SPEAKING FOR MINORITIES

By Rabia Ahmed  Pakistan Today 14 May 2011

Both my daughter and son-in-law are left handed, which means that they do things preferably and better with their left hands. The full import of this particular form of dexterity had never hit me though until I found myself using a potato peeler meant for left handed persons in their home, or at least I tried to.

Have you ever used a left hander peeler? If you’re right handed like me, you won’t be able to, at least not without turning yourself inside out, and upside down.

Suddenly, as I stood there in the kitchen, peeler in hand, I felt alienated, almost as though I had stepped into a different world…their world, not mine. And as suddenly, without anyone intending to make me feel that way, I knew what it must be like to be part of a minority group; and most unusually, since one rarely has such metaphysical insights while making aloo gosht, my mind flew to people who were in this position as a norm, using the left handed potato peeler of life, as it were, on a regular day to day basis.

I’m not quite sure why the realisation hit me quite just then. After all I was in the US at the time of the 9/11 attacks, and was definitely one of a minority then, a minority that was certainly not very popular either. I suppose I was younger at the time, with the thick skin that goes with the age.

I have always, like many other people, detested the treatment meted out to minorities particularly in Pakistan, since what happens in this country concerns us most closely. Yet it was because of that epiphanic peeler that I understood, even to such a superficial extent, some of what it must feel like to be Ahmadi, Christian, Hindu, Jewish, Parsi, or Shia …physically disabled, dyslexic, senile…whatever, and living in Pakistan. Always having thought of it as a mercy previously, I felt my homogenised status to be an evil now, an obstacle in the way of being a more sensitive person.

Sensitivity does not come naturally to human beings, and therefore the need for religion, which is a reminder of the finer side we lose touch with while we live out our mundane lives. Like anything else, though, religion has its flip side, and persons tend towards either side, depending on where they are as a people at that particular time.

As Pakistanis, we are in rather a smelly place today: uneducated, unhinged, unmitigated oafs have our heads locked under their arms. These are people who supposedly know what Islam stands for, and who have taken it upon themselves to teach us. Are there none among their families, who march to the beat of different drums, who have other aspirations and goals in life? Heaven forbid. Life for such persons would be intolerable, as it is for those who are ‘different’ in the rest of the country.

Religious minorities in Pakistan lead a perilous life. The draconian anti-blasphemy law in force in the country is open not only to misinterpretation, but to every kind of abuse, which means that statements, however innocuous, can be twisted around and given meanings which can land the speaker in prison, in peril of his/her life, and this often happens. Matters have come to the stage where judges, government officials, politicians, journalists, anyone who speaks out against this law is threatened, subjected to assault, even murdered, and the police, under similar influence, is neither willing to register cases against such abuse, nor investigate them with any semblance of impartiality.

The fact that voices raised against injustice are silenced so brutally is probably the greatest injustice of all, because this protects all brutality, not just the one.

The Jinnah Institute published a report recently focusing on minority issues in Pakistan, particularly the problems faced by Hindus, Christians and Ahmadis, three of the most prominent minority groups in the country. The report is entitled: ‘A Question of Faith: Repeal the Blasphemy Law or Make it Flawless.’ The report recommends that if this law cannot be repealed, it should at least be couched in more precise terms, so as to make it less open to abuse. The report also points to a marked increase in violence against the three groups mentioned above, and attributes this increase to maulvis “promoting such attacks and inciting violence in their sermons and in the media.”

According to a Pakistan defence journal online, several recommendations have been put forward in this report, including the removal of impunity for the imams of mosques, police and judicial reforms and clarification of the status of Federal Shariat Courts and the Council of Islamic Ideology. The report also calls for an appointment of a “Special Ombudsman” to protect the rights of women and minorities in Pakistan.

Whether or not these recommendations are followed, the courage of those who have compiled this report must be commended.

For the rest, who I hope are right handed, I recommend a pile of grubby, tough potatoes, a left handed potato peeler, and the prayer that my own particular epiphany may overtake them all.

Amen!