Sectarian killings and our hypocrisy

Hiding victim’s faith strengthens the perpetrator

The bus attack in Quetta targeting Hazara-Shi’a community of the city that took place last Tuesday is a sad reminder of state in which our religious minorities are living. Four women belonging to the Hazara community lost their lives while one was injured, in what was most definitely a targeted killing

Pakistan was created in the name of religion, but considering the current circumstances, it won’t be wrong to say that it is being destroyed in the name of religion. The culture of persecution against minorities does not seem to end and then there are people who try to justify these incidents of oppression. Those who dare to speak out against the violence against minorities are dubbed as traitors, anti-state, western agents and what not.

The bus attack in Quetta targeting Hazara-Shi’a community of the city that took place last Tuesday is a sad reminder of state in which our religious minorities are living. Four women belonging to the Hazara community lost their lives while one was injured, in what was most definitely a targeted killing.

Unsurprisingly, the national media did not give a lot of coverage to the incident — perhaps because the killing of Hazara community members is now considered business as usual.

The Hazara community of Quetta has been on the receiving end of deadly terror attacks for years. There have been numerous small and big terror attacks on the community in the past few years. Three major attacks targeting the community in the year 2013 killed over 200 people and injured several others. In the same year, the heirs of the victims staged sit-in against the massacre along with the bodies of their loved ones, urging the government to handover the city to the military. The then chief minister of the province, Aslam Raisani, was indifferent and complicit in the suffering of the people of the province and used to stay abroad mostly. The protest staged by the persecuted community back then was different from usual sit-ins, as the protesters were demanding something as basic as the right to live.

The protests did make a small difference and Aslam Raisani’s provincial government was dismissed after imposition of governor rule in the province. But not much changed for the ill-fated Hazara-Shi’a community of Quetta and the attacks continued to take place even after the 2013 general elections and change of government in both federation and the province.

After the operation Zarb-e-Azb, large scale attacks targeting the Shi’a-Hazara community in Quetta stopped, but terror incidents of smaller extent and targeted killing continued to be a nightmare for the community.

The media is clearly not giving the issue of sectarian killings the attention it deserves. Just because the recent attacks are smaller in extent does not mean they be taken lightly. What is concerning is that faith-based killings are still taking place, even after the civilian and military leadership’s resolve to ‘go after every terrorist’ and their claims that ‘terrorists are on the run’.

The news of minorities’ killing is normally buried under other important news and other times the media deliberately chooses not to cover the killing and even if it does, the victim is not named. A mantra that many in Pakistan seem to follow is that by naming the victim of the attack, you harm the national unity. Hiding the identity of those killed simply for their faith is like covering up the crime, and by doing so you are not fulfilling any national duty but strengthening the hands of the killers. This dishonesty and obfuscation in clearly naming the victims and the perpetrators only enables further violence.

Here is one aspect of the angle which is hardly ever discussed by the Pakistani media: For the past few years, especially when the violent attacks against members of Hazara community were on the rise, local media tried its best to either hide the sectarian identity of the victims (Hazara-Shi’a) or give the violence an ethnic colour by implying that Hazaras were being targeted for their ethnicity. The fact is that the violence against Hazara community was triggered by sectarianism and not ethnicity.

Banned anti-Shi’a terror outfit Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) that claimed responsibility for almost every attack on the Shi’a in the country had in its statements repeatedly said that it vows to ‘rid Pakistan of Shi’a’. Nowhere had they mentioned the word ‘Hazara’. So the reason Hazaras of Quetta are being killed is not their ethnicity, but their Shi’a sect. This is a fact which media chooses to ignore either deliberately or out of ignorance. Hazara-Shi’a become more vulnerable to the attacks because of their identifiable physical features.

When you refuse to condemn the crimes and oppression that the minorities in your own country are being subjected to, you have no right to give lectures on human rights when the same happens in other countries

Another practice which is common among folks who claim a moral high ground of ‘national unity’ is that they start accusing people of creating division and disunity if the faith or religion of the people killed in terror attack is mentioned. “Don’t say Shi’a were killed, say Muslims were killed. Don’t say Christians were killed, say Pakistanis were killed” is what they suggest. Anyone who thinks hiding the victim’s identity will maintain unity and disclosing it will cause instability in the country, is a part of the problem. When the killers proudly claim responsibility for the attacks and mention why they targeted the victim, it is hypocritical to stay silent and pretend you don’t know the reason why the attack happened.

The same people who think naming victims’ faith creates division are the first to condemn the Indian government if there is an incident of violence against the protesters in Kashmir. They feel very offended (and rightly so) if Indian army uses force against the Kashmiris, but are tight-lipped when women of the Hazara-Shi’a community are mercilessly killed in broad day light in their own country. Because of course, we are more concerned with what is happening in other countries than the persecution that is taking place in Pakistan. This selective ‘activism’ is hypocrisy at its finest.

When you refuse to condemn the crimes and oppression that the minorities in your own country are being subjected to, you have no right to give lectures on human rights when the same happens in other countries.

Before the hyper-patriots claim their right to Kashmir, they should ask their government what it is doing to protect the minorities in Pakistan. The intolerance against minorities is a matter every patriotic Pakistani should be concerned about, because, as a wise man once said, “a nation’s greatness is judged by how it treats its weakest members”.