta on Sunday. – Reuters

QUETTA: The beheaded body of a kidnapped British doctor working for the International Committee of the Red Cross was found by the roadside on Sunday in Quetta, police and Red Cross officials said.

Khalil Rasjed Dale, 60, was abducted by suspected militants on Jan 5 while on his way home from work.

“The ICRC condemns in the strongest possible terms this barbaric act,” ICRC Director-General Yves Daccord said in a statement. “All of us at the ICRC and at the British Red Cross share the grief and outrage of Khalil’s family and friends.”

British Foreign Secretary William Hague also condemned the killing.

“This was a senseless and cruel act, targeting someone whose role was to help the people of Pakistan, and causing immeasurable pain to those who knew Mr Dale,” Hague said in the statement.

The foreign office has promised to hold the killers accountable.

“The Government of Pakistan condemns this barbaric act in the strongest terms and is determined to bring the perpetrators of this heinous crime to justice,” a statement from the Foreign Office said.

“Pakistan is committed to combat terrorism and the death of Mr Dale has only strengthened our resolve to eliminate this scourge,” it added.

A senior police officer said the Pakistani Taliban had claimed responsibility for the killing, saying a ransom had not been paid.

Police discovered Dale wrapped in plastic near a western bypass road. His name was written on the white plastic bag with black marker.

“A sharp knife was used to sever his head from the body,” said Safdar Hussain, the first doctor to examine the body. “He was killed about 12 hours ago.”

Dale is only the third Westerner killed in such a fashion in Pakistan. The others include Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl in 2002 and Piotr Stanczak, a Polish geologist, in 2009.

The Taliban have been fighting a bloody insurgency against the Pakistani state since its formation in 2007. It is close to al Qaeda and it claimed credit for a failed car bomb attempt in New York’s Times Square in May 2010.

Pro-Taliban militants are also active in Balochistan, which shares borders with Afghanistan and Iran.

Dale had worked for the ICRC and the British Red Cross in Somalia, Afghanistan and Iraq before coming to Pakistan. He had been managing a health programme for Balochistan for almost a year when he was abducted, the ICRC statement said.

“We are devastated,” Daccord said. “Khalil was a trusted and very experienced Red Cross staff member who significantly contributed to the humanitarian cause.”

In March, a Swiss couple that had been abducted in Baluchistan showed up at an army checkpoint after eight months of captivity. Militants said a ransom had been paid, but this wad never confirmed.

Four health workers, including two doctors, were kidnapped by militants the week before Dale’s disappearance from the Pishin area of Balochistan, near Quetta. They were freed after a shootout between police and their kidnappers.

And in August 2011, American aid worker Warren Weinstein was kidnapped from his home in Lahore. Al Qaeda later claimed responsibility for the abduction.

All stakeholders should work together to eliminate terrorism from the country: Rehman Malik. – File Photo

ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Interior Rehman Malik on Tuesday blamed foreign elements and sectarianism for target killings and terrorist activities in Balochistan.

Talking to Pakistan Peoples Party MNA Nasir Ali at Parliament House, who is boycotting the National Assembly session to protest the killing of innocent people in the province, Malik said that security forces had found evidences that banned organisation Lashkhar-e-Jangvi was involved in target killings in Quetta.

He said that security forces had recovered mobiles phones and data of conversation between jailed terrorists of the organisation and their accomplices.

He said security forces had succeeded to reducing incidents of target killing in the Balochistan and hoped that soon peace would be restored in the entire province.

Malik further said meeting of chief secretaries and IGPs of all provinces would be convened soon to chalk out foolproof security plan during the month of Moharram.

He said that all stakeholders should work together to eliminate terrorism from the country.

The members and representatives of ANP, MQM, PPP, PML-Q, JUI, Muslim League (functional) and PML-N are included in the committee. – APP (File Photo)

KARACHI: The Speaker of the National Assembly, Dr. Fahmida Mirza on Sunday formed a 17-member committee on Karachi and Quetta to overlook all matters of law and order in both cities, DawnNews reported.

The members and representatives of ANP, MQM, PPP, PML-Q, JUI, Muslim League (functional) and PML-N are included in the committee.

Qamar Zaman Kaira, Ayatullah Durrani, Noor Alam, Zahid Hamid, Rana Tanvir, Abdul Qadir Patel, Mehtab Abbasi, Ghous Bux Mehr, Ghulam Ahmed Bilour, Fazlur Rehman, Khwaja Asif, Haider Abbas Rizvi, Khwaja Suhail and others are included in the committee.

After the incident Killi Shahnawaz area of Quetta was sealed off by the police and investigations into the shooting have now begun. -File Photo

QUETTA: Three people have been killed including an SHO in Killi Shahnawaz area of Quetta after unknown gunmen opened fire on their vehicle.

According to police officials, unknown gunmen opened indiscriminate fire on the car of the New Saryab SHO before Iftari in which he and his companions were killed on the spot.

The bodies of SHO Manzoor Ahmed and his two companions were then taken to the Civil Hospital.

After the incident Killi Shahnawaz was sealed off by the police and investigations into the shooting have now begun.

People burn tires to protest against the killing in Quetta on July 30, 2011. – AFP

QUETTA: Due to the recent target killings in Quetta, a shutter down strike is being observed in the city on the call of the Hazara Democratic Party on Sunday, DawnNews reported.

Angry citizens protested against the killings and the government’s failure to protect the lives of the people.

Shops and business centers remain closed, while the FC troops patrolled the city.

On Saturday, gunmen opened fire on a vehicle in Quetta killing eleven people and injuring three. According to police, the incident was a sectarian attack.

Leaders of the Hazara Democratic Party have also appealed to the chief justices of Pakistan and the Balochistan High Court to take suo motu notice of the growing incidents of targeted killing in the city.