The long journey ahead

The writer is an analyst and
commentator.

This week began with two items of news that both carry immense significance. The first was early on Monday morning in Islamabad, when Salmaan Taseer’s assassin, Mumtaz Qadri was executed at Adiala Jail. The second was on Sunday evening in Los Angeles, at the Oscar awards, where Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy won her second Academy Award, this time for ‘A Girl in the River’, a film narrating the struggle of a woman that had survived her family’s attempt to dishonour-kill her for marrying someone of her own volition.

Both news items signify a major step for Pakistan. In hanging Qadri, the Pakistani state has done what many, including myself, did not expect it to do – fulfil the orders of a court and take a highly politically sensitive decision. In winning her second Oscar, Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy has done what no one else had thus far, achieve mainstream momentum for the Pakistani state to make laws that specifically address the devious and evil cultural practice of killing human beings in the name of ‘honour’.

It is easy to be buoyed by both news items, but it is important to take a moment and reflect on the larger picture that Qadri’s hanging, and the big Oscar win for Pakistan actually represent.

Death is not something any decent human being should celebrate. Mumtaz Qadri’s hanging is yet another chapter in a long and tragic saga. While it signifies the Pakistani state’s effort to re-acquire its legitimacy and credibility, Qadri’s hanging is an event that essentially underscores the depth and complexity of Pakistan’s existential challenge with religious extremism. The starting point of the specific tragedy that Qadri was an actor in is easy to forget, but we should try to remember it. It began with an argument between low-income women in a village near Faisalabad. One of the women, a Christian, ended up on the wrong side of that argument. The argument grew into a riot, when accusations of blasphemy were broadcast over mosque loudspeakers. That woman’s name was Aasia Bibi. She was thrown in jail, where she remains to this day.

The governor of the Punjab at the time, the flamboyant Salmaan Taseer, took up Aasia’s cause and did not waver from it, despite clear threats to his life, and appeals from friends and party colleagues for him to ease up. On January 4, 2011 Taseer took 27 bullets from the state-issued weapon of one of his police guards, the now world-famous Mumtaz Qadri. Qadri’s motivation for this assassination was Taseer’s widely-known advocacy and activism to save Aasia Bibi from a life in jail, or worse.

The news of Qadri’s execution may have been welcomed by many in the country that believe in rule of law, but there is another side to the story. Over the past five years, Qadri’s stature among a certain kind of Barelvi extremist has grown to virtual sainthood. This stature has been leveraged at various points not only by Barelvi leaders and organisations, but also by traditional opponents of Barelvism. Qadri has become a point of mobilisation for the mainstream right-wing in Pakistan and his appeal reaches far beyond merely the Barelvi radicals assembled under the flag of his family members.

Right-wing organisations like the Jamaat-e-Islami have long ceased to be electorally relevant in Pakistan. There are two reasons for this. One is that the mainstream right-wing has been unable to stop young right-wingers from adopting more extreme philosophies (including full-on takfiri violence) and attitudes since 2001 (like Al-Qaeda, and now Daesh). The second is that the mainstream right-wing has been unable stop young right-wingers from adopting less extreme, and more mainstream philosophies and approaches (like, the mainstream parties, especially the PTI and PML-N).

The net result is that within the electoral realm, Jamaatis have had to hold hands with Imran Khan and everything that comes with the Kaptaan, including the song and dance dharnas and rallies that he holds with such gusto. To balance the compromise in the electoral and political realm, the Jamaat has to take steps on the social front that uphold and confirm its conservative creed. One way for the Jamaat to do this is to try to disallow the Barelvis a monopoly on issues like blasphemy.

The opposition to Qadri’s hanging therefore is coming from a much wider spectrum than simply radical Barevlism. The banner of anti-blasphemy activism is wide, diverse and long-standing, within the Pakistani discourse – we must not forget that this was the entry point for the anti-Ahmadiyya movement of the 1950s, culminating in the official excommunication of followers of that religious orientation from mainstream Islam.

How is all this relevant to Qadri’s hanging? Quite simply, takfirism, which is so often painted as a post-9/11 phenomenon in Pakistan is in fact a long-standing political and social tradition within this country’s public discourse about religion. Hanging Qadri is a procedural step. It does nothing to challenge the Muslim exclusivism that has become a defining feature of all mainstream sects in Pakistani Islam: Barevli, Deobandi, Shiite or otherwise. The riots and violence that Qadri supporters will indulge in as a reaction to his hanging are not new, nor are they as much of a fringe as many of us would like to believe. It is rooted, at its most basic level, within the moral spectrum of this exclusivism.

The problem this poses for Pakistan is an intergenerational one. As brave and steadfast decision-makers, including the prime minister, have been in this case, the core problem is being left unmolested. This is symptomatic of a much larger problem. Pakistan does not have a coherent or credible counter-narrative to traditional 20th century violent extremism in the name of Islam. The competitive nature of the public discourse in the last decade has, rather than raising up the more syncretic strains of Islamic orthodoxy and orthopraxy, served to radicalise those strains too. Before the Qadri assassination, many so-called countering violent extremism (CVE) and counter-radicalisation (CR) experts held up Barelvis as the answer to takfiri violence. Happy birthday, double-edged sword.

All of this is intimately related to Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy’s victory at the Oscars. SOC is an international force in documentary film-making on the back of her work to highlight the atrocious treatment some Pakistani women suffer. This treatment, as it always is across all cultures and traditions, been justified through the misuse of religion.

A few days ago, a widely respected, ostensibly non-violent, mainstream scholar from Karachi, named Mufti Naeem, was engaged by television anchors to discuss honour killings and Sharmeen’s now Oscar-winning work on the issue. He branded the filmmaker as a champion of obscenity.

One way to interpret all this is that the right-wing in this country now sees its role somewhere within the vast abyss between defending a self-confessed murderer and condemning a protector of vulnerable women. Acid-victim units, anti-honour-killing laws, hanging convicted assassins and screening Oscar winning films are integral to the future of this country. But we have to ask ourselves where the software for all this new hardware will come from.

We have to ask: where is the moral leadership for a new Pakistani dawn going to emerge from? We have to ask: how will Pakistan win over and assuage the hatred and anger that produced a jail term for Aasia Bibi, and garlands for Mumtaz Qadri?

A newly assertive state and an Oscar-bejewelled champion for vulnerable women must be celebrated, but within this celebration we must not forget the injustices and crimes that necessitated the state’s assertion, and the filmmaker’s brilliance. We are at the very start of a long and painful journey. May Allah ease the path for this country, and especially for those within it that are weak and vulnerable.